ngataki yacht

• 1935: Yacht Ngataki reports via Awarua Radio

One of New Zealand’s best-loved books is South Sea Vagabonds , Johnny Wray’s amazing true story of building and sailing his yacht Ngataki during the 1930s.

In this news report, Awarua Radio relays the welcome news that Ngataki and her crew have survived another of their adventures.

New Zealand Herald , 11 March 1935, p 8

THE NGATAKI’S RETURN YACHT NEARING DOMINION “ALL WELL” REPORTED

[BY TELEGRAPH — PRESS ASSOCIATION] WELLINGTON, Saturday

The director-general of the Post and Telegraph Department has received the following message from the superintendent of the Awarua radio station:— “ Ngakuta reports passing the yacht Ngataki in latitude 41.33 south, longitude 167.06 east from Hobart. Wishes reported all well.”

The position of the yacht at the time of making her report was approximately 300 to 350 miles west of Cape Farewell.

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Wray's Ngataki - the dream that became reality

South sea vagabonds.

Wray had the good fortune to be living in Auckland, New Zealand, in a society that was used to making do, being resourceful and not holding much store by the “proper” way to do things.

Undaunted by his lack of experience, he began making a small model of a boat, using his recollection of the Teddy, a Norwegian pilot boat on which he had previously sailed, as inspiration. Realising rapidly that his skills would preclude an exact copy, he determined that his boat would need to be square bilged and have a stern simpler than Teddy’s. He whittled away at his model until he was happy with its lines and then began acquiring the materials to build his full-size boat.

Wray collected timber from the beaches around Hauraki Gulf, using his friend’s boat to tow the massive logs home. Each of these excursions was an adventure in itself and a series of harsh lessons for the young chancer. At night he chipped excess tar from the side of roads and melted it to coat the No 8 fencing wire he used to bind his boat together. He had a fortunate break when the salvager of the Rewa traded him some wood and materials for fresh food and was lucky in his friends for they lent or gave him tools and encouragement that kept him going through the long build.

Wray settled on a name for his boat by looking through a Maori dictionary. There he found Ngataki, which meant “abode of the elite”, and that was good enough for him.

When his boat was finished the next year, and after a six-month, shakedown laze around the New Zealand coast, he recruited some friends with boating experience for voyages north to the warm Pacific islands. During the next few years, the sturdy Ngataki bore a motley crew to islands that dreams were made of through days of blissful sailing and storms that hardened sailors would have wished to avoid.

In the same understated, knockabout way that he constructed his boat, Wray later pieced together an account of its construction and his first few voyages into the Pacific and across the ditch to Australia. South Sea Vagabonds was first published in 1939. That he was “not a writer” had as little impact on the young Wray as that he had not been a boat builder. Fortunately.

Like his strong, enduring boat (Wray sold Ngataki in 1946 and after several owners it fell into the hands of Debbie Lewis who sailed it around the world and made other voyages before donating it to the Tino Rawa Trust in 2010) his story proved durable too, spawning the dreams of many later sailors and cruisers who went on to build boats or simply buy them and sail away.

The 75 th anniversary edition of Wray’s South Sea Vagabonds (published in 2014) has the sepia-toned Wray on its cover, jaunty captain’s cap on his head, at home in his beloved Ngataki.

Bruce Ansley’s lively and informative introduction to the new edition fills in some telling detail of Wray’s background.

His legend has outlived him. The qualities that are evident in his account – the determination to make something out of nothing, to test himself against the elements, to live his life his own way - are what make his book compelling.

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Johnny Wray didn’t want a knighthood or panhandle for sponsorship, but he probably inspired more Kiwis to go sailing than anyone ever has. Waihape , his last boat and the one he owned the longest, is languishing among the mangroves in Hokianga Harbour. Story by Lindsay Wright

In the time it takes to lick an ice cream down to the cone, you can walk from central Rawene, to where a tangle of mud-footed mangroves crowds the beach. Bits of broken boat are strewn on the foreshore but it’s easy to make out the broad transom and art-déco deckhouse of Johnny Wray’s  Waihape.

Broken windows and a partly-demolished cockpit have let rain in, but the hull is not irreparably breached and most of the frames seem intact. A 3LW Gardner and Gardner gearbox have deteriorated to a rusty lump amidships and slimy mud coats the bilges, but a nameplate on the deckhouse still carries the derelict’s name.

Most of the planks are full-length kauri and the copper rivets seem tight. It’s a place to spend quiet time – like a decaying shrine to the iconic Kiwi seaman, boatbuilder and voyager.

Waihape,  it must be said, was a very different boat from Wray’s legendary first build,  Ngataki  – the vessel central to his enduring classic –  South Sea Vagabonds.  And he says as much. Writing in the May 1949 edition of the Australian magazine  Seacraft,  Wray writes the following about his new boat:

“On 5th December last, I, and about 40 other AuckIand yachtsmen, launched my latest boat, which I, together with the aforementioned 40 other Auckland yachtsmen well and truly christened  Waihape  (a Maori word meaning ‘to always return’).

“This was, as can well be imagined, a big event in my life, marking the end of a long story of boatbuilding, and also marking, I hope, the beginning of an even longer story of cruising and beachcombing.

“She is a ketch-rigged motor sailer, 44ft by 13ft with a shallow draught of 3’ 6”. The idea was to have a boat small enough to sail single-handed, large enough to go anywhere in comfort, and capable of cruising for at least six months without touching civilisation. Sounds easy enough, but it took a bit of working out.

“An electric refrigerator has a deep freeze compartment that will carry 300lbs of meat at 16oF below zero, so it will last indefinitely.

The fuel tanks total 500 gallons and the fresh water tanks also total 500 gallons, making 1000 gallons altogether. The main engine is a 16hp Lister diesel driving a 24 by 24 propeller through a 2:1 reduction gear.

“It is not very powerful, but it is reliable and economical, which is far more important for extended cruising. There is also an 8hp Lister diesel which drives another propeller of the same size through a 3:1 reduction, or a 110-volt 4kW generator. So there is plenty of electricity floating about.

“And there are plenty of gadgets to use it – about 1,000 watts of lights, electric capstan, refrigerator (which hogs the juice), shower pump, bilge pumps, lavatory, exhaust blowers, radio, stove lighters, etc. Both engines are cooled by freshwater in a 20-gallon tank in the engine room, from which the hot water system runs, including a hot shower in a small shower room – a brilliant idea.

“When the cooling water reaches about 180oF it is diverted through cooling pipes under the boat. The Freon 12 liquid of the fridge is also cooled through pipes under the boat, which is more efficient than the air-cooled or heat exchanger units. From the cockpit one goes into the galley, where it could be said that I have spread myself a bit.

“To my mind most galleys are too small considering the time you spend in them. Mine is 14’ by 12’ with 7’ headroom. It sounds far too big, but it is well filled up and the actual floor room is only about 6’ by 8’.

“On the port side there is a steering position (for inclement weather there is also steering by tiller in the cockpit), a small shower room, the fridge and a number of lockers. To starboard there is a plate rack, a 5’ stainIess steel sink bench, three Coleman benzene stoves set in gimbals in stainless steel, and – my pride and joy – a 3’ enamelled wood stove with a healthy-sized oven that is excellent when there is any serious cooking to be done, such as baking bread or roasting.

“There is plenty of driftwood to be picked up and the old stove is seldom out. The main cabin has a large table 5’ 6 by 4’ 6 under which is a 300-gallon water tank. It has seats on three sides and two bunks on the starboard.”

This is all a far cry from Johnny’s earlier vessel,  Ngataki,  with her driftwood construction, #8 fencing wire fasteners and 44-gallon drum tankage – but when he built  Waihape  he was 18 years older and just finished a lucrative war time stint as navigator, then in air-sea rescue boats, for the RNZAF.

“The whole set up sounds very complicated and expensive,” he admitted, “for someone who has loosely been described as the uncrowned king of the beachcombers. It is complicated – my homemade switchboard is 6’ high and has 32 switches, five meters and three field rheostats, fuses etc – and gave me a few headaches – but it was not expensive.

“The engines, stoves, tanks and sink were the only things that cost real money. All the gadgets were driven by old, burned-out car generators that I rewound to suit the job. I rewound a dozen car generators – so now I consider myself, among other things, an armature winder.

“You have to be a jack-of-all-trades to build a boat this size singlehanded,” he continued. “Besides being a mere boatbuilder you have to be engineer, sailor, plumber, glass cutter, electrician, painter, rigger, cabinet maker, carpenter….and bull’s wool artist.”

“It would have given me a terrible fright if I had thought of all the things that I would ultimately have to do – I would never have started it. I worked about half part-time and half full-time – 12 hours a day, six days a week,” he wrote. At the same time he also built six dinghies inside  Waihape  and sold them to help pay for materials.

First off, he built an 18’ launch –  Sprat  – and reverted to the modus operandi he’d used building  Ngataki  – salvaging kauri logs off beaches in the Hauraki Gulf, often chugging through a small opening in the anti-submarine boom erected to safeguard Auckland Harbour in wartime, dodging patrol boats and searchlights, bound for the nearest sawmill.

Sprat  was painted dark blue for maximum stealth. He remarked that there weren’t as many logs around as there had been when he built  Ngataki  and he had to go a lot further afield to get enough.

Ngataki  was sold to pay for the engines and other fittings but  Waihape  was built on the cheap too. He had also learned a bit about boat launching.  Ngataki  fell over twice and survived other mishaps, including almost flooding through the vacant stern gland during launching.  Waihape,  though, slid smoothly down the ways from a shed on the Wray’s Waiheke Island property and into her natural element.

Waihape  was a curious vessel,” author Bruce Ansley says in the foreword to the 2014 edition of Wray’s  South Sea Vagabonds.  “It took him five years to build – much longer than  Ngataki.”  Ansley also recorded Wray’s assessment of the boat: ‘all the things I wanted in my dream boat were put in a pot and boiled up – with the result that the finished boat turned out like nothing on earth.’

“She had two short masts to carry sail, and a ‘turtle deck’ with a varnished wheelhouse at the back,” Ansley added. “She may not have been beautiful – but she was seaworthy. She made at least four return trips to Tonga and, with his (Tongan-born] wife, Loti, he cruised up the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.”

Within a few decades an onslaught of yachting bureaucracy would have kept  Waihape  tied to the wharf – no lifelines, no stanchions, no EPIRB, flares or SSB, no trysail or plotter – just commonsense and good seamanship.

At home on Waiheke Island, Wray used the boat for fishing, selling his catch from the wharf at Matiatia or anchoring in shallow water off Oneroa so people could wade out to buy dinner.

Eventually old age forced  Waihape’s  sale and Wray sat on the wharf with his neighbour and soul mate, Harry Sooma, and wept while she sailed for Great Barrier Island with her new owners. Later, a rebuilt Gardner replaced the Listers and, after about 20 years at Great Barrier, she was sailed to the Bay of Islands to begin a refit which never eventuated. Her next voyage was on a truck to a mangrove berth at Rawene.

By 1986 Johnny was dead, aged 76, from melanoma and leukemia.

And if he could see  Waihape  now – he’d still be weeping.

WAIHAPE  SPECIFICATIONS

designer & builder J. Wray construction kauri plank/copper rivets loa 13.4m beam 4.0m draught 1.07m engines 2 x Lister (CE and Freedom models) and 3LW Gardner tankage 4500 litres (2250l fuel, 2250l water)

Local men Phil Abbott and Jack Korewhe acquired  Waihape  and began restoration work but couldn’t find anyone to haul her out and transport her to a builder’s yard in Rawene.

“People went on board and helped themselves to fittings and a solar panel was stolen – then we found she had really bad teredo worm in one of the garboards,” says Phil. “Jack pulled out of the project, then people complained to the harbourmaster about her being there and he threatened to fine me.”

So in March  Waihape  changed hands again, given to new owners and towed across the harbour to be hauled out of the water and converted into a sleep-out.

Power-on: Trim tabs for safety and speed

Up, up and away!

World-class show

Opportunity knocks

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

AN ECLECTIC COLLECTION OF IDEAS OPINIONS AND INTERESTS

Monday, March 21, 2016

Ngataki classic yacht race.

4 comments:

Really enjoyed this video, Alden. What elegant yachts. It's great to see those grand vessels still sailing today.

Thanks for your comment Dan. It is great to see our yachting heritage actually sailing, rather than being simply housed in a Museum. Of course keeping them sailing costs money, so it is good that a number of 'Trusts' have been formed to maintain and sail these great old boats.

The yachts of the gilded age (from approximately 1890s - 1920s) were grand indeed. Very nice to look at, but really they were playthings for the wealthy and powerful. Much more appealing to me is the sailing culture of the 50's and 60's, little boats for the middle classes that popularized sailing for average income families. That's what we had when I came of age. My first major purchases were a state-of-the art Laser and a Fiat to carry it around, bought with disposable income as a beginning teacher. Those times seem so far away now. Sad. With the redistribution of wealth upwards and the attendant loss of the middle classes, yachting has gone back to its former ways: toys for the wealthy. (Think of the Americas Cup in San Francisco.) Here in the US even small sailboats like Lasers are well out of reach for most Millennials who in this economy struggle to have steady jobs that would pay for cars, never mind a sailboat or a place to store one. A beginning teacher in America today could not even allow himself to dream of affording to sail a Laser competitively.

Dan, you are right in that yachting has its origins in wealth and privilege, but if you look between the lines of yachting history there have always been people who have been able to 'beat the system'. I am thinking here of the designers Albert Strange and George Holmes (Book: Holmes of the Humber) who formed the Humber Yawl Club in the UK in the late 1890s and who had wonderful adventures along the coast and as far away as the waterways of Europe sailing their very small 'Canoe Yawls'. There are a number of examples such as this in the maritime literature. We both share the working class experiences of that golden age of centreboard sailing of the 1950s and 60s. But to get a larger yacht during those days meant that as a beginning teacher myself I had to build my own 30 foot keel boat at home in my parents back yard. Today the banks would lend me the money or I could go the less wise route (but doable) and put the cost of a keeler on the house mortgage. I don't support what really is an obscenity when it comes to the whole Americas Cup fiasco and I resent the fact that the NZ tax payer puts money into this (The benefits to the country are I think over rated and under researched). I agree that working people are up against it when it comes to being able to purchase state of the art competitive yachts. An Olympic Finn - $40,000+, Ok Dinghy - $27,000, Laser - $10,000, NZ Starling - $9000 ..... and what is worse is that with the way employment law has gone in New Zealand a lot of young people don't have adequate time off to compete seriously in any sport.... don't get me started!!!!!! But one of the ironies of all this is that entry level can be easily made (whether Keeler or centreboard yacht) because there is now a wealth of good boats available on the second hand market... ... With a bit of work and effort you can make a boat competitive again... yesterday in my restored Starling I won all three races in the OYCs Tuesday evening events, and last weekend (8 races over 2 days) I was placed 2nd overall : > )

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