Opah - Our first sail in Okahu Bay, Auckland.
Rebel
Opah
Ngatiringa
Clear Skies
Kotiti
Alfresco
Sharps Sailboats
Pegasus
Cinderella
Snow White
Lulubelle
Sharps Sailboats
It is not easy to recall the precise chronology of very small adventures that happened a long time ago. However they are remembered becomes fixed as legend and, as far as anyone knows, that's how it was.
Though my father was a skilled woodworker, this was business not his hobby, he had absolutely no interest in boats let alone wooden boats. His main recreational interest was gardening and, much later, playing bowls.
I suspect my first experience with any sort of wooden boat was at about age 12 when my friend Robin Hargreaves and I took into our heads to build a raft. It may have been prompted by Thor Heyerdahl's Kon Tiki expedition. We managed to liberate some robust fence palings which were falling off a nearby fence. They were about 6 feet long and 6 inches wide so a dozen of then gave us a 6 foot square platform. A couple of 4x3 rails held it all together. Underneath we tied five 20 litre kerosene tins to provide bouyancy. Some garden stakes provided the spars, we must have used an old sheet for a square rigged sail and some twine served for rigging. We got it down to the beach on the undercarriage of an old pram and it actually sailed. Well, to be precise, it floated with both of us on board. If we could keep the sail square to the wind it went along too.
The biggest unexpected challenge was getting it back up a rather long, steep hill to Robin's house. We decided that it would be more practical to leave it moored using a length of twine and a rock. Next day it had vanished, probably to become a hazard to shipping.
I think it was the next venture that really introduced me to the delight of sailing. Stuart King, another school friend, had an "Idle Along". This was a popular, but rather old-fashioned 12 foot, two-man, sailing dinghy. It had a fairly long bow-sprit, a jib and mainsail and was of hard chine plywood construction designed for home building. There were a lot of them around Auckland when I was a kid and they were a safe, roomy boat, not very fast but good fun. I think there were three or four of us went out for a sail off St Heliers Bay. I discovered the value of a centreboard and how a sail could draw you along quite strongly, but effortlessly, in even a light breeze. I was hooked.
Around this time Bryce Somerville, a neighbour a couple of years older than me, had an Arrow sailing dinghy. I think his father built it and I probably only went for one sail in it. It was a simple, multi-purpose boat suitable for father and son sailing, fishing and general messing about. Bryce later came sailing on one of my boats and, I believe, later became commodore of one of Auckland's more prestigious yacht clubs.
After I started secondary school a friend Warren Innes and I decided on a scheme to go halves in a boat if our parents would put up the money. I think we sensed that our chances were better with a sharing proposition and, surprisingly, our parents agreed quite readily. I think it cost 50 pounds each to buy a 12 foot Cherub sailing dinghy "Rebel", sail number 100. Kids in Auckland usually learned to sail in a P-class. This was a small (7ft 6in) with a single, quite small sail, plenty of bouyancy and a simple rig. There were always dozens of them out sailing at Kohimarama beach on a Saturday morning. The whole idea of the P-class was to teach kids basic seamanship, sailing skills, racing strategy and tactics and overall confidence and safety on the water. Part of the competition was a capsize race in which the competitors were required to capsize and right they boats a certain number of times on each leg. They used to become so confident that, as the sail dropped into the water they were climbing over the gunwale onto the centre-board ready to apply their weight to right it again. As the sail came up they climbed back over the gunwale and carried on sailing. Great for bulding confidence and competence. You didn't have to be very big to outgrow a P-class and a popular next step was a Cherub. This was quite a fast, light boat requiring reasonable skill to sail. The light hull made it very easy to capsize if you didn't know what you were doing, and didn't have enough weight and confidence, to "stack out" seriously.
Our first sail was an exhausting series of capsizes as we tried to do, in a Cherub, what we should have done years earlier in a P-class. In our ineptitude we managed to strain the centre-case and to capsize the boat on the beach so that the shock of hitting the hard sand split the laminated mast. Parents were called in to help and my father took on his first boat-building assignment and did an outstanding job of fixing the centre-case, a tricky and difficult job, but one I learned a lot by watching. Our sailing experience had not matched up with our fantasies and I think we may have lost interest and never taken "Rebel" out again. She was really a racing boat for experienced sailors. I was not interested in racing and we were both too light and inexperienced to handle a boat like this. I was more interested in "messing about in boats" than serious competition. I can't remember now but I imagine our parents must have taken the initiative and sold "Rebel" to recoup some of their investment.
It must have been after I left school that I acquired my next boat, an old Y-class "Opah" that I was able to pick up very cheaply. The Y-class was a 14 foot design very similar to Idle Along. This was a real "messing about" boat. She was very heavy, built from about half-inch kauri planks with inch-and-a-half thick sawn frames, some of which had been cracked and re-inforced with steel plates bolted on each side. She had solid spars with a gunter gaff and heavy cotton sails. All of hardware was cast bronze. The only bouyancy consisted of four 20 litre kerosene tins rusting away under the deck. Her weight and my lack of a car or trailer, necessitated keeping her on the ramp at Okahu Bay and it was from here that we set out on our sailing expeditions.
Opah - Our first sail in Okahu Bay, Auckland.
"Messing about" was not the easiest, or the safest way to learn sailing, but it was a lot of fun. I recall one occasion when we went across Auckland Harbour to Rangitoto island, pulling into the wharf and learning, very quickly, not to approach from windward. The wind pressed the sail hard up against the wharf piles and we were stuck. Eventually we managed to man-handle her along the barnacle and oyster encrusted piles without ripping either ourselves, or the sails, too much and, with that lesson well learned, sailed back to Okahu Bay without incident. I can't remember who was with me on that outing but my friend Roger Harrington was my most regular crew.
When I bought her, "Opah" had been left in storage for quite a few years. She was complete and ready to sail but also needed quite a lot of re-furbishment. I found that I enjoyed this activity just as much as sailing. In the process I found some features that would be real treasures today. I removed the cockpit coamings and associated knees, and stripped the old canvas off the deck. The coamings met in a "V" just forward of the mast, forming a triangle between the coamings and the front of the cockpit. The mast was stepped on the keel and passed through a hole in the middle of this triangle. When I stripped the paint off I discovered that this triangle was formed out of a heavy piece of copper sheet about 4mm thick, carefully flared to prevent water from running down the hole. The spars, coamings and knees were all seriously bleached and needed a good clean-up. When I gave them a good sanding I found beautiful, clean straight-grained timber that would be impossible to buy now. The knees were "grown" Pohutukawa, a beautiful reddish timber that grows with very twisted, gnarled branches around Auckland's coast. When they were cleaned up, varnished and re-fitted the knees looked beautiful with their grain following the shape of the knee and contrasting with the cream colour of the varnished kauri coamings.
"Opah" taught me many things about sailing, particularly about rudders and about bouyancy. On one outing with Roger we were making our way out the Rangitoto Channel, the main sea-way in and out of Auckland Harbour. The swell was getting bigger and the breeze getting up so we decided it was time to go about and head back. Well, she was heavy, with a blunt bow, and we didn't quite make it and she started backing, something I had not experienced before. It was not obvious as the waves made it look as though we were still moving forward and I failed to realise I should be using the rudder in reverse. The end result was that we capsized well away from the shore.
No problem, we knew how to right a capsized boat, but we had never actually done it with "Opah". We got her up a couple of times but there was just not enought bouyancy. She sat so low, so full of water, that she just went over again. In all the confusion the rudder floated off its pintles and had drifted some distance away before we realised. Roger was a much better swimmer than me and was all for going after it but I absolutely forbade such a move. After all our efforts to right her we were exhausted and in big trouble. The tide was carrying us slowly out of the harbour towards the Hauraki Gulf. Fortunately we were spotted by the safety boat patrolling a yacht race at Narrow Neck beach and he came out and towed us in.
When we got to the beach she was still full of water and very heavy. The waves lifted her up and dumped her hard on the sand. We could hear the ribs cracking under the strain but could do nothing about it but bail as fast as possible and keep pulling her up little by little. As we got her further out of the water, more could drain out of the drain holes in the transom. We eventually got her clear of the waves, and somehow got her back to Okahu Bay by road.
I had to make a new rudder and buy new pintles but could not find, and probably could not afford the heavy cast bronze fittings that were on the rudder I had lost. This was to cost me later.
Another trip I recall with Roger was to Motuihe Island. We had not had much experience with a spinnaker, but this was a good long run and so we hoisted the spinnaker and ran hard. As we approached Motuihe I handed the tiller over the Roger while I went forward to get the spinnaker in. The shift in weight and the heavy steering running before the wind was too much for my new under-weight rudder pintles, they snapped and, again, the rudder drifted off astern. I threw the anchor over and we sat there trying to figure out what to do next. Eventually the old police launch "Deodar" came along and asked if we were OK. We told them the story and they offered to tow us home, and we accepted. On the way they called out to let us know that they had been called to a medical emergency at Islington Bay between Rangitoto and Motutapu Islands. They towed us there, dropped our anchor, picked up their medical case and headed off to hospital saying they "might be back later". Fortunately another boat offered us a tow across the harbour to St Heliers beach.
Opah - Ready for a clean-up.
I can't recall now when I undertook a major re-furbishment of "Opah". It was probably at this time when she was close to home at St Heliers beach, or it may have been after all our adventures before I sold her. I recall having her upside down behind the garage at home for some time while this work was done.
Opah - Shaping up!
"Opah" was a great "messabout" boat. I learned a great deal, and survived. I am ever grateful to those who rescued me from the consequences of my youthful over-confidence coupled with inexperience.
About this time our boss Ray Walker must have become aware of our interest in sailing and invited us to join him as crew for friendly Sunday races on his 'A-class" keeler Ngatiringa, about 33ft as I recall. Ngatiringa was a typical keeler, pretty modern in 1962 when boats were always made of wood. We were blissfully unaware at that time how quickly plastics would take over and wooden boats would become treasured relics of the past. On Ngatiringa I had the opportunity to do some serious sailing with an experienced skipper. This was pure sailing, not messing about with amateur boat building. The racing wasn't too serious but it certainly gave an "edge" to the experience. I suspect it was intended to be a way of "spotting" talent that might make it into serious club racing on Saturdays, but we never got past the Sunday outings which were great.
By now I knew that sailing was something I really loved to do. must have been about 18 when I saw an advert in the paper by someone wanting a crew to sail to Norfolk and Kermadec Islands. I wrote way and soon received a reply saying that, if I could be in Whangarei by a certain date, with 20 pounds cash, I was on. The boat was "Clear Skies" owned and skippered by Jack Burdett. She was a very roomy, solid 38 foot ketch. Jack was very experienced sailing the coast around Whangarei and, apparently, owned some land on Cavalli Islands where he ran some cattle. He used Clear Skies as a tug to tow a barge to bring the cattle to market so she had a pretty solid diesel engine. We spent a couple of days provisioning and motoring down the Whangarei River. Overnight we tied up alongside the schooner "Kotiti" of whom more later, at the Masden Point Oil Refinery wharf. While there we had a look over one of the oil refinery's new, ocean-going tugs. Pretty impressive vessel.
Next day we started making our way up the coast, mostly under sail, as we
familiarised ourselves with the boat. We took our time and anchored overnight in
some of the most beautiful locations imaginable. Tutukaka, Whangaruru,and
Whangaroa spring to mind. Once we left Whangaroa we were offcially on our way
and did not make port again until we reached Norfolk about a week later.
Clear Skies - Sailing up the coast of NZ
The original plan had been to make three legs of about one week each to
Norfolk, then Kermadecs, then back to NZ. With our slow start and the time we
actually spent at Norfolk, there was not time to include the Kermadecs but we
had any amount of sailing to satisfy us. The total crew was four including the
skipper. The weather was good and we took some time and experimenting working
out watches. We tried having two on-watch for four hours each with two hours as
lookout and two hours steering. Then the one steering went off (to sleep if at
night) and called the next one to come on as lookout, and the current lookout
took over steering. Theoretically this was the fairest and safest but we found
ourselves getting tired and , with the conditions so easy, it seemed safer to
make sure we were all getting enough sleep. We changed the rotation so that one
was on watch for two hours alone, with a nominated standby if he needed a hand
on deck for any reason at all, which happened only very occasionally. This
worked very well but meant much more time alone at night which proved to be a
deeply spiritual experience. Also much more alarming alone at night, in the
middle of the ocean, when a dolphin "coughs" right behind you, or a
flying fish crashes onto the deck. The wind ranged from being practically
becalmed at times, to a pretty stiff breeze.
Clear Skies - The ocean breeze
We had ample opportunity to try many different sail configurations including a try-sail on the mizzen mast, and various combinations of head sails. Now I was starting to learn some of the finer considerations of things "not to do" other than not being plain stupid. There is nothing like being alone in the ocean to instil a great sense of responsibility. The nearest I came to doing any damage was when helping re-reeve the jib sheet. We had a high footed jib with sheet blocks attached to the clew with strops. Somehow one of the jib sheets ran out of the block when we were in a stiff breeze. I tried to hold the block while another of the crew re-rove the sheet. It very nearly broke my wrist and, when I let go, very nearly broke my head. Lesson - don't handle a flogging sheet block. Get on the other tack to stop the sail flogging, then fix the sheet.
Soon after we left Whangaroa Harbour Jack got out his sextant and confessed
that he hadn't actually done any celestial navigation since he had flown freight
sorties in WW2, but he was confident he could remember it OK. After a week
"on passage" Jack advised that, if he had the navigation right, we
should see Norfolk Island next day and, sure enough, it turned up dead ahead.
Soon we were close enough to anchor in the lee of rather high inhospitable
cliffs on the western side of the island, and try to figure out how we might get
ashore. 
The sea was pretty calm and deep so we could get quite close to the rocky shore
without experiencing much wave action. Two of us took the dinghy and rowed in
close. As the swell rose we were able to row into a rock pool and as it subsided
we were left sitting there quite safely. We could find no way to climb the high,
steep cliffs that characterise Norfolk Island so we reversed the process, rowed
out of the rock pool when it was filled by another nice smooth swell, and back
to "Clear Skies".
Even though Norfolk is only 5 miles by 3 miles we were a bit reluctant to weigh anchor again, so soon after arriving, trying to find a suitable landing. We were in the cabin discussing the options when we heard a shout and looked out to see a man agilely climbing down the cliffs we felt unable to climb up. We rowed ashore again to pick him up. He came aboard and introduced himself as Greg Quintal and explained that he was a descendant of one of the Bounty mutineers of the same name. Apparently Pitcairn Island had become too crowded and most of the population relocated to Norfolk but quite a few found it too big (at 5 x 3 miles?) and went back to Pitcairn. Greg's family was one of those that had stayed. He suggested we make our way to Cascades Bay where we could tie up to the mooring buoy used by the supply ship when it called. This proved to be good advice. We weighed anchor, sailed around the to the north-east side of the island and tied up to a huge spherical buoy about 10ft in diameter. This became a bit of a liability at night when there was no wind or current. We drifted slowly away from the buoy until the line stretched taut which sprung us gently back towards it. Eventually we bumped it with a very loud Bonnnggg!! and drifted off in the opposite direction to repeat the process. Not much sleep that night.
We were able to row ashore, land at a stone jetty and walk over the island to
where we rented a beat up old Morris Minor so that we could get around to
explore and do some duty-free shopping. Most of us ended up buying 36 piece
Nortake dinner sets to take home. It was interesting getting them loaded into
the dinghy and then aboard "Clear Skies" without breaking anything,
but we managed. We had a few days exploring and re-provisioning, before deciding
to start our return journey. Sailing back was uneventful, the memorable events
being: Arriving at Whangaroa, our official port of entry, at night, under motor
with a brilliant trail of phosphorescence in our wake and anchoring in the Bay
of Islands overnight on our way south to Whangarei and the end of a fantastic
sailing experience.
Clear Skies - Back at bay of Islands NZ
Over the next couple of years I changed jobs, travelled overseas and had lots of experiences apart from wooden boats. I replied to a newpaper advertisement by someone looking for a weekend crew to help sail a 41 ft schooner in Auckland Harbour and the Hauraki Gulf. The boat turned out to be Kotiti who we had tied up alongside at Marsden Point on our way to Norfolk. Naturally, I signed on. Although she was built along classic lines I believe she was of fairly recent construction at that time. Probably quite a rarity and possibly one of the last of her kind to be built. She was a gaff rigged two masted schooner with deep bilges and a long, straight keel. Ideal for ocean cruising but not much use for winning races in the harbour, as we proved by coming a resounding last when we took part in the Auckland Anniversary Regatta one year. While she didn't win races she was a lovely boat to be on with plenty of room and good company. Crewing on Kotiti provided great weekend sailing on Auckland's beautiful harbour over the next year or so.
As so often happens, when you are on a boat, especially when sailing, it is difficult to take your own photographs and other boats usually don't get close enough to take decent shots. I have been very keen to find out more about Kotiti's whereabouts and hopefully get some photos for the historical record. Occasional web searches over a couple of years produced nothing except this rather enigmatic extract from
THE REPORT TO THE NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT BY THE NEW ZEALAND NAVAL BOARD
1ST APRIL 1961 TO 31ST MARCH 1962.
Naval divers assisted national projects and other Government Departments in need
of their special skills; the Naval radio station at Waiouru handled 100,628
commercial messages overseas; outside organisations sought the help of the Naval
Dockyard for industrial resources available nowhere else in the Dominion. Ships
carried seven tons of supplies to weather stations, supplied lighthouses, and
steamed 2,354 miles on oceanographic research. And, of course, there were the
occasions, notably the recovery of the schooner Kotiti, when the presence of
available and disciplined forces was of benefit to the police. Clearly, if New
Zealand had no Navy it would be forced to develop some similar organisation to
take over a large part of its non-military duties.
What did that mean, did she survive, was she still afloat? Eventually I found someone in Christchurch NZ who knew where she was, had recently spoken to the owner, and would get back to me with contact when next they spoke. Then nothing more.... until some months later I received another enigmatic email from someone I have never heard of saying -
"she is in havlock top of the south island. I sailed on her 20years ago when i was 14 and have been obsessed with boats ever since!" That's all!
Now we were getting closer. Anne and I passed through Havelock on holiday quite recently. Lovely place. Started searching the web for Havelock and eventually tracked down a local water taxi operator, John and Catherine Beavon of Pelorus Water Transport "Yes! We know Kotiti. She has been re-furbished and is as good as new." We can get you some photos. A few more weeks pass. Finally, about 40 years after my crewing experience and several years after the start of my search John and Catherine sent me the long awaited photos.
Kotiti - Isn't she beautiful.
After a couple of years I found myself living in Tokoroa, a remote paper-mill town in central North Island New Zealand. I had time on my hands and the urge to take on some sort of project. I started researching the possibility of building a model sailing ship. As I read books on the subject I was amazed at the sheer magnitude of the task. Even if I could maintain the motivation to finish it, I was concerned that what I finished up with might just be a useless curiosity sitting in a corner gathering dust. Then I saw an article in Sea Spray magazine by someone who had designed and built a 19ft 6in bulge keel sloop out of car-case ply. I contacted him, had a look at the plans, and the boat, and decided that it would be easier and more rewarding to build a "real" boat that I could go sailing in, than a model I could only look at. I managed to find a tin shed in someone's back yard for peppercorn rent, bought some timber and started work. After a few months I had an upside-down hull finished, primed and ready to turn over. My approach was costing more as I used 9mm marine ply instead of 12mm car case ply. The advantages were obviously lightness, and a better finish that needed much less preparation for painting. One lunch time I gathered together a convoy on workmates in a few cars, and we manhandled the hull out of he shed, turned her over, and carried her back in. Cabin, decks and fit-out followed and she started to really look like a boat. I had a lot of help initially from a reliable friend Neville Gibson and later by Esther Robinson, a girl from work who was to become my wife. Esther did much of the painting, including some of the awkward bits like up in the fore-peak. It took a couple of years to finish this boat, which I called "Alfresco", during which time I also got married and moved house. Once she had a weatherproof cabin and was painted it made sense to re-locate "Alfresco" to the parking slab behind our flat. This made it easier to complete all the small, fiddly, finishing jobs, and some big difficult ones like fitting the lead keel and steel-plate bilge-keels. Another problem to overcome was that fact that, while I had secured a mooring in the Tamaki River, I did not have a tender to get me to and fro. I was the proud owner of a rather battered Ariel Colt 200cc motor bike but, having lost my licence could not use it. I saw an advertisement for someone wanting to swap a 12 foot clinker dingy for a motor bike and soon the deal was done. The dinghy was in pretty rough condition paint-wise, but otherwise sound so I thought I had done pretty well. Looking back, it would have been great if I could have kept the dinghy which would be a classic today..
Eventually Alfresco was finished and ready to launch. On later viewing of an
8mm movie of the event it was quite a picture to see a work-boat from the local
yacht club towing 19ft 6in Alfresco, towing a 12 ft clinker dinghy. I picked up
my mooring OK, attended to a couple of very minor leaks and proudly closed up my
new boat with a big green tarpaulin over the boom. Having the big dinghy as a
tender proved valuable as the mooring was a fair distance from the yacht club
and we could take all the people and gear out in one trip. Neither Alfresco, nor
the dinghy, had working motors so it was all sailing and rowing. Obviously it
was impractical to tow the dinghy when we went sailing so she was left on the
mooring. This created a bit of a challenge when returning to the mooring. With
no motor we had to approach as close up-wind as possible, but the dinghy was
always there first. We coped. Being a bilge keeler did nothing for Alfesco's
performance or ability to go about, but it had great advantages, as expected in
shallow draft, no centre-case blocking the cabin, and allowing her to sit level
on the hard, or on a beach, without external support.
Alfresco at Okahu Bay. An advantage with bilge-keels.
The cabin, from front to
back, had two forward berths forward of the main bulkhead, a gimballed two-burner
gas stove on the port side and a galley sink and water pump to starboard, two
quarter berths, and inboard motor and a good sized cockpit. with stowage and
fuel tank in an aft compartment.
I had notions about not wanting to spoil Alfresco's lines by hanging an
outboard over the stern so I had bought, and installed an old single-cylinder,
water cooled, two stroke engine of ancient and unknown brand.
Alfresco - On the hard at Okahu Bay, crewed by my nephew Paul Hudson
It was not flash but worked fine on the bench. Due, apparently, to exhaust back-pressure, I could not get it to work at all in the boat. There followed an enormous amount of messing about with exhaust pipes, water jackets, carburettor adjustments but nothing would induce the old motor to run for more than a few seconds in the boat. I managed to pick up a cheap 5HP Briggs and Stratton 4-stroke which I installed along with a new propeller, a v-belt/pulley system to provide clutch control and rev reduction. This was a huge job requiring hours on my back with my head up under the cockpit floor. At this stage I was living in Kawerau, another paper mill town in the country and had little enough time to persevere with the motor, let alone go sailing. My next move was slated to be to Fiji so I decided to sell Alfresco rather than leave her unattended on a mooring for a couple of years. I found I buyer and took him for a trial sail which went well. The last thing was to show that the motor worked OK and it did. This was the first time it had been started "on the water". It was very noisy but the prospective buyer did not seem to mind and handed over enough cash to pay for most of the materials, but nothing, of course, for two years work. Ah well, I loved doing it!
During the time of building Alfresco, and sailing on Kotiti I also wanted to do some sailing with friends. We found bloke called Harry Sharp who lived at Sandspit, near Warkworth north of Auckland. Harry had three Herreschoff H28 ketches, of traditional carvel planked construction, for hire. I can't recall their names now. This was before the days when bare-boat charters were common and ithe boats were pretty basic and the arrangements very casual. I think it cost 35 pounds for a weekend although that's hard to imagine now. Our typical routine would be to drive to Sandspit after work on a Friday, load up the boat and head off by about 8:00pm out the Kawau Island north passage and across the Hauraki Gulf on a compass bearing. After a few hours we could pick up the light at our destination on Great Barrier Island. From there on it was easy, we just had to keep heading towards the light. It would be getting light before we were anywhere near shore and it was easy then to navigate into Port Fitzroy, a beautiful deep, sheltered, rocky harbour, where we would fish, swim, eat and drink. We stayed overnight then took a leisurely sail back on Sunday enjoying the views of the Hauraki Gulf, Little Barrier Island and Kawau. We repeated this very satisfactory trip, with variations, quite a few times with variations. It was so cheap and so little trouble it was hardly worth having a boat of your own.
As expected, After our first child Joanna was born, Esther and I moved to
Suva, Fiji, initally for one year. This was an adventure in itself and we
enjoyed lots of visitors from NZ who took advantage of having free
accommodation. However, by the time a year was nearly up we had exhausted the
sightseeing opportunities in the area. The roads were so bad that it was not
much fun going very far afield and it was always a major expedition. When we
were offered another year we decided it would be tolerable only if we had a boat
so that our recreation could be on the water, islands and reefs which were much
more appealing than the roads and countryside. I managed to pick up an 18 foot
plywood full-cabin runabout, in semi-derelict condition, for $ 160.00. I set
about repairing the obvious rot in the cabin sides where joined the roof. The
combined effects of sun and rain meant that I had to replace a strip of ply
about 3 inches wide between the top of the windows and the cabin roof. This was
a simple task accomplished quite quickly.
Pegasus - Ready for new plywood
There was doubtful spot on the
foredeck and I debated whether to fix it or paint over it. I decided I might as
well fix it while I was at it and stared to dig out the soft, rotten wood. the
deeper I dig, the worse it got until I had removed a large part of one side
inclding the shear stringer and side deck. This was a much bigger job than I had
bargained for but I had plenty of spare time and eventually it was finished.
Pegasus - Launching Day
I
bought a new Chrysler 45 HP 2 stroke outboard and we were away. I joined the
Royal Suva Yacht club where, for the grand sum of $ 45.00 per year I had a
permanent pontoon berth so we could just hop in board and go, whenever we liked.
It was a 40 minute run to Nukulau Island and there was easy access to beautiful
coral reefs around Suva harbour, and to other destinations along the coast. The
most significant trip we did was through the Rewa River delta to Leleuvia Island
between the main island, Viti Levu, and Ovalau.
Leleuvia Island (foreground), with Caqelai and Ovalau in the background.
Our companions on these trips
were most often Bryce and Helen Hawkey, and their two boys Philip and Ross. The
Hawkeys were also expatriate New Zealanders on a tour of duty in Fiji and we had
a lot of fun together.
Pegasus - at Nukulau Island Fiji
Pegasus - Returning from Nukulau to Suva
What with family and work commitments over the next 30 years or so I had very little opportunity to do much with boats until the last few years when, now divorced from Esther and married to Anne, I joined the Wooden Boat Association of Queensland. This provided an opportunity to renew my interest and eventually led to responding to some advertisements for boats for sale. The one that caught my attention was a 21ft 6in bilge keeler. It turned out to be of quite similar design and probably similar age to my old Alfresco. It was irresistible and we bought her for just $ 1700 "as is, where is".
She was a mess after
being left neglected on a mooring for years because the owner had been
transferred to a job inland somewhere. It made me very glad I had sold Alfresco
when I did. We set to work firstly scraping all the marine growth off her
bottom. making temporary repairs to the cabin hatch cover to make her
weather-proof, and cleaning up the inside so we could stay on-board, on the
hard, as we fixed her up. We named her Cinderella (Cinderella SHALL go to the
ball!). The inside was filthy with
marine growth, slime and bird droppings. Anne scrubbed, scraped, washed and
painted until the cabin was liveable. We worked away for a couple of years
probing removing and replacing rotten timber and de-laminated plywood.
Eventually
we decided that there was not enough sound material left to provide a basis for
repairing her and that the only possibility was re-building from scratch. Part
way through this rather disheartening process, we were walking along the shore
of the Noosa river when I saw a boat, with for-sale sign, that I was sure was
the same as our Cinderella.
Sylphide - another Robert Tucker Ballerina II, at Noosa
I contacted the owner, had him come and look at our partly dismantled efforts and confirmed that she was a "Ballerina II" designed by Robert Tucker in the UK in 1961. Robert Tucker's son was still running the same marine design business and we were able to purchase a copy of the original plans. Eventually we retrieved what we could and scrapped the rest with the intention of starting from scratch. We would have achieved more if we had started from scratch two years earlier but we were not to know. When we re-start we will have the the original stem, the mast and rigging, bow and stern rails, poured lead keel and two badly rusted steel bilge keels that will serve as patterns for new ones. We also have some new timber which we can use for the keel, hog and floors. All we need now is space (a big shed), time and money.
One night, at a Wooden Boat Association meeting, Russell Lanigan brought
along his Mirror 16 sailing dinghy "Czarina II" for us all to have a
look. Anne was absolutely taken and decided we just had to have one. The very
next day at her music lesson she was talking about it and the teacher said.
"We have one for sale". This turned out to be a Mirror 10, a much more
common design, but at 10 ft 6in, considerably smaller. She seemed in reasonable
condition so we bought her and have had a lot of fun sailing her on Wooden Boat
Association "messabouts".
Snow White - A beautiful weekend camping at Lake Wivenhoe with the Wooden
Boat Association. Russell Lanigan's "Czarina II" in the left
distance.
Soon after we acquired her, and named her "Snow White" (related to Cinderella), Anne read a book about someone who sailed and rowed an identical boat from the UK to the Black Sea. It was an inspiring story. Unfortunately she is a bit small for two adults but a delight to sail, and the only boat we can actually go sailing in at present.
Soon after this we saw an advertisement for a Mirror 16 and bought her as well. She is our current restoration project. The Miirror 16 has a false floor with buoyancy compartments underneath. We have had to remove this so that we can replace the centre-case and some of the ribs. We have removed, and will replace, the ply on the fore-deck but, otherwise she seems quite sound and we are progressing slowly with repairs. When finished she will be one of three Mirror 16's in the Wooden Boat Association and we look forward to sailing in company with the others.
The obvious repairs needed appeared only slightly more than with Snow White. A few sections of the gunwale, some rusty steel screws to replace, a repaint and possibly new ply on the foredeck. Being only 4mm ply, the floor felt a bit flimsy and it was a big decision whether or not to delve into the bilges. Peering through one of the ports suggested that it might be wise to inspect a bit closer. At first look the starboard side looked the most likely to need work so I cut a larger inspection port under the optimistic assumption that, once our confidence was restored it would be easy to patch.
No prizes for guessing, the more we inspected, worse it looked! Clearly some of the floor webs needed to be replaced. The cockpit seat buoyancy tanks all looked OK. We did a lot of pondering about how to remove (and replace) the floor without starting the major rebuild that would be required if we removed the seats as well. Taking one small step at a time we removed the floor, back to the edge of the seats.
Only then did we discover that the port side was in far worse shape than the starboard, and the centre case was pretty dodgy too. It looked as though the centre board had been wrenched sideways so hard that the floor webs on the port side of it had been smashed – so we took them out too. Somebody had tried to fix the resulting leaks by pouring in, and sloshing around, some “gunk” that looked like thick paint. This took quite a bit of removing but we wanted to make sure we were getting back to the bare wood as much as possible.
Some of the aft floor webs had also been damaged and separated from the bottom ply. We started by cutting some 19mm timber to match the curve of the bottom and patched up the less damaged webs as you can see here.
The patches on the bottom were a bit rough, but appeared sound so we left them undisturbed.
The next critical task was to replace the centrecase and this was quite tricky, as we had to make sure of a good fit with the bottom, the for-and-aft spine, and the webs retained on the starboard side.
Not surprisingly there was a lot of fiddling about building up the centre case and fitting it to the centreboard with the novel hinge arrangement used in the mirror. We had to mock it up several times before re-fitting it in the boat. In the process we discovered that it was very easy to get painted (or should I say epoxied?) into a corner if everything wasn’t assembled in precisely the correct order. I had a few practice runs before mixing the epoxy and going for it. Preparation paid off and it all fitted together really well. And didn’t leak afterwards.
Before fitting the centre case I had cut new floor webs and included these in my practice assembly runs. At Larry Loveday’s suggestion I left more ply and simply cut round holes for ventilation and a little weight reduction. I also used 6mm in place of 4mm ply.
Next question. How to re-fit the floor securely given that it can only butt against the bottom edge of the existing buoyancy tanks?
Not shown in the sketch above was a 19x19mm batten along the inside bottom of the buoyancy tank and a 12mm batten along the top edge of each web. Firstly I fitted a new 19x19mm batten on the outside of the tank along the full length of the cockpit. This was screwed through the ply into the batten inside the compartment. It was also screwed down into the batten on the top edge of the web. The webs are 300mm apart so I then cut about 25, 300mm lengths of 38x12mm, with ends cut to mach the angle between the side and each web. I then screwed down through the new 19x19mm batten into the new 38x12 clamp. When this was all glued and screwed in place it formed a strong “girder” that bound together the rather doubtful remaining edges of the existing floor and provided a solid base to which the new floor could be attached. Again, I had a few practice runs screwing it together dry to make sure it all worked.
At this stage we (Anne actually) primed the inside and we did a secret trial launch to check for any leaks before re-fitting the floor. No leaks around the centre-case but a bit more work had to be done on the transom.
It seemed sensible to make the new floor out of 9mm ply. It was a bit tricky cutting this to a precise fit but at least we now had a sound foundation to work to.
After doing all this, it was relatively easy to repair he transom, replace the foredeck and fix parts of the gunwale.
All this work was done with her on the trailer, which made it easy. However, painting required that she be turned over. Help from Russel and Norm, and a few others made light work of this and freed up the trailer for some much needed repairs.
Fifteen months later, she was launched on her 35th birthday at the Tweed Heads
regatta and has been a great source of enjoyment ever since.