Classic Yacht Revival by Bruce Stannard / Waitangi reaching along Auckland’s North Shore.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, trans-Tasman yachting came to be dominated by beautiful vessels designed and built with meticulous care by two of New Zealand’s great boat-building rivals, the Bailey and the Logan families of Auckland.
Fiercely competitive, innovative and gifted, Charles Bailey and Robert Logan and their sons sought to outdo each other in creating boats that were the noble epitome of speed and grace under sail.
Glorious gaff-cutters like Ngatira, Ariki, Rawene, Viking and Rainbow became household names and the racing exploits of their smartly clad crews were eagerly followed by a keenly interested and knowledgeable sporting public.
It was much the same on our side of The Ditch. Great racing yachts like Sayonara, Waitangi, Rawhiti, Akarana and Yeulba were either built for Australian clients or came here to campaign in the cut-throat racing that then characterised Inter-Dominion competition.
Preparing to race, Ngatira and Rawene raft up in Auckland’s Viaduct Basin.As different as they were, Logan and Bailey boats had one magic ingredient in common: they were all built from Kauri, undoubtedly one of the finest and most durable boat building timbers in the world. It is Kauri (Agathis australis) that deserves much of the credit for keeping so many of these classic boats alive.
Now strictly protected and a restricted export, the giant Kauri, once among the biggest and oldest trees on the planet, was logged in such vast numbers that by the end of the Second World War the species seemed to be endangered. Today. The Waipoua Forest, just north of Auckland, has 9,000ha of big Kauri and nearby Trouson Park has a further 450ha.
At the close of the colonial era, some 35,000 square kilometres of New Zealand’s native forest had been cleared. Among the fallen trees were some that were 2,500 years old. The great Kauri logs, including many that were up to 75 feet in girth and well over 100 feet long, were felled, snigged out of the forest and hauled down to the coastal mills.
Ivor Wilkins’s book on the revival of Classic boating in New Zealand.There they were often allowed to lie in salt water for up to two years before they faced the pit saws. Thus pickled, the honey-coloured, knot-free, straight-grained Kauri, already rich in natural resins, became impervious to rot. Provided it could be kept free of fresh water it would last indefinitely.  
Logan and Bailey boats were often built with double and sometimes triple diagonal Kauri planking. The frames and stringers were Kauri and so were the decks and all the interior fittings.
In later years when many of the magnificent old boats suffered unspeakable indignities at the hands of ignorant and indifferent owners, it was the unshakeable integrity of the Kauri that saved them. With their once lofty spars cut down or hacked off altogether and hideous dog boxes built over their decks, the boats fetched up in various backwaters where they often lay unloved and derelict for decades.
There, one by one, they have been found and rescued by sympathetic souls who were able to see beyond the hideous accretions.
All creatures great and small. Waitangi’s enormous gaff-rig towers over a tiny skiff on Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour.Over the past 20 years, dozens of historic boats of all shapes and sizes have been given a new lease of life. So much so that the Classic Boat Revival in New Zealand has now taken on something of the fervour of an evangelical movement with hundreds of devotees giving rise to an extraordinary flowering in traditional boat-building, rigging and sail-making skills.
All this enterprise and initiative has been meticulously documented in a handsomely illustrated new book: CLASSIC The Revival of Classic Boating in New Zealand by the distinguished writer and photographer, Ivor Wilkins. Its 448 pages, which include hundreds of stunning action photographs and beautifully-drawn sailplans, make this one of the most comprehensive and lavishly illustrated boating books that I have ever come across.
It is, I think, a must for anyone with an interest in maritime heritage for it shows what can be done when dedicated and highly skilled men and women focus on preserving the boats that embody a nation’s cultural legacy.
Harold Kidd, the Auckland lawyer and highly respected New Zealand maritime historian who restored the 1880 Robert Logan cutter Jessie Logan, sums up the situation in a perceptive Foreword.
“The love of old boats runs deep in this country for a mixture of reasons,” he writes. “Firstly, a large proportion of our population is descended from relatively recent ancestors, both Maori and pakeha, who arrived here in sailing vessels over the last millennium.
“Secondly, no place anywhere in this elongated set of islands is far from the open sea, a lake or a river. These waters have provided us with a source of food and a means of transport, recreation and sport since the earliest days.
“Thirdly, New Zealanders have, until very recently, been so frugal that they don’t throw away good gear that can be repaired again and again. Hence, we have an unusual culture where our old, extraordinarily well-designed and well-built yachts, launches and workboats survive in amazing numbers.”
Harold Kidd says New Zealand is “embarrassed by riches” when it comes to classic boats and he predicts there are many more restoration projects yet to come.
I wish the same might be said of Australia.
Although there have been several examples of first class restoration work in Victoria, we still have several historic yachts that are crying out for urgent restoration.
One of these is the lovely Logan brothers cutter Yeulba, which under the ownership of Governor General, Lord Forster, was once Australia’s most successful racing yacht. She is now sitting on the hard in Tim Phillips’ yard at Sorrento, waiting for just the right person to breathe new life into her lovely Kauri hull.