Tag Archives: Smooth Operator

Woodys Classic Clevedon Cruise Report – Sept 2022 – 50+ Photos

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6.45am – The Start
The magic hour for boat photography
Heading up the river
Dave Giddens – Auctioneer Supremo

WOODYS CLASSIC CLEVEDON CRUISE REPORT – Sept 2022

Just back from a near perfect weekend cruising with a great bunch of classic wooden boat enthusiasts, up the Wairoa River to the Clevedon Cruising Club for an overnight shindig. 

The weekend had all the right ingredients – great weather, cool boats, nice people + mouth-watering food, that always = a winner. Todays photo gallery comes to us from my cameras and Jason Prew’s new out of the box iPhone 14 Pro (I need one, I’m buying one).

By now regular WW readers will be familiar with the format of the weekend – we meet off the entrance to the Wairoa River and then weave our way up river to the Clevedon Cruising Club. The flotilla berths at the CCC dock, in front of their clubhouse, then we ‘open’ the boats for club member to view. Happy hour tends to start early up the river, and this weekend it was even earlier. Later in the day we retire to the clubrooms for a shared BBQ dinner, and live music.

This year the club organised a number of raffles and a mystery auction – the club and Woodys collectively raised over $3,500 for the new fuel jetty. Well done to everyone involved – I indirectly won a new bilge pump (my cabin boy, bid on a mystery package and one of the included items was the pump – and my bonus – he doesn’t own a boat)

Boats participating in the cruise were – Allergy, Awariki, Lady Clare, Lady Ellen, Merita, Mokoia, My Girl, Ngaio, Ngarimu, Raindance, Smooth Operator, Trinidad, Waikaro.

I’ll let the photos tell the story. Below are two videos which highlight the two extremes of classic wooden craft – Raindance at 7.5 knots and Jason Prew’s – My Girl, doing est. 24 knots 🙂 Thanks to Jason and Ant Smit for the footage.

As always – click on photos to enlarge 😉 ENJOY. Details on more Woodys Classic events below.

Ps that dessert plate wasn’t mine and I’m too nice a person to name the owner…… and equally no story as to why there is a photo of a skipper dipping wet on his duck board 🙂

Raindance
My Girl

Woodys Riverhead Tavern – Winter Cruise 

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Te Hauraki
Dancer
Ngarimu
My Girl

Woodys Riverhead Tavern – Winter Cruise 
Yesterday was one of those days where the weather forecasters got it wrong -big time. Took the dog for an early morning waterfront walk between the showers and the ferries on the harbour were sounding their fog horns – fast forward 2 hours and the suns out, water glassy flat and we are going boating. Quick side trip to collect our quests – Margo & Jamie (MV Lady Crossley) from Westhaven and we are off.

A great turn out for mid-winter, saw 60+ woodys gathering at the historic waterside Riverhead Tavern for lunch – special thanks to those that came by car and helped with berthing the boats at the wharf. As always – click on photos to enlarge 😉

Nice to meet some new faces and if there was an award for most travelled attendee, woody Bruce Rowe on board – Ngarimu would be the winner. Bruce and his ‘decky’ mate – travelled from Thames to attend.  The boys left Thames on Friday, stayed at bottom end of Waiheke, then off Stanly Point / Bayswater on Saturday night and  will be heading home today. Talking to Bruce,  Saturday night sounded heaven – tucked up in their warm bunks, rain on the cabin top, listening to the Auckland Blues rugby game, then the NZ v India cricket test – not a lot of sleep was had 🙂

We were also graced with the company of John and Diana Olsen on their steam boat – Dancer, The Olsen’s towed Dancer from Cambridge and launched her at the old Salthouse yard to make the trip up the creek.

Check out the Woodys Classic Weekends Event Calendar at the link below, for upcoming outings – our next one is an overnight BBQ cruise up the Clevedon River on the weekend of 14 > 15th August – a heads up – numbers will be restricted due to berthing / anchoring limits -so RSVP early.

https://waitematawoodys.com/2021/06/15/woodys-classic-boating-calendar/


The poster below greeted us at the door to the tavern – has a nice ring to it………….  maybe someone is sending me a message 🙂

Classic Wooden Boat Picnic – 20 photos

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John Dory
Arohanui
Eileen Patrica
  • Kereru
John Dory
Lady Crossley
Centaurus

Classic Wooden Boat Picnic – 20 photos

Firstly I need to thank Predictwind for Saturdays forecast, 100% on the button, as usual. One woody at the picnic didn’t come by boat based on the forecast published in Saturdays NZ Herald newspaper……………….. I suspect they also believe the horoscopes in the same paper are factual.


The morning started off a tad eerie with a sea mist blanketing a lot of the sea area off the east coast – but this burned off late morning and we then enjoyed perfect weather. The NZH and coastguard weather forecasts saw the numbers of launches attending drop to 12 but great to see so many turning up by car. Also very fine to have 3 past CYA chairman in attendance – Steve Cranch, Rod Marler and Peter Mence.
The waterfront based Stillwater Motor Camp is an idyllic setting for a gathering of classic wooden boats – deep water wharf access to raft up to + a tree shaded lawn. After some interesting docking (too many dockside expects) we had the launches tied up and everyone then decamped to the lawn. Special thanks to Mark Edmonds (Monterey) for again coordinating the venue.
A lot of the group had not caught up since the CV-19 lock-downs so it was good to swap stories and boating plans for the upcoming summer.


There has always been good camaraderie on the water between boaties and its something that we foster at Woody Classics Weekends – proof of it in practice is seen below in the photo of Rod and Fiona aboard Arohanui taking Murray Deeble’s Waikiore under tow. Towed him all the way back to the entrance to Milford Creek, where another woody – Jason Prew had ventured out in rather unpleasant conditions to get Waikiore back on her Milford berth. Well done to everyone.

Message for Murray – “should have bought a Yamaha” 🙂

Next Woodys on the water event – November 8th – Riverhead Tavern Lunch Cruise