At the recent CYA round Rangitoto race > cake day > BBQ one of the participating launches was the c.1953 Bill Waters built 34′ bridge decker – Gay Dawn. Gay Dawn has made several appearances on WW, links below, but today we get to also see her underway. Gay Dawn is built like a brick outhouse – carvel planked kauri, hardwood ribs and a pohutukawa stem.
Forward motion comes via a Ford 120hp diesel engine, that delivers an impressive turn of speed.
After a spell in the Bay of Plenty (Tauranga) GD is back home in Auckland.
Update 11-04-2022 Please to see that Gay Dawn has lost the bow rail (ex a Haines Hunter?) – looks very cool nude. Fingers crossed its a permanent thing 🙂
WOODYS RIVERHEAD TAVERN LAUNCH CRUISE – THIS SATURDAY (26th)
Back in Nov 2020 Jason Prew took a wrong turn heading north and end up in Dargaville, so being almost as noisy as me when it comes to wooden boats, he popped down to the river and snapped off photos of the above woodys.
Woodys Labour Weekend Cruise
Details below. Save the dates – 23 > 25 Oct.
The plan is on Saturday morning is to drop the pick at Sandspit and take the dinghies up the Matakana River to the Matakana Township > Market. Sunday will be a gathering at the Kawau Boating Club. All to be confirmed with more details soon 🙂 Mooching Around Dargaville + Woodys Labour Weekend Kawau Cruise
DISAPPOINTING CLASSIC BOATING NEWS On the topic of the Classic Yacht Association’s new 40 berth Heritage Basin marina,12 days have passed and all we see is a CYA email > website link to a presentation that we are told was presented at the AGM, from my recall a lot of what is in this ‘just released’ written presentation was not mentioned on the night, in what could best have been described as verbal chat. The Chair of the CYA states ‘Just to reiterate – nothing is confirmed, it is still being negotiated’. We get that, thank you – but there is still no clarification or confirmation of what the CYA general committee > sub-committee is negotiating on behalf of CYA members and their classic vessels. So could someone answer this simple question below –
WILL ACCESS TO THE NEW 40 BERTH MARINA BE OPEN TO ALL CYA REGISTERED BOATS -OR WILL IT BE YACHTS THAT MEET A PRESET DEGREE ?
As you read this, 18 classic woody launch owners will be waking up berthed alongside the dock at the Clevedon Cruising Club after a BBQ ashore at the clubhouse on Saturday night. Hopefully on departure the skippers will be better behaved than the yachts in the above photo. Check out WW tomorrow for a full trip report and photos 🙂
Todays video comes to us from Cecilia Viktoria Rosell and showcases a selection of woodys from the Canadian Classic Yacht Association Fleet berthed in Ladysmith, British Columbia.
As they appear, we have Loueda > Sannox > Euphemia > Falcon > Bianca.
Cecilia commented that the youngest member wasn’t the 7 month old kitten on Bianca as one might think, but rather the 8 week old baby onboard Loueda.
HAVE YOU RSVP’ed FOR THE WOODYS CLEVEDON OVERNIGHT BBQ CRUISE
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.
MADISON ROSE – A Peek Down Below The launch Madison Rose made a brief appearance on WW back in Feb 2019, now thanks to tme and Ian McDonald we get to have a peek down below.Her design / builder is unknown, with a possible build date in the early 1900’s.
It is rumoured that in a past life she was a Marlborough Sounds Mail delivery boat. Madison Rose is approx. 33’ in length and powered by a 80hp Ford diesel that gets her along at 8 knots.Home port is Nelson.
If I didn’t know better I would say that Jason Prew had a hand in those davits 🙂 Nothing a small tungsten tipped chainsaw couldn’t fix.
Last week myself and Jamie Hudson (Lady Crossley) pointed the car south for a pre-arranged visit to the yard where Paul Tingey is performing his magic on the 1948 Colin Wild built woody – Haunui.It was just over 5 months since I was last there and the project is moving along a great clip – check out the WW link below to view the first visit and to read the scope of the job.
Woody Classics Weekend – Riverhead Tavern Lunch Cruise Saturday night in Auckland was evil, rain, thunder and lightening – up and down several times during the night, each time thinking – Sundays woody cruise will be cancelled. But once again the weather gods smiled on us and half way up the river the sun came out and stayed out all day. Saturday nights weather scared a few boats off making the trip but most decided to join in via car.
A very pleasant afternoon was had in the Tavern’s Boathouse, which we had reserved for the group. Wonderful to catch up with everyone and to welcome several newbies to the group.Hats off the Jim and Karin Lott who made the trip up the river in their 38’ Stewart yacht – Mokoia. Make a note yachties – sub 2m draft and you are all good 😉
You will notice from the upper river photos that after all the rain, the water was very muddy – worst I have seen it – makes you wonder about all the farm land ‘converted’ to high density housing in the area. When we first started woody trips to the Tavern, most of the surrounding land was either forestry or pasture.
Took a detour on the way back into the viaduct, almost feel embarrassed asking the bridge control to raise the bridge for Raindance 🙂 , to check on the John Spencer / Classic Yacht & Launch gig at Kairanga Plaza, Wynyard Quarter – scored a VIP berth, thank you Tony Stevenson.Not as many photos as normal , for once I spent most of the afternoon chatting, special thanks to Chris Miller who grabbed my camera a few times and snapped some goodies.
WIN A COPY OF ‘THE JOHN SPENCER STORY’ 64 PAGE BOOKLET
All woodys that answer the following question correctly, go into the draw for a copy of the above – As always, entry ONLY VIA EMAIL to waitematawoodys@gmail.com
Q – “What was the longest yacht John Spencer designed and built”?
PONEKE – Sailing Sunday In the above photo, c.1893, we see the Tom Le Huquet built yacht – Poneke. I understand Le Huquet built her in the same year for Fred Hunt. Later on (possibly 1897) she had a name change to Nancy Star Stair and moved to Wellington. The location of the photo is on the hard by the boat sheds in Torpedo Bay, Devonport.
Do we know what became of Poneke?
29-09-2020 Input from Robin Elliott –
The ex-Auckland yacht Poneke, renamed ‘Nancy STAIR’ [my capitals], arrived in Wellington in January 1907. The new name came from the titular heroine (no sniggers please) of a very popular American novel by Elinor McCartney Lane written in 1904 that was advertised nationwide in the papers over here throughout 1905 and 1906. By the middle of 1907 there was also a reasonably successful racehorse carrying the same name.
Nancy Stair, the yacht, is last mentioned in the Evening Post 5 November 1927 : “It seems improbable that the Nancy Stair will come down this season. No work has yet been done on her.” She was apparently broken up not long after.
The photo below on the WCYT website from the Petherick album shows her lying on the Evans/Lowry Bay foreshore – geography check needed – in a less than satisfactory state, stripped of all fittings and apparently ready for the knackers.
Woody Classics Weekend BBQ Cruise to Clevedon Cruising Club – 60+ photos
Morning woodys, as you will see from the above photo gallery the weekend woodys cruise up the Wairau River to the Clevedon Cruising Club was a great trip – had the 3 F’s that always make for good times – Fun, Friendship & Fraternity.
To hit the right tide window it was a very early start for most i.e. 6am at the marina – the smart ones, left Friday night.
We assembled at the river mouth around 9.30am and were met / piloted up the river by Barrie Abel, and woodys I have to say – just as well Barrie volunteered, because if you believed Navionics at times we were traveling over dry land, when in fact we had 3m of water under us. So a big thank you Barrie. Barry owns the 1912 woody – Matira, I will do a WW story on her on Wednesday.
Several boats missed the rendezvous but still safely made their way up the river.
After arriving at the clubs jetty late morning, the group split up – some went walking, some snoozed, and the rest hopped in the dinghies and ventured to the upper reaches of the river. We got very close to the Clevedon township before the fuel starting running out. Luckily a few had spare fuel so it was passed around like a good wine and everyone took a slip. I was aboard Dave Gidden’s dinghy and we had about 1cm in the tank when we switched off. Spotted a few interesting woodys along the way – Nathan Herbert and I would love to hear more about the launch – Liberty (tagged below).
Some wowser decided that 5pm would be drinks time, so a few of us had to retire to Dave Giddens floating man bach – Allergy for a cup of tea…..
The evening centred around a BBQ at the CCC, which is a fantastic set up and the members hospitality was first rate.
As a thank you for hosting us, we presented a donation to the club and rewarded Barrie Adel for his services with a bottle of Appletons finest Jamaican Estate golden rum. Club Commodore – Bruce Robson also now sports a WW T-Shirt 🙂
In return we have a CCC burgee for our virtual clubhouse.
On a personal note I would like to thank all the woody boat owners for ‘opening’ your boats up for the club members to inspect thru-out the day. Good chat was had.
We must have behaved ourselves, as we have been invited back – so woodys, more details to follow, but we will be repeating the cruise early 2020 e.g. April.
🙂 a visit to the GENTS was amusing – the uninitiated were in for a foot wash – the system was good old kiwi DIY at its finest 🙂 I can report that the LADIES was Regent Hotel standard.
Photos: myself and Nathan Herbert
Now I’ll bore some of you with the below video of my Raindance, taken by Nathan Herbert aboard Jas Prew’s launch – My Girl. I think it’s the only time Jason has ever let me pass him 🙂
waitematawoodys.com #1 for classic wooden boat stories, info, advice & news - updated daily - 14+ million views 