'WAIONE'
BOAT OF THE MONTH
AUGUST 2002
Page 2
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Waione, 1907 Charles Bailey Jnr Design.
Built by the Sutherland Bros at Devonport, Auckland.
Kirsty and I bought Waione in 1983 as a cutter rigged boat with a cut down rig, a short bowsprit, ripe sails and a Ford Consul motor.
She had a great history, but as with a lot of boats, she’d been through some good and some poor owners in her lifetime. Many times , I’ve been told about her languishing at Matiatia with the mast out of her, full of water and with birds living in and on her. Anyone who saw the boat at that time would not have believed that she could come back. We might argue that in any other country, made from any other material, she wouldn’t. We are very lucky in this country, to have boats built so well of Kauri timber and copper and bronze fastening.
So we’ve owned the boat now for nearly 19 years, and we’ve followed the philosophy of trying to get ahead periodically by doing a project as well as the annual maintenance each year. One year, in the early 90’s, she went into a shed and I built a new cockpit .At the same time , I lopped off the doghouse and built new hatches. After turfing the Consul, we’d sailed about 7 years without a motor but started to struggle at our second child. Why? We couldn’t get a weekends worth of bags, food and babies in the dinghy to get out to the mooring in Hobson Bay. So , In the mid 90’s ,I fitted a new Lombardini 27 hp motor, which continues to run like a sewing machine and allowed us to take a pile mooring in Westhaven.
The rig.
She came out as a gaff topsail cutter and stayed that way until circa 1930 when she was modified to a high peak gaff and had some ballast added. I know the boat pretty well and regard her as very stiff. 20 to 25 degrees of heel is about normal for us, but I’ve heard tales that she wasn’t always this way. “ lay down and kick” was one phrase I had repeated to me. She doesn’t do that now, in fact, she carries her sail very well.
She had that rig, the high peak gaff, until 1950 or so and lost it overboard in the anniversary regatta. The first Bermudan rig went in at that time. By about 1960 that mast was replaced with a very tall ( 50ft Hoist) spruce mast and she went racing again. At some time after that, perhaps early 70’s, that rig was cut down to a 40 ft hoist and there was even a brief experiment with a yawl rig ( soon removed).
That’s the rig we got her with, shortish, Bermudan with a truncated boom and the stubby bowsprit. I developed that rig as much as I could by extending the bowsprit and boom and she ended up going pretty well although with essentially a number 2 setup. There was a drama for us though. We dropped that rig over the side at Gt Barrier. We’d sailed over in weather which had been upgraded to a wind warning, surfed down waves along the coast of Gt Barrier, gybed in pretty dramatic seas to slide into Man o’ War Passage, got right into the harbour and dropped the mast in front of the hundreds of boats sheltering in schoolhouse bay. If it had gone 10 minutes earlier , she was a goner. We had new sails and I fitted another Bermudan mast out of Ariel to get us through another few years.
Now here’s the thing, I’d always dreamed of the ideal of roaring down the harbour with a big gaff rig in her. By the late 90’s she was coming up for sails again and I’d picked up the idea of making the change around the existing spar and fittings. I tried out many ideas for the sail plan and settled on a gaff topsail rig with a fairly high peak and that’s exactly what I got.
It’s worked out very well. We’ve increased our performance substantially, still sail the boat 2 handed and can set a topsail for races and regattas.
In the 2001 racing year we won the Logan cup points prize for classic yachts but more importantly to me, put down some credible performances on the water against some well known and fast yachts.
I’m pleased that we made the change.
The Kids Dinghies
The Kids, all three of em, don’t know anything else except sailing in summer. They all went straight onto the boat as soon as the weather would allow ( as they were produced) and they all have their own boats to take with them.
Scoot1 was the first one and is a bookshelf now. I learnt quite a bit from this boat. It started out as a dory like affair and was crank. The first thing I had to do was split in half and glue in a piece of cheese to get some more beam in it .My first Girl used this boat extensively even though it was the second’s boat. We used it for 2 seasons until Scoot 2 got tacked up.
Scoot 2 used the same side panels ( because I liked the bow shape) and had a wider bottom panel and transom. It’s about 5 ft long, stitch and tape and has been thrashed by all sorts of kids aged through to 10 year olds. Just last season I felt I should make another so Zip was made.
Zip is about 5’6” and is made with a removable thwart so Scoot can nest inside.
With Zip, I was looking at fining up the exit and I’m pleased with the result. She gets along really well and I had to progressively increase the oar length to get the gearing right. She’s fairly light and easy to carry around at about 13 kg.
It’s a good feling for me, seeing the competence my children exhibit in their dinghies.
We send them off to the beach or the rocks in their own boats and us adults trail along at our own time and pace. Good return on time invested , I say.
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