The scale of the thing

[John B]

Looks like great progress ,Gary. And I see even more on the other site too.

[John B]

Rick asked about the white elephant dinghy/ fishing boat soo...
When I was a young bloke hauling Waione every year for epic paint work and projects of advancement one of the old guys at that yard in Okahu bay was Colin.
Colin had a 1940s Lidgard cruiser called Maharatia and did the same old school paint job every season too. Before ramped up hardstand costs, the traditional way to maintain an old wooden boat was to haul for winter ,but rising costs meant most changed to a late winter or spring haulout for a month or two to get jobs done.
He was particularly famous for going up his mast every year sanding up and varnishing down .After 20 or more years that mast was thick and almost black with the layers.
He was still doing that in his 70s but the time came and he sold the boat, and I moved mine and did not frequent that yard any more. I spent 20 years there every spring so there was a social side of stopping and chatting about tasks and how to do it and how that guy was doing it wrong ,knew a lot of people there, some lifelong friends and some I completely lost touch with.
Anyway, I'd very occasionally see Colin after those years and sometimes he'd swing by my work. Wouldn't stay long or accept a cuppa, came to say something and left.
The last time was to announce that he was 90 now and had decided to sell the house and go into a retirement village, and I was to take his old clinker fishing boat.
Okey dokey...
Oh ( it was monday), it had to be gone by wednesday.
Its not very nice. Not as if it was a well designed or well built boat. An Eric Cox design, I personally think it is profoundly ugly. Colin was a can do guy where good enough to do the job was the important thing ,so she was , cough, robustly built. On top of weighing an inordinate amount for a 12 ft clinker, the layout of the planking and the way they land is quite capricious, and she leaks. To top it all off she has this tiny bow transom guaranteed to glaze the gaze and that by itself is a dealbreaker, To say I don't like that is a vast understatement.
But she was mine now, so with 4 guys and a truck we muscled her to her new home sitting on top of some racking at my then business in Auckland.
Which was Ok until we decided to reset our lives, sell up and get out of Dodge.
We found a place in paradise 3 or 4 hours North by road and including my sisters old car, the one I took off her in 1990 and stored so long behind a temporary wall it became a bona fide barn find, I then spent a vast amount of cash to shift the two to Northland.
If you look closer at this photo of Sis' Ford Y in my partially cleared old workshop you'll see the fabulous stripper sitting atop the Cox clinker in the background.
20181005_121557.jpg
and in this one loading the very expensive transport truck you get a look at the black elephant and just the bow of the white elephant in the corner.
20181031_092734.jpg

[RFNK]

Oh, I see .... bummer! I have a shed of those sort of gifts too. Which would be okay, really, if the gifts included a shed.

[John B]

This mornings little around the yards adventure as spare hand / helper..
A twofer.
20221222_071635.jpg

20221222_071618.jpg

20221222_073212.jpg

[RFNK]

Restoration or new build?

[John B]

Rick,The partially hidden boat is Des Townsons first keeler, Serene , cold moulded 1961. The other is the 1910 built 28 ft mullet boat Cora.
Serene is very significant for her period, Cora is just a honey.

[John B]

Maybe the months of drizzle and rain was worth it... nearly a week of this stuff ,plus or minus a bit of cloud..
That mobjack is regular traffic up the channel to town.
20221223_075619.jpg

[RFNK]

1910 wow! Looks like a fantastic restoration!

[John B]

1910 wow! Looks like a fantastic restoration!

Both her and Serene have been out into sheds for a bit of a birthday , I gather just paint and tidy up. I don't actually know when Cora was restored per se.
Another pic as she was coming in at 6.30 yesterday morning.
20221222_064016.jpg

[RFNK]

That frame with pins around Cora's mast base - that's just for belaying pins etc.,? Is that mast deck stepped? I guess I'm assuming from it's length that it's not.

[John B]

That's a pin rail, common in boats of the era. And the mast is keel stepped for sure. So is Serene's.

[Mike1902]

Cora...that would be me.
A great BOI cruiser.

Merry Christmas JB.

Cheers,
Mike.

[John B]

An old friend dropped in and just showed me a few photos from 2000 and some are or were pertinent to this thread.
Us in Waione, 1907. The fleet was on its way from Auckland to Kawau in a passage race, he was in a kayak with his instamatic...
20230227_103922.jpg

Rona, the GL Watson/ Logan from 1890 something , topical at the moment as she's just been rescued from a down period and is either en route to Auckland on a truck , or has just arrived as we speak.
20230227_103926.jpg
And Jessie Logan, the 1880's Logan. At this time she'd had a rig built from photos and with very heavy fittings. The scale was wrong and the rig much too big for her hull .
She had a habit of terrifying anyone who sailed her.
Obviously not quite so character forming in the light like this day. She had her rig cut down and fittings changed after this , which made her able to be sailed in greater wind ranges,and then went into storage awaiting restoration again some years after that.
20230227_103930.jpg

[Mike1902]

Jessie Logan wins the lack of freeboard competition.
Yacht designers back then probably thought freeboard meant...not having to pay rent.

[Geftb]

What’s happened to all the posts John? Goes from Xmas last year to today?
Steve

[Geftb]

Different thread….

[John B]

What’s happened to all the posts John? Goes from Xmas last year to today?
Steve

The ScOTT thread started as an around the yards type thing , Steve, with my car parked under the famous maxi ,Alfa, and ran on to include anything else curious or contrasting that I came across, preferably with my car parked beside for scale, but not necessarily so...
I bumped it because a buddy dropped in and had some snaps he'd taken in 2000 ( as above ) and including this shot of the very boat sailing through Tiri channel just north of Auckland, our old stomping ground.
20230227_103941.jpg
Yet , looking at that original snap post #1.. now I'm not so sure.
IMG_4203_1.jpg
These boats have a history of radical changes, did she get modernised with a new transom... is it a newer Alfa? I dunno.
But I do know that car under it is the family mans corvette, with its LS1 and 6 speed manual. ( Those were the days)

[John B]

Plus Mari cha. probably #3 IIRC. I think IV was the sketch/ schooner by Elliot ( and Briand...?)


20230227_103935.jpg

[John B]

Its the first boat show since about 19, so we drove for 4 1/2 hours to Auckland to look at engines and stuff. This used to be our town , but we're tourists here now.
This isn't the boat show, a mooring area for some of the classics.
Ida foreground , Rainbow and big Thelma. Rainbow is Logan bros from 1900 or so , Thelma is Logan senior from 1898. The new bull and the old bull, with Rainbow being one of the first of the newer generation types here with spoon bow and more cut away forefoot, firmer bilge sections.
Thelma, of course , was a save a classic from our hosts page, a team went over to SF and got her home in a convoluted way. Restored to her current configuration here.
Naturally , I was dressed to the max , wearing a WB shirt and the laughing polar bear cap....
20230324_094225.jpg

20230324_094350.jpg

[John B]

For contrast..er..scale, turn 180 degrees and you see this...
20230324_094330.jpg

[Larks]

For contrast..er..scale, turn 180 degrees and you see this...
20230324_094330.jpg

can you tell us more?? 'Looks very interesting

[Hugh MacD]

Mari Cha? Or at least one of 'em?

[Paul Pless]

so sexy

Its the first boat show since about 19, so we drove for 4 1/2 hours to Auckland to look at engines and stuff. This used to be our town , but we're tourists here now.
This isn't the boat show, a mooring area for some of the classics.
Ida foreground , Rainbow and big Thelma. Rainbow is Logan bros from 1900 or so , Thelma is Logan senior from 1898. The new bull and the old bull, with Rainbow being one of the first of the newer generation types here with spoon bow and more cut away forefoot, firmer bilge sections.
Thelma, of course , was a save a classic from our hosts page, a team went over to SF and got her home in a convoluted way. Restored to her current configuration here.
Naturally , I was dressed to the max , wearing a WB shirt and the laughing polar bear cap....
20230324_094225.jpg

20230324_094350.jpg

[Paul Pless]

^ the logans not you john, sorry

[Larks]

I’m thinking Hoek - looks like Elfje with a new paint job but not Elfje

[John B]

The green superyacht? Hetairos, there's been discussions here about her before. The usual... ' beautiful, don't see why they mixed counter with plumb bow, how ugly, how fantastic , man she performs, should have been a schooner, should have been a sloop etc et al.
I think she's a very cool yacht and she is quick. In 17 we left Fulaga after getting stuck there for about three weeks. The stuck was because we didn't want to leave. Anyhow... as we sailed north , Hetairos was sailing south for the same place. all sail and powered up...She was a sight to behold.
The semi dazzle cat is a locally owned expedition yacht called The Beast. She does the miles and goes to some neat places too. We saw her in Fiji through 17 and again in 19.

[John B]

^ the logans not you john, sorry

Worried for a not minute. Hah.

[John B]

Today's old Town expedition was to the other side of the harbour to visit the friends who bought this exceptional moulded wooden boat last year. We spent a few hours catching up just sitting in the berth in the sun.
20230325_135004.jpg

A very useful DODGER on the adjacent boat owned by an acquaintance, Jan. Jan had left Opua with us in 2017 but about a day out he'd lost his rig. Singlehanded, he proceeded to save what he could , cut away what he couldn't and motored back to NZ. It took him a few months to get re rigged , but then he left on a epic journey through the pacific, up to Japan , across to Alaska and back home (with detours) over a couple or three years. A clever resiliant man.
20230325_135315.jpg

And over on Alan pier, the lovely Jonquil, the BB25.
20230325_135553.jpg
Jonquil appears to be kept in a bucket.

[John B]

At dinner with a friend who sees most around the Auckland yards , he snapped these of Hetairos out of the water not long ago for rudder work.
If you can see in the shadow, the keel is up, Using the people for SCALE , I imagine the keel itself is 1800mm to 2 m or so plus the same again in the hull for a shallow draught of about 3.5 to 4 metres roughly. No doubt the data is on the webs somewhere.
The drive pods drop down out to in like the landing gear on an ME 109, but have doors that open out for them to operate . Do the doors stay open when motoring , or close? I dunno but suspect the latter.
IMG_20230325_213821.jpg

IMG_20230325_213815.jpg

I caved and looked it up, looks like man Scale works....
Screenshot_20230326_091954_Chrome.jpg

[RFNK]

Today's old Town expedition was to the other side of the harbour to visit the friends who bought this exceptional moulded wooden boat last year. We spent a few hours catching up just sitting in the berth in the sun.
20230325_135004.jpg

A very useful DODGER on the adjacent boat owned by an acquaintance, Jan. Jan had left Opua with us in 2017 but about a day out he'd lost his rig. Singlehanded, he proceeded to save what he could , cut away what he couldn't and motored back to NZ. It took him a few months to get re rigged , but then he left on a epic journey through the pacific, up to Japan , across to Alaska and back home (with detours) over a couple or three years. A clever resiliant man.
20230325_135315.jpg

And over on Alan pier, the lovely Jonquil, the BB25.
20230325_135553.jpg
Jonquil appears to be kept in a bucket.

Yep, interesting DODGER for sure. Longer than ours because he doesn't have forward winches. Those handle/posts are a good idea but a bit clunky. I'm trying to integrate handles into the actual sides of the dodger but they won't be as strong as this guy's. Yes, he's clever.

[John B]

Yep, interesting DODGER for sure. Longer than ours because he doesn't have forward winches. Those handle/posts are a good idea but a bit clunky. I'm trying to integrate handles into the actual sides of the dodger but they won't be as strong as this guy's. Yes, he's clever.

Yes, I had to move my winches to build the dodger because they were too close to the bulkhead, as I've mentioned a few times before those old Wilkies weigh about the same as the old one man can carry measure, a bag of cement at ,90 lbs, 40 kg each.
Shifting them made the boat two or even single handed from the old 4 to 10 crewed boat she was.

[John B]

A favourite boat , one we often see out and about and I've mentioned a few times here or my boating thread in misc, is Arethusa.
She's a bit world famous in Northland as the Pickmere boat used to survey much of this coast, a Pickmere's Atlas of Northland is a desired companion for cruising these waters. I'm lucky to have two, one for the boat and one for home, fitting as we live beside the beginning of the Pickmere channel.
This photo snapped on a dull day pre cyclone Gabrielle a month or two ago.
20230125_130858.jpg
why she's relevant to this thread is the contrast between how she is now and how she was as the Pickmere boat..
FB_IMG_1680396768115.jpg

[Larks]

I definitely prefer her as the Pickmere boat version - just loverly....what a huge difference though!

[Mike1902]

This copy is about 50 years old.
At 17 inches by 12 inches it's not a small book, the dinghy is 144 inches long which means the book is 11.81% of the dinghy length.
I'll get the cover laminated and find a zip lock bag.
IMG-9438.jpg

[John B]

This copy is about 50 years old.
At 17 inches by 12 inches it's not a small book, the dinghy is 144 inches long which means the book is 11.81% of the dinghy length.
I'll get the cover laminated and find a zip lock bag.
IMG-9438.jpg

Same edition as ours. I keep that one on the boat.
The smaller later reprint has one or perhaps more extra charts. One being the original / first survey by the man of the Kerikeri river, Its the only place I've seen the name of our creek written down and it also names a local island correctly, one that has suffered a typo at Govt Lands and survey level ,and now has become mainstream on all other charts.
First published 1974 with reprints, a gap to a revised edition in 1987.
Small island top right Wainiu island or Old Woman Island. Named on all other charts as Wainui.
20230407_090325.jpg