Thelma 1898 Logan ( and Gloriana 1892 Logan)

[John B]

Do you remember the save a classic Thelma.( not to be confused with the little Thelma now owned by the Pardeys) She was in SF ( IIRC) for the last few decades and was sold about ooo 3 or 4 years ago to a syndicate who re decked her , tarted her up and went classic racing in the med for the last couple of years.
Prior to her SF life she was in Hawaii and had been a naval R and R or training vessel since the war ( ww2) when she left NZ.

She's been sold to a NZ syndicate/ trust and she's a coming home.

blisss. I told you we wanted her back.

[The Bigfella]

Well done Kiwis

[bamamick]

No one is going to appreciate you like your own. It's good to see a Kiwi classic returned to Kiwiland. They've got enough of those posh boats banging around the Med. They can share a little.

Mickey Lake

[John B]

LOL.
Cool eh. Our classics fleet isn't big so getting one back is just amazing. She's about 60 ft on deck IIRC .

[John R - Kitenui]

I heard a whisper yesterday that it might be happening. So it's for real
WOW

[John B]

It is. . John ( Fosters ) and Max Carter on a plane to sort out packing her up for freight last night. What a buzz.
Tern II due back in on a freighter early next week too.

[John B]

Thelma arrived here a week ago but there was a welcome home function for her and her owners down at the Viaduct basin today. Very fine it was too, Its always good when you can't get away because you're talking boats boats boats.

note the canting keel in the background, a bit of 2007 technology beside some 1897 technology.




Whats particularly interesting about this boat is the transitional nature of her design. she's a boat right on the cusp of the spoon bow revolution that took over from the clipper bow boats. Of course , the bow is the visual cue but its the rest of the hull form, the firmer bilges , cut away keel profile and lower angle counter that really made the difference.

Many very interesting people there, I only spoke to a few though. Two men I was chatting to found they had an old connection because they'd both raced in the 1974 Whitbread round the world race!. Bruce Webb, an Englishman and Scott( missed his second name .. and its the second time I've met him) from California. A long career as a delivery skipper , he's been several times around the world and works as a marine surveyor when he's not sailing.
Really neat standing there listening to those two talk once they'd made the connection.

well I'll be danged, that was easy, this is the boat Scott was on.
http://membres.lycos.fr/mondialyacht.../Swan%2065.htm

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

In that case, I've met him - Lymington, 1974 - Sayula was berthed astern of Baroque at Berthons. Tilman and Carlin were both invited to dinner by May; the rest of us met up in the pub.

[sawcutmill]

Andrew, I bought my boat, "Pelagic", at Buckler's Hard and kept her at Berthon's in Lymington in july august and part of september 1984 before bringing her back to the US in spring of '85.
I met Adlard Coles, and a few other semi famous sailors from there, including Commander Easton, who taught Prince Charles "howto" sail as a lad. Actually , Cmdr Easton, was one of the brokers who sold me Pelagic.
As of this July, 2007, I will have owned her, (or she me) for more than 1/2 of my life! Oh my God.

[John B]

The weather was perfect for the CYA visit to look at the progress on the two Logans being worked on at Horizon boats yard in Stillwater this sunday gone.
Wind warning and wet so ideal for a wee trip and a chance to stand around gossiping about old boats. What a great set up they have there .

Gloriana is basically finished from what I could see, some rig work yet to be done but she looked spectacular.
Thelma is stripped back and is showing a hull which is really in a quite remarkable state of repair given her age.
Teak decks are going on and she's being completely reconfigured inside to allow for the numbers of crew needed to operate her on passge / overnight races.

Gloriana, circa 1892 Logan Bros, 2 1/2 rater IIRC.






Thelma 1898 Logan,had one refurb in the US before going to Europe but so much of her actual hull looks original.

[John B]

here's an interesting shot, Con Thode having a look at the boat he sailed on in the 1920's.






looking slippery

[John B]

This little bit of structure was interesting to me, I haven't seen it before on any of the Logan or Bailey yachts I'm used to seeing but it makes a lot of sense when you see it.
Extra diagonal strapping in way of the chainplates. Just another 1/2 inch strap of kauri .The same was there at the running backstay points as well.
I noticed the hull had a total thickness of 2 inches or 50mm give or take a mm.

[The Bigfella]

Fabulous - thanks John

[John B]

See Con there Ian.... He's the man who worked his way to England in 1939,started the war as an officer on corvettes ( Flower class) , transferred to Submarines and finished it commanding his own sub.( S boat) . Astonishing life he's led.
His sub duty was largely in the med as an officer but later in the war he commanded his S class through the Indian ocean to Malaysia/ Indonesia and environs.

[Stephen]

Thanks for the update John.

[Gold Rock]

It is great to see the vigorous restorations going on down under. That's some kind of tiller on Gloriana! The helmsman must have to wear gloves...

[John B]

Just got back from a meeting and talking with all the owners of these boats I've been monitoring, Rainbow, Rawhiti, Thelma and Gloriana.. they're all buzzing at the thought of lining them up against each other.

That tiller was cast off the original wrought iron tiller from Rawhiti apparently Gold Rock .( So I was told tonight anyway.)

[The Bigfella]

Rawhiti was discussed at the Sydney Wooden Boat Assn meeting tonight - she's on the Australian Register of Historic Vessels.

http://www.anmm.gov.au/emuseum/code/...rrentrecord=84

[John B]

Can't make anything out of that link Ian.

One of Rainbows owners commented that he'd like to take her back to Sydney to recreate the race she was shipped over for( circa 1900).
Actually, David Payne made rig drawings for Rainbow and Rawhiti in order to create a benchmark.. what they probably were when built. (lifts head,I'm staring at them now) and Our own Ed Burnett has made the final rig dwg and spec for Rainbow.

Thelma already has her gaff rig as part of the earlier work in the U.S.

[The Bigfella]

Yeah the link isn't working ???? go to anmm.gov.au which is the Australian National Maritime Museum site and the register of historic vessels is under the collections and research tab. David Payne was the guest speaker last night. IIRC there's 134 boats in the register with David saying he is looking at another 60 nomination forms. Akarana an 1888 Logan boat was NZ's Bicentennial gift to Oz in 1988. I've posted photos of her before.

[Bayboat]

It's so nice to see Thelma returned to NZ. She's a beauty, and I'm glad to see her being refitted. I sailed aboard her a few times when she was at Berkeley Yacht Harbor (CA). She was lively and fast; she should do well against her classic companions.

[John B]

Thats nice to hear Bayboat , I'll pass your comment on when I catch up next. You have something in common with my old friend Con then eh . I'm sure I'll wangle a sail on her too even if I'm one of those 'competition'
Skipper is Tony Blake, the maritime artist. The boat is owned by a very proactive trust who also own Waitangi, Gloriana and Frances... so she's in very good hands, they're all sailors and associated with the marine industry and dead keen and passionate about the classics.

[Bayboat]

John B.: Thanks. I am very happy to learn that Thelma and the other classic boats are in the hands of a capable and knowlegeable trust. Good luck to her.

[John B]

Thelma and Gloriana to be re launched this weekend.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/...ectid=10480894

[John B]

They're both down at the viaduct getting ready for the launch(es)

Thelma is a very big looking boat out of the water



whereas Gloriana is 32 ft thereabouts and petite.

Gloriana's Rig



a bit of Thelmas running rigging ( backstays by the looks.)

and what look like the original spreaders.

[StevenBauer]

Gloriana is sure purdy! Thanks for keeping us informed.

Steven

[John B]

She was the Logan Bros first boat Steven, and I'm sure she's named for the Nat Herreshoff boat of the same name. 2 1/2 raters were the buzz at the time and several were built with much hyped racing and betting taking place on the outcome so she had quite some impact in the day. As with most classes they got bigger and bigger within the rules , so the smaller boats became outclassed pretty fast. I think the biggest 2/12 rater we had was possibly Mahaki at around 38 ft.

They're good fun to sail on. wet, but good in a boom dragging nose diving bliss interspersed with moments of true fear kind of way.

Which reminds me of the perspective Johnny G likes to give about the little Thelma( which is also a 2 1/2 rater)
When she's sailing along on a reach and gets overpowered and starts the dreaded drag of the boom end in the tide its actually quite dangerous. Two things can happen... one is that an overtaking sea or backwash off the hull wave can catch and fill the sail stressing up the boom and even breaking it. I believe he came a bit close a couple of times. The other is that when the boom goes in it creates drag and the boat will go from moderate weather helm to sudden lee helm and try to do a piroette down to leeward , with all the attendant panic attached to an uncontrolled gybe that is normal in these gaffers.

[StevenBauer]

Our house was built in 1892, also. It's kinda cool that at the same time the stone foundation was being built here and this house framed and finished that beautiful boat was coming together on the othe side of the world.

Steven

[John Bertenshaw]

We'd call that a Victorian house here Steven. I don't suppose you do.
Our old house is about 1910.

[Deacon Blues]

By the way..... just to do a little rivet counting here ......

Thelma was launched on 30th October 1897, NOT 1898.

[Jase]

you can't escape the bat winged hamburger snatchers mate even on here John!!

[John B]

Escape? I'm trying to get some of what he's getting.Good kai and time in a boat.

The 1898 comes from the ( previous)owners website , discussion and general promotion. Who am I to argue ,when we've got our own private historian shining his illuminating light upon us. When he feels like it.
Plus there's that old concept of the 'year' being that of the major part of the season or first race yadyadayada, so a late 07 boat is generally recorded as an 08 boat ,for example. hypothetically.

I'll have a double chickenburger with avocado to go thanks.Hold the pacemaker.

a further thought.. no , its true there are one or two from time to time.
A boatbuilder friend of mine had this great big launch 3/4 built that never seemed to get finished over about 5 or 7 years because he'd been told to slow down and go on to something else. It turned out that the owner had other priorities and had decided that a year 2000 launch would suit him best because he wanted to sell it in the Americas cup year. So here he had this 1990 design started some time in the early 90's being sold 'new'in 2000.
Same thing happens with cars, you wait till jan to buy the new one so its a later model.
This highlights the boat isue. I don't see why people would be any different in 1900 to 2000. At that time they'd rather have a year newer for resale and prestige reasons whereas now we look back 100 years and try to find an earlier benchmark to claim.

[P.L.Lenihan]

Same thing happens with cars, you wait till jan to buy the new one so its a later model.
This highlights the boat isue. I don't see why people would be any different in 1900 to 2000. At that time they'd rather have a year newer for resale and prestige reasons whereas now we look back 100 years and try to find an earlier benchmark to claim.

BINGO!!


Peter

[Deacon Blues]

It's not difficult to get these things right. If you have the time, and hit the libraries and read the newspapers of the time you will find on 6 November 1897, the NZ Herald recording that "Thelma was launched last Saturday..... she was christened by Miss Jagger ... the mast is stepped and she is ready for her first spin next week".

OR you look at such recently published books like "Winkelmann's Waitemata", "The Logans - NZ Greatest Boatbuilding Family", or "Southern Breeze - A History of NZ Yachting" - ALL of which have the aforesaid October 1897 date taken from the NZ Herald by people who bothered to go and find out what was accurate and what was pure invention.

Thelma was never "recorded" as 1898, any more than Rainbow was "recorded" as 1899, and Rawene "recorded" as 1909. They registered with their yacht clubs in the year they were launched, which in their cases were, 1897, 1898, 1908.

These "out of step" dates stem from the name and date on the bronze tiller castings which "probably" tied the boat to the Trophy racing season which, in NZ, began with the Anniversary Regatta late in January and continued to the end of the season.

I say "probably" because at this stage no one really knows.

Maybe it's one of those peculiar Victorian things that have escaped us over the years, where because we were trying to be more British than the Brits, we aligned our racing dates with the yacht clubs back "Home" who have a nice tidy 1897, 1898, 1899 seasons instead of the unweildy 1896/97, 1897/98, 1898/99 we have down this part of the world.

You only have to read some of the jingoistic tripe in the papers then, particularly around the time of the Boer War, to see how closely we pinned our shirts on Mother England. Those few yacht clubs we had at the time were generally bastions of patriotism.

Dunno really - I'll get it one day.

As I have found with various yacht club histories, the broken year e.g. 1897/98, causes all sorts of problems when you award a trophy in e.g. November 1897 and have all your engraving done for the 1898 prizegiving.
Dual dates with different winners makes for some messy club records down the years.

I'm sure it's absolutely nothing to do with cribbing another year for resale purposes. You have to remember that the Auckland keel yacht scene in the late 1890's wasn't THAT big that an owner could smuggle an extra year onto a crack 1st class racing yacht, known by just about everyone on the waterfront, in the hope of fooling someone into paying a few extra pounds for it. Doesn't make sense at all.

Any way the bounder would be blackballed from every club on the harbour..

[StevenBauer]

So how'd the launch go? Any piccies?



Steven

[John B]

Thanks Robin, although I do still believe that if not resale then prestige aquired through owning the 'newest' is a natural and repeated human foible.
On the other point , yes there is confusion with the overlapping year in our seasons. I go back looking at my photo albums for example and find I might have two 2005 christmas cruises for example? say what?
Evidently I decided at christmas 04 to call it the 05 album because its the 05 season. 4 days of 04 and 20 of 05.
and then .....at 05 christmas I forgot that, and dated it after the day I began the album

I missed the launch Steven. We stayed up North longer than I thought. Rigs are in though and Tony hopes to sail Thelma this weekend.

Some pics here on sailnews.
http://www.sail-world.com/kiwinews/

[Paul Pless]

Uffda!!!

[Deacon Blues]

Thanks Robin, although I do still believe that if not resale then prestige aquired through owning the 'newest' is a natural and repeated human foible.

I can't argue with that as a statement.

What I do find rather odd is that this same "skipped year" trait appears on 3 of our large Logan Brothers built keel yachts, all built for different owners over a 10 year period.

Maybe it was a "boat-yard" convention and that's just what Logan bros always did when they ordered the castings - because they could.

I haven't seen Iorangi, Ariki, Moana or Rawhiti to see if it is continued, or Robert Logan Snr's Waitangi. Then there's Ladye Wilma, Windward, Kotiri -

How about the Chas Bailey built boats? Do Viking, Ngatira and Prize copy this theme??

I feel a crusade a-comin' on that we should perhaps continue elsewhere rather than hi-jack a great thread that's starved for more eye-candy.

[John B]

With a bottle of rum at the Cavallis I reckon we could sort it out for all time.
(Clank)... visor just fell down.

[renne2001]

Can you guys shed some light on this for me? Could this possibly be the Thelma I sailed to Mexico on in 1964. I lived in Sausalito at the time, but we drove to Santa Barbara to pick up the boat and continued to Mexico and back to Santa Barbara. I remember the boat at around 60 or so feet - very little freeboard, dead-eyes and lanyards, black hull, I believe it was a gaff rigged, maybe a cutter, but I just can't remember anymore. It was a beautiful boat that had seen some hard use. The interior was very plain. I believe it had been stripped to bare essentials. This was a trip before it was to be sold, I guess to someone in Santa Barbara.

I was pretty impressed with the whole thing - I don't remember the skipper very well, but we had a sculptor on board named Spiro Anagyrus (sp) and a former Olympic gymnast named Lee Kissel. We bought a gunny sack of lobsters off some fisherman and grilled them on the dock at Ensenada - that's when Ensenada still had dirt streets. I fell in love with smoked Bonito and was very unpopular for a while because I insisted in taking almost a whole one back to the Bay area in the car - pretty smelly.

I remember this particular boat had those little skylight panels that open up. I had never sailed on a boat that had those before. and I thought they were great. I had been on Bolero and Baruna, but I don't think they had those - too new. I remember someone up top kicking a prop I had to keep one of them open and it came down into the interior and knocked a can of bacon grease all over the galley. What a mess. Anyway, it would be nice to know that a boat I remember with such great fondness has been restored to her illustrious self again. The last time I heard of her, she was in San Francisco where a couple had bought her and done some modifications, including, if memory serves, a big ugly cabin. That's sort of dim, but I believe it's correct. If this is my Thelma, then she's looking great again!

Thanks for any info.

Diane St James

[John B]

Hello Diane , there are others here who can comment more knowledgeably on her Amercian history but it would seem very likely from what you say that its the same boat.

I've just spent 3 days racing against her and I can tell you she's a fast and able boat for sure. Speaking with her skipper Tony Blake last night , he commented on what a fine boat she is to helm and how she's finger tip balance on all points. Thats not common with a big gaff rig so its a very good good endorsement.
I'll pop a photo or two in here later.

[John B]

This is what she looks like now.

at 60 ft long and 20 tons she doesn't feel the harbour chop and she just slid away all 3 days for gaff line and handicap wins3 out of 4 races( IIRC) Certainly she won the regatta Gaff div anyway.

[renne2001]

John, thank you so much for your reply. I never forgot her. I remember standing about 200 yards away looking at her as she was tied up at the bulkhead in Mexico and thinking she had the most elegant shear. I know what the skipper means. I stood watches on that trip. One night my much more experienced watch partner told me to take the helm because the wind was increasing quite a bit and he wanted to put in a reef. I turned her into the wind and held her as best I could while he struggled with main in the total darkness. I was hanging on with the sea coming over that transom at me. I was sitting on a kind of box with no lifelines of any kind, just the same as she is today. The water was actually swirling around my knees. I have never been so scared in my life. It's quite a memory for me, but I survived to sail again.

My former husband, who was working at the time as a Bar Pilot apprentice in SF, and I bought a 36" Atkins ketch in Sausalito. She was a documented vessel with a Canadian registry. I used to get a kick out of flying the maple leaf around the Bay. I can't remember the name of the owner - Norman something I think, but he was very disgusted with the whole boat thing. He was going around the world and ran aground on Black Rock in Rarotonga and took out a large part of the port side. This was a mahogany boat and he had to have replacement lumber flown in - a local boatyard did the repair and a nice job they did too. I know because I saw the patch when I was scraping and repainting. I finally found out exactly what happened only a couple of years ago - decades after we sold her. The Dive Centre Ltd on Rarotonga was kind enough to relay my inquiries to someone on the island who knew the story and he emailed me with the story and some pictures. I would love to find out what happened to her. The last I knew she was berthed in Antioch, CA in about 1969/70. I have had a couple of computer crashes, so I can only locate one picture at the moment, but I attached it here. I had pictured this scenario for so many years, but it was heartbreaking to actually see it. I guess some of us just have a feeling for the soul of a wooden boat. Not a very large or clear picture, but you get the idea. Maybe someone who reads the forums knows something about her whereabouts. Her name was/is TRENDAWAY and it was carved into the transom .

I'm afraid today I'm down to a 26 ft fiberglass sloop which we sail on Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin. Not the same at all.

Cheers,

Diane

[John B]

My pleasure Diane, so good to hear more about Thelma and your own subsequent yacht. I'm sorry , but I haven't heard of her life after.Not a pretty sight on the reef like that.

[Mel Nelson]

Sorry to update such an old thread but this is the first news I have had of Thelma in many years so I can't resist.

Its really great to find that Thelma has at last found her way into safe hands, and back in her place of birth at last.

I was the defacto sailing master aboard Thelma in SF bay for the years 1959-1965, but she was a different boat then.

A bit of history, she had indeed spent the years since WWII as a US Navy recreational vessel operating out of Treasure Island. An unfortunate incident which resulted in the death of a crew member put an end to her US Navy Career and she was sold at auction by the USN for the princely sum of $5,000 to Jack Pruyne, a Berkely contractor.

She had been extensively modified from her original configuration when I came aboard. A big smelly diesel took up much of the passageway between the salon and the after cabin (courtesy of the USN I was told), her tiller had been replaced with a wheel and a marconi rigged mizzen mast stepped in such a position the she was considered a ketch, but she still had the Gaff rigged main and the block and tackle running backstays. On the wind in a good breeze you had to spill the mizzen to reduce the weather helm to a managable amount.

Other than this she still maintained the original deck layout which is clearly regonizable in the restoration photos.

She was a fairly fast boat but very wet in a good breeze, which you always have in SF. Below Decks she was spartan with a just couple of leather covered settees which made up into bunks in the salon.

Diane I would think that your trip to Mexico might have been a year or two later than 1964, and at the time I sailed her she was painted white, but the opening skylights on the deck and the low freeboard makes it seem like the right boat all right.

We raced Thelma regularly both on and offshore, but were no match for the likes of the big boats on the bay (like Orient, Baruna and Bolero).

A typical plank on edge design, she had a huge hunk of lead on the keel, and it was needed to counteract her narrow beam. We wooded her in 1959, and were pleasantly surprised to find that her original kauri wood planking was still in fine condition, with the exception of a single section of one plank that had been replaced. Marvelous stuff that kauri wood!

[John B]

Thats great to hear from you Mel...
A few photos for you. I took these about 2 weeks ago.

[John B]

and a sequence from the Mahurangi regatta at the end of january

[Mel Nelson]

Nice Photos John! She looks much better with her mizzenmast removed and the main boom lengthened out to the original size. Bet she sails a lot better to, but I doubt that rig would be suitable for the 35 knot breezes we have on SF bay. Even with the cut down mainsail she spent a lot of time with her lee rail awash.

I mentioned her to the Pardeys a few months back and have pointed out this thread to them.

I am simply amazed at the durability (and desirability) of Kauri as a boat building material. Is it still possible to get Kauri in boat building sizes in NZ?

[John B]

Possible but fairly hard to get Mel. It's uncommon now but having said that , there is a 50ft Bristol channel pilot cutter in build from it currently.

You might be interested in our club site. Pretty low traffic but some other of our classic yachts and launches feature there.
I bumped the parallel Thelma thread there because of your response here.

http://classicyacht.org.nz/forum/index.php

[Candyfloss]

Nice of you to include the pretty little Des Townson boat, John. Thanks!