The 07 cruise of Waione.

[John B]

Been out a week , very slowly travelling north .I'll update a few pics here from time to time. Pretty mixed bag so far weather wise. Motored 1/2 the biggish leg and then got whacked by 25 and 30 right on the nose with a nasty wind against tide chop.
One for you Dave...

Sail Rock

We veered off and hid under Bream head outside Whangarei.
peeled off and sitting on 7.5 with staysail and reefed main

A couple of really lovely days and nights , anchored under Goat island at Ngungaru

Whale bay the next night,


but we made a bad choice yesterday in a trip out to the poor knights.
the Southern arch

always spooky as hell to go through

it breezed up 30 ( where did that come from ?) and we had a hard sail back 15 miles or so to the coast. As always its the sea state and a combination of an easterly swell, a northerly sea breeze for half the day and a nasty and gusty s/westerly on top made for uncomfortable sailing.
New years eve tonight. We're at Mimiwhangata,outside whangaruru harbour, all four boats met up now so big night a coming.( happy new year)

[Donn]

I knew you guys were ahead of us in time, but is it really '07 down there already?

[StevenBauer]

Happy New Year John.
Any sign of Ed Harrow? Have any of you enzed types seen him about?

Steven

[John B]

a visitor smacked Kirsty in the shoulder yesterday

could have been painful a few inches higher. It was a real whack.

[John B]

Hah, you're quick No its still 06 for another 9 hours Donn.
Haven't spoken to Ed but hope to catch up on the 5th or 6th if he makes to the Bay of islands Steven.

[PaulC]

Thats a pretty fancy dinghy hauler! Your kids gotta love you! What a Dad!

[Kim Whitmyre]

Looking good, John! Carry on, magnificently, I'm sure!

[Nanoose]

Great pics, John, and looks like a wonderful family vacation. Lookin foward to seein more.

[Thad]

Happy New Year!!

[bamamick]

Your holiday cruises are always a treat for the eyes.

Mickey Lake

[NYCKiwi]

Happy New Year All and thanks for the great Kiwi Holiday photos, Johnny B. They're Awesome!

[Michael s/v Sannyasin]

Enjoying your videos on YouTube, keep them coming!

[The Bigfella]

Hey John - how come you didn't sail through the hole in the rock? Getting a bit timid in your old age eh mate?

Great photos - enjoy the cruise mate.

[John B]

Weeel new year wasn't so good for a medical prollem involving a great deal of pain and no grog. Seems to be under control but....
Nice day tucked under the wide berth islands today( the Rimarikis). We got 2 sailing dinghies going and 3 boys out showing that they haven't forgotten how to do it.
Nice wake up this morning with a pod of dolphin stooging around the anchored boats for an hour at dawn.
Tommorrow we'll go 15 more miles maybe( tough eh). weather is changeable but settled as far as wind is concerned.= good.
We had Whio and Peter Sewell say hello new years day. Anchored in same bay as last night tonight with Jonquil , the buzzards bay 25 so thats nice.
We're sticking to the plan of anchoring out ande away from the crowds. Sucessful so far, only our cruising pals plus say 5 other boats ... there'll be hundreds in the bay of islands.
ciao fer now.

[reddog]

John;
As always your pics and descriptions of your adventures are inspiring. Thanks for sharing a wee bit of them. Hope you have a great vacation with fair winds. Take care and a prosperous new year to you and your family.

Earl

[Dave Hadfield]

Waione.... what a treat!

I'll be getting to Aukland in 2007, John. It's in connection with a WWII fighter I'll be flying for a Canadian collector, currently being built there.

And when it happens, I'm going to get on board Waione, even if it's just to paint her on the hard!

Have a great cruise, and I hope whatever medical problem you mentioned isn't lasting.

Dave

[John B]

Thanks for the comments guys.Sorry I'm not too conversational.. limited coverage and limited mb.

wwII fighter eh. got to be wanaka? polikarpov? nah,Canadian..... has to be a Hurricane?. See you then Dave .

here's a couple of our dawn visitors yesterday

[John B]

I spoke to Ed tonight.. what a pleasure.!
Hope to catch up tomorrow .

[Concordia...41]

John - we have word from a reliable source - who will never remain anonymous and who's initials are Joe ( CSOH) that you've got guests aboard....

Do tell....

And show....

Tres' cool

[Ian Marchuk]

John , it's always a treat to hear of your exploits and drool over the pictures .
All the very best to you and yours in 2007.
Please keep posting , especially the pictures , they are a great winter treat to those of us in the great Frozen Solid North.
Ian

[Lucky Luke]

John,
Jus HOW MANY dinghies do you carry, tow on this boat ??????? Waione= admiral ship ?
May you and your boys (any girl?) enjoy this trip as much as the whole year 2007
Cheers
Luc

[StevenBauer]

So where are the pictures already?!! Having too much fun to send us a couple of piccies I guess. Come on youse guys!

Steven

[Phillip Allen]

stop, stop! I kain't stand it...Iwanna go too

[John B]

Well some, anyway. I took ~15-1600 photos!!! I'll try to get some up for you (collective) later this week.

John, Kirsty, Alice, Tom and Zoe were fabulous hosts, as well as generally brilliant, witty, clever, talented, kind, etc, etc. Finast Kind.

Waione finished 4th on corrected, foxed out by local 'favored' boats who's handicap didn't match either their performance or years (thirtyish vs a full century). Speaking of which, Waione carries her years well, hull as fair as a baby's backside, and loves having her rail under. I'd never seen water erupt out of scuppers before; very cool.

Magnificent.

[Thad]

Is that you there, Ed? Enjoy!! but then you are, obviously. Cheers!

[StevenBauer]

So where was John's camera?
Thanks for sharing Ed.

Steven

[John B]

Great day on the water with Ed and family. The tall ships and classics event was fun as usual. We did Ok with a 4th ( 6th across the line behind Lion NZ maxi, Phantom a 45 ft S and S I think, Hermes a 53 ft Bruce Clark and Caprice the 30 square metre. Just another mile we would have had her I think.cant think of the other two ?)and 3rd and 2nd went to much smaller and slower boats a long way behind... a very difficult handicapping job so I can understand that. really quite peeved that 1st went to a 1950's bermudan of the same length and speed as us but 20 or 30 minutes behind on the track over a 2 hour 40 minute race!!
ah well.
Lovely to have Ed and family aboard , it sounds like they enjoyed it and we didn't scare em off too much . I have character filled crew and friends and to be honest, the wind came in at ooo about say 18 at times , gusts a bit more and we had our 10 knot configuration set, so we were a tad overpowered at times.
great day though.
Spent last night in a roll and tried to go 20 miles up the coast this am. set 3 reefs in and staysail in about 20 knots , maybe 25 with a strong likely hood of quite a bit more to come in. quite big seas though, one kid upchucking so we peeled off and went to a beach. overcast and due to rain hard so Ed, your timing was impeccable.

[John B]

full boat 12 !!!






the winner we were going the other way halfway down one of the legs

The Spencer,Black Panther leading the tall ships

Tern , The LFH leeboard ketch

Iris the pilot cutter

[John B]

a bit of a run( Whio ahead)

Some analysis after with a bit of elbow bending involved

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

Drool

[Thad]

Thanks John! I see the proof there in the pudding. Great sailing.

[StevenBauer]

Yes! Thanks John.

Steven

[John B]

There's a story in these two flags

and it's hilarious. (Something about two peoples separated by a 'common language') Details to follow. That, and the dropped painter scene were non-sailing highlights.

Oh, and not only are the Bertenshaw/Hardieboys a great and wonderful group, but John B's mother took us for a bit of a tour today - Lone Tree Hill and environs, plus tea and sandwiches.

Wonderful time.

[The Bigfella]

Great summer there John

[Ed Harrow]

We three drove from Auckland up north, kissed Kawakawa (more on that, maybe, later), and then through really twisty turny two lane stuff, until we arrived at Paihia, where we were to wait for Bill and Mike, who arrived in due course, dropping off daughter and boyfriend, filling water tanks, and bringing us back out to Russell and Waione.



Kirsty and John (and either Tom or Jack (or was it Zack)) sizing us up

We had about enough time to stuff our stuff below before hauling the anchor and heading out for the start of the race.



John in charge.



Kirsty and Tony setting the main (or maybe the topsail, or...)



Speaking of which.



This is Debs, triathalete, jib trimmer, running backstay person, and wife of Tony.



Bill, responsible for trimming the mainsail.



Daughter Alice. Impressed the hell out of me with her ease and confidence at the helm (when her Dad could be pried away).



The marker buoys could have been a wee bit bigger, this was the marker locating squad (Tony, Tom, and Jack (or is it Zack), and others were pressed into service as well.



Typical grumpy crew attitude.



There was some argument as to whom would have the joy of yelling "STARBOARD!!!"



Tony, husband of Debs, one half of the 'jib police'.

Hmmm, I didn't know there was a picture limit...

(too be continued)

[Ed Harrow]

Mike (AKA 'Golly'), the other half of the 'jib police'.



Pretty good for a boat nearly 100 years old!



What comes in must go out...



I missed it at 8.something knots

Edited to add this picture to give a true perspective on this beast.



One of SWMTMH's 600 plus picts. I promise I'll be selective




The Bertenshaw-Hardieboys clan relaxing. They had that "Whew, thank god they're leaving." look all over them.

(I regret forgetting my "Bob Cleek lives" sign...)

Oh, and did I tell you that we had a blast, absolute blast, and that Kirsty, John, Alice, Tom and Zoe were the best hosts.

PS: Zoe, sorry for miss-spelling your name when I logged on as Imposter John. Perhaps you could get your Dad to fix it.

[Hwyl]

Kirsty and John (and either Tom or Jack (or was it Zack)) sizing us up

Let's start a movement to get some of these (but especially this) pictures in the magazine.

[Nanoose]

GREAT pics. THANK YOU!!

[Thad]

Thanks Ed! and Gareth, Have you e-mailed Matt yet? WAIONE, all the other classics active in NZ, and their dedicated owners deserve recognition. We appreciate being included in their activities!

[The Bigfella]

Brilliant

[Hwyl]

Thanks Ed! and Gareth, Have you e-mailed Matt yet? WAIONE, all the other classics active in NZ, and their dedicated owners deserve recognition. We appreciate being included in their activities!

I emailed Scot, this is the WBF at it's most positive (well maybe David and Claudia trump this)

[PaulC]

And thats why we love January on New Zeeland!

[StevenBauer]

Thanks Ed. Great pictures! Between the pics and the text messages it's like I was there.

So , with galivanting around the world with your fancy new camera and "consultants" for Phoenix you must be riding high. (page 22 and all)

Steven

[skuthorp]

AAHHHHH!!! what a great time! I can almost feel the spray. Thanks for the pix.

[Ian Marchuk]

This trumps all.... thank you John and crew.
WBF has climbed another notch...

[John B]

Cool shots thanks Ed... good day it certainly was.
Tony , Bill and Golly are our usual race crew and we winter race together on Tony's boat and Bills before that as well ( plus one other crew , Suzy)so you only saw them in a short race. We normally interchange quite a bit and according to what we prefer. Captain Araldite would normally hand over at some point. , often to Bill when he's being downhill Bill, sometimes even when he's being Windward Willy.Mostly to Tony for other windward work and when we need some aggression.
Golly is the thread that ties us all together.Can't go if Golly ain't going.

We've had a couple of days rain and a clear one and a half. Looks like its brewing up for another couple so I'll save the misty rain shots for another day.Caught 4 fish today, we bbq'd em on the beach and didn't leave it till 8.00pm.
weather has gone moody so not sure how its going to go.

[Ed Harrow]

And thats why we love January on New Zeeland!

BRRRRRRR! Summer?



Oh, what a glorious summer day, LOL.

I'll drag out some snow pictures

[Ed Harrow]

Iris



Unkown to me



Likewise, but I'm sure John, or someone, will fill us in.



Debs at work (these three are SWMBOjr pix)

[John B]

The topsail schooner is the R Tucker Thompson, a NZ built copy of a pilot schooner IIRC,... been in a few films etc and is widely travelled. She's now in Charter here in the BOI.
The brigantine is Breeze , designed and built by Ralph Sewell, father of Peter( whio) now run by the national maritime museum.
Woke up early to rain . Had a tosser in a big steel vanderstadt( sp) anchor too close last night, jump in his dinghy and go off for a party somewhere. We didn't hit till this am when the rain came. Did you know how much noise you can make with a winch handle on a bow fitting on a steel boat? Cursing at dawn is better than coffee for a wake up call too.

[Ed Harrow]

John, do you think it would be ok to post a pic of 'the young oarsman' and the dropped painter picts?