The restoration of Rogue (1892)

[PatrickXavier]

Rogue’s restoration has been an intermittent affair since 2007. Life got in the way. I’ve posted occasional steps — eg, various success or trauma.

But now the restoration’s taken on determined progress, starting with Rogue’s return to Auckland, after a 120-year absence.

And then monthly updates:

1. February 2021: https://rogue1892.com/2021/02/
2. March 2021: https://rogue1892.com/2021/03/
3. April 2021: https://rogue1892.com/2021/04/
4. May 2021: https://rogue1892.com/2021/05/
5. June 2021: https://rogue1892.com/2021/06/
6. July 2021: https://rogue1892.com/2021/07/
7. August 2021: https://rogue1892.com/2021/08/

Work resumes when we get out of lockdown; relaunch scheduled for 5 weeks thereafter. I’ll keep you updated.

[johnno]

What a truly wonderful project - am enjoying the blog immensely. Thanks!

[John B]

It's great to see the momentum, sailing in 22?

[Hugh MacD]

Spectacular!

[Slacko]

Great strides of progress showing in the photo's there!
She looked a worry sitting in the Evans Bay hardstand with tarps almost over her.
I remember she was hauled out at Seaview the same week as my yacht Haumuri, and went onto a truck to Miramar.

[Ted Hoppe]

Rogue’s restoration has been an intermittent affair since 2007. Life got in the way. I’ve posted occasional steps — eg, various success or trauma. But now the restoration’s taken on determined progress, starting with Rogue’s return to Auckland, after a 120-year absence.And then monthly updates:

1. February 2021: https://rogue1892.com/2021/02/
2. March 2021: https://rogue1892.com/2021/03/
3. April 2021: https://rogue1892.com/2021/04/
4. May 2021: https://rogue1892.com/2021/05/
5. June 2021: https://rogue1892.com/2021/06/
6. July 2021: https://rogue1892.com/2021/07/
7. August 2021: https://rogue1892.com/2021/08/

Work resumes when we get out of lockdown; relaunch scheduled for 5 weeks thereafter. I’ll keep you updated.

I have been waiting for this, this has been a real journey for you. Thanks for sharing the beauty, love, craftsmanship and patience. I will share some of these lovely links and photos to Louie.

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[PatrickXavier]

We’re presently in lockdown, so I’m dependent on occasional photos of progress from the boatbuilder. Here’s a teaser:

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[Hugh MacD]

HOLY (many deleted expletives) that is some beautiful work!

[Larks]

Thanks Patrick, though they're 'making my meagre efforts feel rather inferior

[John B]

Come a long way since I used to go and look at her in the 80's and 90s at Nelson.

[willin woodworks]

Damn!!!

[PatrickXavier]

Very kind of you all to say. Thank you.

More of the boatbuilder’s most recent photos are here.


It’s worth comparing them with how the project started, here.

[StevenBauer]

She looks a treat! I love the etched skylight glass. Very exciting.

[PatrickXavier]

Better photos of etching here. June 2014! Dear God.

[Dody]

What a beautiful ship she is!!!

[PatrickXavier]

Getting closer. There’s a veritable tour of inspection on Rogue’s website.

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[John B]

In for Christmas then.
I always set up stops or lanyards for my murrays to stop the nun chuck effect of handle into coaming or kidney, something to think about.
Are they both clockwise ,or outside to in?

[Slacko]

Wow!
Nothing more to say other than chuckling at the "nunchuck" Murray winches comment, having smashed myself in the kneecaps with them before.

[PatrickXavier]

In for Christmas then.
I always set up stops or lanyards for my murrays to stop the nun chuck effect of handle into coaming or kidney, something to think about.
Are they both clockwise ,or outside to in?

Thanks John. Sorry, I should have responded earlier. COVID lockdown(s)-willing, in by Christmas. There’s that matter of the Mahurangi Regatta, for which some commissioning first seems desirable, and then the prospect of a Gloriana rematch.

On winch stops, yes, I was contemplating that just yesterday as I observed even the handle’s socket clips the booby hatch sides. And they’re both outside-to-in (as will be the identical mainsheet Murrays, located to the rear of the cockpit, straddling the coamings).

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Any helpful suggestions on the Laurent Giles backstay levers? I note Waione’s and Prize’s respective reductions (and Prize’s anti-abrasion/dent devices); are Rogue’s mounted upside down? I’ve been prevaricating on if the downturned handle makes more sense being grabbed to apply the backstay, and if the hook should be facing up, as presently mounted. But I hesitate to discover the error of my ways by disregarding others’ greater experience.

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[PatrickXavier]

I have been waiting for this, this has been a real journey for you. Thanks for sharing the beauty, love, craftsmanship and patience. I will share some of these lovely links and photos to Louie.

Thanks Ted, and best wishes to you and Louis. Vectis was getting some love on a local Facebook page.

[PatrickXavier]

Thanks Patrick, though they're 'making my meagre efforts feel rather inferior

Hell no, Greg, your Holiday aspiration and internal fit out are way beyond Rogue’s more skeletal and superficial restoration.

[John B]

Thanks John. Sorry, I should have responded earlier. COVID lockdown(s)-willing, in by Christmas. There’s that matter of the Mahurangi Regatta, for which some commissioning first seems desirable, and then the prospect of a Gloriana rematch.

On winch stops, yes, I was contemplating that just yesterday as I observed even the handle’s socket clips the booby hatch sides. And they’re both outside-to-in (as will be the identical mainsheet Murrays, located to the rear of the cockpit, straddling the coamings).

F3C83279-3B74-429F-8DC4-1D8C5229D7E0.jpg

Any helpful suggestions on the Laurent Giles backstay levers? I note Waione’s and Prize’s respective reductions (and Prize’s anti-abrasion/dent devices); are Rogue’s mounted upside down? I’ve been prevaricating on if the downturned handle makes more sense being grabbed to apply the backstay, and if the hook should be facing up, as presently mounted. But I hesitate to discover the error of my ways by disregarding others’ greater experience.

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The hook is normally up and the handle curved down , but it's not worth disassembling. I have an extra purchase on mine so there is /was no need to cast off on a run, just roll the lever over. Ie if each slot is 500mm Prizes setup generates 1m of slack for the running backstay, Waione's setup generates 1.5 m.
That's how I ran all my Murray winches too. Not helpful when you get on a modern but it gets the sheets off the coaming etc.

[gypsie]

Would a track/pad in-front of the lever help protect the deck from wear?
looks like the boat on the right in the picture above has such.

The boat is absolutely gorgeous, unbelievably beautiful. Can I ask, is that foredeck finish going to be really slippy when wet?

Best wishes for the launch.

[PatrickXavier]

What they mean, when they say “bling”.

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[PatrickXavier]

I always set up stops or lanyards for my murrays to stop the nun chuck effect of handle into coaming or kidney, something to think about.

I always think about what you say.

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[NYCKiwi]

Crikey mate, she looks amazing. I recall you telling me about Rogue back at Woodenboat School and I’ve wondered over the years how you’d got on. Well worth the wait. She’s definitely going to be turning heads on Tīkapa Moana.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PatrickXavier]

Rogue is readied to take her waterline:
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More here: https://rogue1892.com/2022/01/18/fir...s-to-relaunch/
And here: https://waitematawoodys.com/2022/01/...130-years-old/

[Steamboat]

Pure Beauty!

[gypsie]

Yowsa!
What a thing of beauty, unbelievable.
Congratulations.

[PatrickXavier]

When Bruce Askew designed a new ballast to replace the cast-iron ugliness that had been fixed to Rogue’s keel since 1914 or thereabouts, he calculated it should weigh 1900 kgs and contribute a 29 percent improvement in her tenderness.

The New Zealand Yachtsman‘s 1937 profile of prominent Wellington sailor, R G Millman, said he had found Rogue “lying on her side with the lead removed from her keel, such metal a short time before being in urgent demand for munition purposes” and Mr Millman had replaced her ballast to get her sailing again. Quite when that was is unclear: prior to WWI, Rogue (then renamed Muritai) was owned by G Bothamley, who returned her to her Wellington importer, R C Renner (one paper says for safekeeping; another says Renner chartered Muritai from Bothamley for the season), when Bothamley went to England in 1912. Was it then she lost her lead ballast? Newspapers reported Mrs Millman sailed Muritai in the January 1914 RPNYC Ladies’ Race. But Bothamley was back in Wellington as RPNYC Commodore by 1915.

Unfortunately, when cast in 2021, the new lead ballast came in at 1450 kgs. At her initial splash last month, careful distribution of stout personnel on deck identified a further 750-800 kgs of ballast was required, of which at least 200 kgs should be further forward. The additional ballast now has been designed: some 300 kgs in forward extension, and two 250 kg bulbs affixed low to either side, of the current new ballast and substituting for the bottom end of the stem. Forms have been made accordingly, and sent off to the foundry for casting.

Looking back at the historical record, contemporaneous reports of Rogue’s initial 1892 launch observed she “sailed remarkably well, notwithstanding that she was very lightly ballasted”, and “behaved very well and appeared to be pretty fast. If anything she is a little light”. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

So what was Rogue’s initial ballast? In 1912, the New Zealand Yachtsman reported she was received in Wellington (in 1900) “carrying 2½ tons of lead, 1¾ on her keel and 15 cwt inside”. The internal ballast, sitting among the floors on top of the keel, must have been carried very high. The New Zealand Yachtsman also reported, on arrival in Wellington, Rogue had two 5 cwt external lead bulbs added low on her keel. Presumably that was in substitution for the internal ballast.

An imperial ton is 1016 kgs. A cwt is 51 kgs. So Rogue’s supplemented 1900s ballast would have been a little under 2280 kgs. And her 2022 ballast will come in about 2250 kgs. Talk about painstaking, if inadvertent, historical accuracy.

More here: https://rogue1892.com/2022/02/06/slow-learners/

[John B]

A slight hurdle in the scheme of things.
That forward triangle by the stem was used as trim ballast. One year in the 80's Henry decided to remove the lead there on Queenie, the 1901 thereabouts Logan. That lifted her bow but she was slower and he didn't like it, so he took the graving piece back out and refitted the lead next season.
Prize has numerous changes, including standing the horn timber up a few degrees, Waione had saddlebags added to her keel to go with her hot rod rig in 1930.
Fine tuning.

[PatrickXavier]

John, after 15 years of “two steps forward, one back” — and learning professionally as well as personally, despite thousands of years of seafaring, quite a lot of marine architecture involves holding a wetted finger in the air — I’m relatively inured to disappointment. But your encouragement (and Tom’s contribution) nonetheless is welcome.

[Mike1902]

The lack of forward triangle on Janet was probably the reason they changed her to a Bermudan rig sometime in the 1920's..but you're not going there Mr Xavier...and that's a good thing.
Rogue has come up nicely, well done.

[PatrickXavier]

After adding 50% more ballast, Rogue is back in the water for the first time in 15 years, floating perfectly to her lines, and relocated to her berth:

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[John B]

Terrific news, Tom sent me some photos last night. She looks wonderful.