Retro Boats

Boating Clubs & Associations

Grace, pace and space

Mylne was a man of independent thought.

1 year ago

A fresh restart

"She’s gonna be a Tesla on the water!"

1 year ago

Boating Heritage

Bill Couldrey Part 6: World War II

Under the shadow of likely war with Germany on the other side of the globe, 1939 was a very full year for Bill Couldrey’s yard.

2 years ago

Boating Heritage

One man and his boats: Harold George; Victory and the Norfolk Island adventure

By December 1928 the brothers Harold and Geoff George had the reputation of being game sailors, with a good sea-boat in Victory. They sailed her hard,...

2 years ago

August 2022

HAROLD GEORGE: Celox and Victory

With connections to the Couldrey family and growing up in Northcote on Auckland’s North Shore, Harold George could hardly escape becoming a fine seama...

3 years ago

August 2022

ONE FAMILY’S BOATING JOURNEY – How much power?

On land it is easy to forget about power and often we (particularly our teenagers) aren’t concerned about leaving lights on in unoccupied rooms, or le...

3 years ago

Mystic Miss: Forgotten Warrior

In 1969, offshore powerboat racing was about to break away from competing in production recreational runabouts.

3 years ago

April 2022

VINTAGE VIEW – ONE MAN AND HIS BOATS; HARRY JENKINS, PART3 – Wartime Pacific cruises

Harry Jenkins could trace his ancestry through his mother’s side back to Sir Francis Drake. His new yacht, Golden Hind, the biggest private yacht yet ...

3 years ago

March 2022

ONE MAN AND HIS BOATS; HARRY JENKINS, PART 2 – The golden years

After Shenandoah was launched in December 1929, Harry Jenkins had little time to enjoy his wonderful new launch peacefully. Two months before, the wor...

3 years ago

ONE MAN AND HIS BOATS; HARRY JENKINS, PART 1. Strictly business

Harry Reginald Jenkins was a prominent Auckland businessman, launch owner and yachtsman for 30 years from 1916. Harry was born in Eltham, Taranaki,...

3 years ago

GEORGE DIBBERN; THE 1934 TRANS-TASMAN RACE PT 111 / Te Rapunga versus Ngataki

At North Head, Te Rapunga led Ngataki by half a mile and drew steadily away in the broad lead up the coast into a rising easterly. Te Rapunga last sig...

3 years ago

GEORGE DIBBERN; THE 1934 TRANSTASMAN RACE / Symbol of freedom

The moment they arrived in March 1934 George Dibbern and Te Rapunga were good news in Auckland. George seemed to be a new face of Germany; not the com...

3 years ago

Boat World

Rotoiti Wooden Boat Parade

The Classic Wooden Boat Association’s 25th annual boat parade and fun weekend is scheduled for February 4, 2022, Waitangi Weekend. The organisers woul...

3 years ago

The yacht a town built – Pleiades pride

Noel Priar was a boatman until the end. Even in his 80s, his rheumy old eyes would get a gleam on when someone dropped by to talk boats, or another re...

4 years ago

Reflections

THE HARRY POPE STORY – Lived his dream

Many of Auckland’s boating community were saddened to hear that boatbuilder, surveyor and sailor Harry Pope had recently passed the bar. Fortunately, ...

4 years ago

Images reflect ocean’s anguish

Britain’s Mandy Barker is an international award-winning photographer raising awareness about plastic pollution in the world’s oceans, highlighting it...

4 years ago

CALLIOPE SEA SCOUTS’ CENTENARY Scouting for the generations

Founded in June 1921 at HMS Philomel, the Devonport Naval Base, Calliope Sea Scouts Troop is the oldest surviving Sea Scout troop in New Zealand. I ac...

4 years ago

The largest square-rigger

At some future point when Covid allows cruise enthusiasts back on board, you might want to check out the just-launched Golden Horizon. At 525ft long (...

4 years ago

THE JIM LOTT STORY Lifelong voyage

Jim Lott’s had a diverse career – teaching navigation and seamanship, helping establish boating regulations, advising national bodies and countless 10...

4 years ago

TRIPLE HAPPY

Words Alex Stone, Photos Lesley Stone. Here’s a story of a boat and a bloke that couldn’t be kept apart. Even after two trial separations. N...

4 years ago

June 2021

The beauty of junk

There are books and then there are dangerous books. Dangerous books cannot be forgotten and can change your life. Sailor/author Annie Hill wrote a dan...

4 years ago

Bill Couldrey – Nancye to Little Jim

Bill Couldrey came ashore in 1931 from his job as ship’s carpenter on the Government Island steamer Maui Pomare – and despite the difficult times quic...

4 years ago

The Duck that wouldn’t die

The little clinker’s been fitted with numerous propulsion systems over the years but, tantalisingly, the research suggests she was first electrically-...

4 years ago

Frostbites & Christmas cruises

I recently bought a photograph album on TradeMe with some cracking 1940s–1950s images of Frostbites. But who were the people in the pics and what stor...

4 years ago

Boat Brief

Expect the unusual

Kiwis short of ‘staycation’ ideas should check out the NZ Antique & Classic Boat Show. Held annually since 1999 at Lake Rotoiti in the Nelson Lake...

4 years ago

Ethel–John Street again!

John Street has been personally responsible for the saving and superb restorations of many of our classic yachts, both from the Logan and Bailey stabl...

4 years ago

Doctor in the house

Yachtsman heroes of the Spanish Flu: Doctor Robert Haldane Makgill, Part 1.

5 years ago

THE SPANISH FLU OF 1918 Lest we forget

It’s a grim fact that the current Covid-19 epidemic is just the latest in the waves of pandemics that have swept through humanity regularly since reco...

5 years ago

Austin Powered

Low, sleek and powerful, an Austin-Healey sports car is a rare classic – prized by collectors all over the world. But rarer still – particularly in Ne...

5 years ago

The Jagger brothers & John Burns

When Capt. John Carrick Hewson was drowned off his steamer Waitoa at Clevedon in 1896, his wife Ellen was left with eight children aged between 2 and ...

5 years ago

Ida sails again

Around 125 years after she was first launched in Auckland, the 1895 58-foot gaff-rigged racer Ida is back on the Waitemata Harbour, sleek and gleaming...

5 years ago

The Hewsons part 2: The Jagger brothers & John Burns

When Capt. John Carrick Hewson was drowned off his steamer Waitoa at Clevedon in 1896, his wife Ellen was left with eight children aged between 2 and ...

5 years ago

Boat Brief

The oldest outboard

A reader came across an article in our September 2019 issue about members of the Antique Outboard Motor Club Incorporated (AOMCI) and the origins of t...

5 years ago

LION LADY

A launch built for Lake Wakatipu 108 years ago is in the final stages of a full restoration, a project that’s demanded intricate boatbuilding skills f...

5 years ago

Leading the way

The Hewson family had a major involvement in the development of the sport of yachting in Auckland from the latter part of the 19th century until well ...

5 years ago

NZ Antique & Classic Boat Show 2020

Jacqueline – a 22-foot 1964 Riva Ariston once owned by former US First Lady Jackie Kennedy – captured the hearts of the judges and took the top award...

5 years ago

Charles Bailey’s Milkmaid

In the first years of the 20th century farmers’ launches became the pick-up trucks of their age.

5 years ago