Tag Archives: Puke

WOODEN CLASSICS TAKE CENTRE STAGE AT THE 2025 WHANGAREI MARITIME FESTIVAL – 60+ photos & videos

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WOODEN CLASSICS TAKE CENTRE STAGE AT THE 2025 WHANGAREI MARITIME FESTIVAL

Early Saturday morning I pointed the car north and arrived in Whangārei just in time to catch the soft early light — perfect for photography and well before the dockside crowds arrived.

Whangārei’s Town Basin really is the ideal setting for a maritime festival — easy dock access, great viewing angles, and plenty of nearby cafés and attractions. Add in the buzz of the Saturday markets and you’ve got all the ingredients for a standout event.

Wooden boat numbers were a little down on last year, but a few visiting commercial vessels — including Customs, Pilot boats, fishing craft and a pair of Waka — helped round out the fleet. From a public point of view, it was still an impressive line-up. Given the number of classic boats that have migrated north in recent years, it would be great to see more of the region’s wooden heritage on display next time around.

It was great to catch up with so many familiar faces — clearly the new highway was busy with Aucklanders heading north for the weekend.

All up, a thoroughly enjoyable day. Hopefully today’s photo gallery will inspire a few more of you to make the trip in 2026.

And there is always a few foody pix – hands down the best two seafood fritters ever – one mussel and the star – one whitebait. And a free KOWHAI coffee because she liked my WW t-shirt.

FYI – when I’m at an event I point the camera at what catches my eye , sometimes I miss a few boats but I like to think the photos are more like someone strolling the docks rather than someone trying to capture the whole caboodle 🙂

CLASSIC WOODY BOAT FESTIVAL AT THE WHANGAREI TOWN BASIN – 48 Photos & Videos

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CLASSIC WOODY BOAT FESTIVAL AT THE WHANGAREI TOWN BASIN – 48 Photos & Videos

The weekends weather in Auckland certainly wasn’t conducive to boating so on early Saturday morning I pointed the car north and headed to Whangarei for the 2024 Maritime Festival at the Town Basin.

Year two and a quick overview, – more tie-dyed tee shirt vendors and food trucks, a lot more general public – less launches, more large cruising yachts. Steam boat rides were the most popular offering – long queues of kids that probably walked away with a life time memory – well done to all the  steam boat skippers and crew.

Nice to see a couple of woodys from the Waitemata make the trip north – RAWHITI and JOHN DORY. 

As always when she makes an appearance anywhere Dick and Colleen Fisher’s ex pilot boat – AKARANA was the start of the show.

THE AUCKLAND WOODYS HAD AN INTERESTING TRIP HOME ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON 🙂

RAWHITI
JOHN DORY

Mystery Launch – Kawau 1963

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Mystery Launch – Kawau 1963

The question today is can anyone ID the launch on the right in the above May 1963 Mansion House Bay, Kawau Island?
Thanks to Len Redwoods fb page for the photo.

Steam Boats At Warkworth
Woody boatbuilder Colin Brown sent in the photos below of the recent steam gathering at the Warkworth Basin.

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Classic Woodys Cruise To Riverhead Pub

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Classic Woodys Cruise To Riverhead Pub

The NZ Classic Yacht Association (CYA) launch group have amazingly good fortune when it comes to the weather for their events. Saturday was just a day out of the bag – sun, mill pond sea state, cool boats & nice people. The trip was a first for me in that I did not take launch Raindance & instead traveled on Trinidad, Barbara & David Cooke’s magnificent 1965 Salthouse motor launch.

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On the trip up the harbour we passed 2 very cool steam boats – Puke & Zeltic out for a cruise & enjoying the day.

We do this trip 2 or 3 times a year & a few trips ago added a mid trip raft-up meet & greet to the agenda, its a great chance to say hi to everyone before we hit the pub. A little like the American concept of a  ‘rehearsal dinner’ the night before the wedding day 🙂 If you check out the raft-up photos, all the males are enjoying a coffee & the females have a glass of bubbles in hand – how did that happen.

Arohanui
Trinidad & Arohanui
Trinidad & Arohanui
Arohanui
Rod Marler & Arohanui
Arohanui
Arohanui
Florance Dawn & Monterey
Silens
Lady Jane & Bruce Pullan (Ann Michelle)

We had 3 creek virgins making the trip for the first time – Florence Dawn, Lady Jane & Skipper CJ.

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Florence Dawn

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Lady Jane

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Skipper CJ

Interesting to witness the speed of the housing development in the Riverhead / upper harbour area – once all we saw was trees & paddocks, now its houses houses houses. Check out the photo of launches anchored Indian file – the land at the top was all pine trees 6>12 months ago.

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From the top – Skipper CJ, Florence Dawn, Arohanui, Lady Margaret, Monterey, Silens

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Arohanui

Monterey
Skipper CJ
Arohanui crew
Silens
Skipper CJ
Arohanui touch parking
Monterey
Lady Margaret
Arohanui & Lady Margaret

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Lunch at the hotel was more casual i.e. less organized than on previous visits & that was a good thing – in fact the food got a big tick from everyone.

 

The day was not without a few oops – two people enjoyed an unplanned swim, no damage other than bruised ego’s & a lesson that when on-board always have two points of contact 😉 My lips are sealed on names, photo below of the 1st oops, no photo for the 2nd – I was doing the Piha Rescue.

Wave goodbye
oops

Publicans Paula & Stephen Pepperell came out to inspect Trinidad, given their history of wooden boat ownership / travels I suspect a classic could be on the shopping list.

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Paula Pepperell, David Cooke, Stephen Pepperell

Spotted this smart bridge-decker (Lady Thelma) anchored off Hobsonville Point.

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