Two yachts had dominated Auckland first-class yacht racing in a friendly fashion throughout the 80s, Tom Henderson’s Chas Bailey-built Rita and J.L.R. Bloomfield’s Robert Logan-built Arawa, both launched in 1882. But, as the 1890s progressed, an infinitely more intense and personal rivalry arose between the 5-raters built by the Logans and the Baileys. For a short time, they had competition from the Waymouths, John Waymouth Sr. who had been designing and building fast yachts since Glitter in 1863, and his sons Noll and John Waymouth Jr.
The first ‘rater’ designed and built in New Zealand as such was the 5-rater Moana, built by Robert Logan Sr at Devonport for W.R. ‘Willie’ Wilson of the New Zealand Herald in December 1890. She was considerably smaller than the later 5-raters at 37ft loa, 28ft lwl, 9ft beam, 5ft 5ins draught but Moana was a landmark design for several reasons.
Firstly, Moana was designed as a racer to conform to the recently-introduced international rules which had created a series of ‘rater’ classes based on their ‘rating’, derived from length and sail area, rather than length and breadth alone, which had resulted in over-canvassed narrow-gutted ‘lead-mines’ receiving a better handicap than more seaworthy craft with a sensible breadth to length ratio. Artificially, the new rating was expressed as equivalent to the ‘tonnage’ under the superseded system. The classes arising under the new rules went from ‘half-raters’, like Auckland’s later 18ft 6in centreboard ‘patikis’, through to the two most popular of the keel yacht rater classes locally, the 2½-raters and the 5-raters.
Secondly, New Zealand was finally struggling out of the ‘Long Depression’ of the 1880s. Moana was an example of contemporary conspicuous consumption for a wealthy and skilled yachtsman. She heralded a new wave of pur sang racing yacht construction, as distinct from many of her Logan and Bailey predecessors, which were built with a probable end-use as fishing boats or even as small traders here or in the Pacific Islands. Logan’s Akarana of 1888, built to race in Melbourne under the superseded Thames Rule, had pointed the way. Moana shared Akarana’s ‘clipper bow’ but was a generation in advance in her hull design.
Thirdly, Moana signalled the start of heightened competition between the houses of Logan and Bailey, a rivalry that had flourished since Robert Logan Sr launched his crack second-class centre-boarder Jessie Logan in January 1880, entering commercial yacht construction, a field that Charles Bailey Sr. had pretty much dominated since 1872 when he took over George Beddoes’ North Shore yard and built Fleetwing. There developed an ever-increasing battle, season after season, between these two brilliant Auckland dynasties of yacht builders to produce the fastest, most up-to-date and the most beautiful racing yachts for the New Zealand and, later, the Australian and South African markets.
After the launch of Moana no new 5-raters were built for another year until, in October 1891, Chas Bailey Sr built Mahina (4.6 rating), for J.R. Gibbons of Wellington. In November John Waymouth Jr built Toroa (3.75 rating) for a syndicate of Clarke, Tripp and Goodacre, and, in December, Bailey built Constance (4.16 rating) for the Jagger brothers of Auckland. All three yachts were of archaic form, not built to the spirit of the rules but happened to rate around 5.
By the local 1892-3 season new overseas yacht designs were capturing local attention. Yankee Nat Herreshoff’s 1891 Gloriana became the benchmark for keel yacht design overnight. With a heavily raked straight bow, Gloriana eliminated the archaic concave ‘schooner’ or ‘clipper’ bow and the deep forefoot which had been essential to get maximum benefit from the Thames Rule. At the same time, New Zealand was entering
a remarkable period of reform and prosperity under the Liberal Government, enabling yachtsmen to at last afford to build craft to the new design parameters. The local builders most interested in the development of yacht design, the Logans, the Baileys and the Waymouths, became heavily influenced by Gloriana.
The 1892-3 season produced no less than three genuinely Herreshoff-inspired 2½-raters and three 5-raters. Of the 2½-raters, Waymouth Sr. died just before his Yum Yum was launched and she suffered from lack of his overview. Bailey’s eldest son Charles built Rogue as a private venture. Rogue was a fine yacht, well sailed, but the season was dominated by Gloriana, a totally Herreshoff-tribute yacht, built by three of Robert Logan’s sons, John (Jock), Arch and Robert Jr. As I have shown in recent articles, Gloriana quickly proved herself the best boat, making the Logan boys’ reputation with one yacht.
Of the new season’s three 5-raters, Robert Logan Sr.’s Aorere (November 1892, 5.8 rating) was top boat, streets ahead of Bailey Sr.’s Miharo (December 1892, 5.5 rating), an embarrassment soon relegated to cruising and then to the fishing fleet. Robert Logan Sr also built the seriously smart and competitive Rona (January 1893, 4.8 rating) on commission for Alexander Turnbull of Wellington. In contemporary newspapers, Rona was said to be to a design by G. L Watson, but the Lloyds Yacht Register had her designer as “R. Logan”. In fact, her lines were probably derived from Watson’s Valentine published in
a book by Dixon Kemp. Sailed by Arch Buchanan, Rona won the Auckland Anniversary Regatta First Class race in a re-sail before being sailed down to Wellington by Capt. Butt.
Only one new 2½-rater was built for the 1893-4 season, Charles Bailey Jr.’s Daisy, launched on December 23 1893, on the same tide as his father’s magnum opus, the 67-footer Viking. Gloriana remained unbeaten in the 2½-rater races.
In December 1893 three new 5-raters were built for the next season. Robert Logan Sr built Ngaru (3.95 rating) for J.C. Webster and W.E. Bennett. Logan Bros launched Kestrel (6.09 rating) for the Jeffreys brothers of Maraetai. But the yacht of the season was Yvonne, (precisely 4.98 rating) built by Robert Logan Sr. for solicitor Arch Buchanan in which Buchanan claimed design input. She was outstanding from the start, and the first yacht to beat Aorere consistently. Yvonne’s later exploits under Prof. Scott of Christchurch are legendary, of course.
After the launch of Viking, Bailey Sr. retired at the age of 48 and sold his business to his sons Charles Jr. (28) and Walter (26). They traded as ‘C. & W. Bailey’ but were commonly called ‘Bailey Bros’ to parallel the three Logan sons who had set up on their own as ‘Logan Bros’ after the success of Gloriana. In the winter of 1894, the Bailey brothers built the pretty centreboard cutter Atalanta (4.82 rating) for Napier, but she was sailed to Napier and did all her racing in Wellington.
Yacht design continued to develop rapidly in Great Britain and the United States. Hard on Nat Herreshoff’s heels was Scotsman G.L. Watson whose designs for the Prince of Wales’ yacht Britannia and her near-sister Valkyrie II, the America’s Cup challenger, were a sensation when they were launched in April 1893 on the Clyde. They both had similar underwater sections to Gloriana but moved to a rounded or ‘spoon’ bow, which is natural to our eyes but was thought of as quite ugly at the time. The spoon bow provided more buoyancy forward and, if designed well, more speed, but there was still hesitancy about this strange convex bow in a yachting culture accustomed to perpendicular, ‘clipper’, ‘schooner’ or even rule-cheating reverse ‘ram bows’.
In fact, John Waymouth Sr had played with a spoon bow as early as 1883 with his design for the centre-boarder Seagull, built for fisherman W. Knox. She performed so well that the Waymouths bought her back, converted her to a deadwood keeler and renamed her Mapu. She was very successful in Auckland and later Wellington second-class racing, but nobody followed her example.
After Britannia’s model became accepted and most people had adjusted their aesthetics, the first spoon bow to appear in this country was on Zinita, a 2½-rater built by the Bailey brothers on spec for themselves to race in December 1894. They touted her to be the nemesis of Gloriana. And it was a close-run thing. After a series of wins by both boats, protests and demands for remeasurements, James Dunning retired Gloriana to Mahurangi.
The two 5-raters of the 1894-5 season were a mixed bag. Both were launched in January 1895. The first was the latest brave attempt to build a steel yacht in Auckland. Designed by William Seager in conjunction with Noll Waymouth and built at Seager Bros’ foundry for Val Masefield, Thetis (5.5 rating) was the second Auckland yacht to sport the spoon bow. She too was considered very ugly at the time and was referred to in the press as ‘the Tank’, although she looks most attractive to modern eyes. Despite being sailed by the crack amateur helmsman Walter Jones of Jessie Logan fame, her performance was patchy. Yvonne easily outran her. Logan Bros brought out the very pretty Ladye Wilma for Dr F.W. Coates of Waiheke, but she was principally for cruising and rated at only 4.3.
