Faffing

The sponsor having a bit of a faff. I think we forgot to tie of the connecting line for the fore and aft mooring lines.

Reasons to be cheerful. Part 3 (part 2)

These are pics from when we took Belgian Ben out. He didn't like it that the spinnaker looks like a Dutch flag!

Rum Race

The sponsor and I took Ben out last night. The course was to take us into the channel where strangely there was no wind so, rather than bobbing aroung in the dark with neither motor nor nav lights waiting for a ferry to bump into us we stayed with the breeze inshore and came home early.

Mikey's Galatea won the rum though so all was well.

We're getting good at the old sailing off and on our mooring in the marina now. Respect in the clubhouse!

gfdkjgn

Fireworks

Guy Fawkes night at the sheds Thursday night. It's a video.
When did crowds lose yay and start going whoop?

reasons to be cheerful, part 4

Went out last Saturday with the sponsor and Mike but didnt take any pics. So here's some taken in June on Mike's boat Galatea, built 1910 by the Le Huquets.

I'm the scruffy hairy one, and Mike's the other scruffy hairy one.

Reasons to be cheerful. Part 3

Some pics from the weekend sailing with the Sponsor and Ben the Belgian. As you can see there was bugger all wind and at times we had to start the auxiliary engine (see bottom pic)

Blow it up man

A story about Roydon Thomas from NZ Skipper magazine 2007.
http://www.skipper.co.nz/S59%20WEB/S59%20Hautapu%20Sinking%20p25.pdf

I might say that his participation has been common knowledge for some time, though it's nice to have details.


HAUTAPU SINKING MAY BE SOLVED

BY LYNTON DIGGLE
September/October 2007 Professional Skipper p25

It was one of the most frustrating
maritime mysteries of 1966. Who
blew up and sank the fishing trawler
Hautapu at a wharf in Wellington?

The 41m fishing trawler sank at her
mooring at the Royal New Zealand Air
Force base in Shelly Bay on June 2,
1966, when explosives were laid in the
engineroom and a hole was blasted in
the steel hull early in the morning.

The wreckage lay on the bottom for
several years while police hunted the
bomber, and authorities argued over who
would pay for its removal. No-one was
arrested and Royal New Zealand Navy
divers finally cut up the wreckage.

Now Shirley Thomas says her brotherin-
law, the late Roydon Thomas, was
one of the people who sank the Hautapu
in Shelly Bay in 1966. For 40 years she
has stayed silent on the part her roguish
relative played in one of Wellington’s
biggest naval mysteries.

Shirley was at home with husband
Norman when his brother, Roydon,
arrived early on June 2, 1966, in an
agitated state. Hours earlier, the trawler,
a former minesweeper, had sunk after
an explosion tore a hole in her hull as
she sat alongside Shelly Bay wharf.
Explosives had been packed on the
ship to help the RNZAF sink it in Cook
Strait, but police and naval officials
were unsure why they detonated early, or who was to blame.
Now, after reading a Dominion Post story in June on the
sinking, Shirley Thomas has revealed a family secret. She
understands the explosion was the result of a plan hatched by
Roydon with some friends to remove brass fittings from the
ship before it was sunk. The group had gathered at Roydon’s
boatshed in Evans Bay, where he was living after separating
from his wife.

Roydon was well known in Wellington maritime circles and
was working as first mate on a fishing boat at the time. “They
were around there drinking one night and they decided it was a
crying shame that all the brass was going to waste,” Mrs Thomas
said.

They used small charges to blow portholes off their mounts,
and apparently unaware that explosives had already been packed
on the ship, they set off the main explosives, ripping a hole in the
Hautapu’s hull and sinking the vessel.

“Roy said they were standing on the wharf nearly crying that
she was going down.”

After lying low at his brother’s house, Roydon eventually
returned to Evans Bay. “I think he was scared somebody would
find out and make them pay.” He drowned five years later, aged
39, after falling into the sea from a wharf on the Wellington
waterfront. Mrs Thomas said Roydon
was a rogue who loved life at sea, and
would have meant no harm with his
plan to salvage brass off the Hautapu.
Roydon had recounted the events to
Norman who then told her and, with
both men now dead, she decided to tell
the family. “I sort of pursue a policy
of keeping my mouth closed on these
things.”

A maritime historian, Bob McDougall,
said it was possible Roydon Thomas
and others had sunk the ship, as it was
still an unexplained crime. “It’s one
of those mysteries that has been left
to lie.”

The Hautapu, a Castle class
minesweeper, was built in Port Chalmers
for the Navy during the Second World
War, and had been moored at Shelly
Bay for two years after her crew had
run her aground at Long Point, on the
eastern entrance to Cook Strait, late in
1963.

The 272 tonne trawler was pounded
by the sea for several months and badly
damaged before the Peranos’ whaling
tender Tuatea salvaged her and towed
her to Wellington.

She was found to be damaged beyond
repair and laid up until 1966, when she
was given to the air force, and was to
have been towed to a point 20 miles
off Cape Palliser, the southernmost point of the North Island, for
bombing practice.

The minesweeper HMNZS Inverell had been organised to tow
her out, but was diverted to Cape Reinga to search for a missing
coal ship, the Kaitawa.

For several years the Hautapu sank deeper into the mud while
the Navy, the Air Force, the registered owners and the Wellington
Harbour Board argued over who should pay for her removal.
Lynton Diggle, and his co-authors, his wife Edith, and Keith
Gordon, who are preparing the eighth edition of The New
Zealand Shipwreck Book, due to be released in November, said
the wrangle was finally settled, and the Hautapu was cut up by
Navy divers and removed in 1973.

One popular rumour in 1966 was that senior government and
Navy officials having a heavy drinking session at the Shelly
Bay base decided to blow it up for their own entertainment.
However, Lynton Diggle said that that theory was highly
unlikely. “It was a wonderful story, but I don’t believe a bit
of it.”

Forty years on, the controversy of the Hautapu may have
been solved before the next edition of the Shipwreck Book is
published.
Contact diggle@words-worth.co.nz

Engine

Time to start thinking about this engine thing. It's a Stuart Turner, and I think, from looking around the web, that it is a P55M model. I can't be sure though, as the plate which should be there no longer is. Here are some pics. Can anybody confirm it for me? It starts with a hand crank - no starter motor from what I can tell. The magneto is labelled "Lucas".

The engine has a forward and reverse gear, and a little knob to control revs.

Luckily, the thing isn't seized, I can turn it quite easily, and the moving bits look well lubricated and free from rust.
My knowledge of petrol engines is remedial at best. I don't know the process for starting it, as the knobs are all unlabelled. There is also a dipstick, which surprised me, as I thought petrol engines had the oil mixed in with the fuel. Maybe that's just outboards. The oil on the stick looks pretty clean but I'll drain it anyway, once I find the plug (any suggestions where that might be? And where do I pour in the new stuff?).

I want to begin by cleaning it up a bit, replacing the oil and fuel, and giving it a new spark plug. I daresay the water intake pipes might need looking at too - the valves look all rusted up. If I'm lucky, that might be enough to get something happening.

Where the handcrank shaft meets the magneto, it rattles around a bit. Any info on how to tighten that up? You can see where it enters in the fourth picture below.

Manly mast

Mast is back up finally!

Below are pics of her tied up at the overseas terminal, and my mixings for making up some red lead paint to line the mast step. You can still buy the stuff ready mixed for a lot of money from chandleries, but it is way cheaper to make up yourself: It's just a mixture of powdered lead tetroxide, boiled linseed oil and a drying agent. You can sometimes get the lead powder from potters' supplies as it is used in glazeware. You're not allowed to deal in it any more but most suppliers have some out the back somewhere left over from when the ban came in, and are glad to get something for it. I think I've just about cleaned all the locals out though now! It's rather silly, considering that epoxies are just as, if not more, poisonous.

Anyway, now she looks a little more like a boat. Trouble with the starboard backstay though: The pin that attaches is to the mast cap is stiff, and I have to go up and bang it back into alignment. What a pain. Still, the rigging fits very well. Croft carriers who I hired the hiab from are great. Quickly and effiently done, and they only charged $40.

I quite like the view of the boat from above - you can get a good idea of how strong she is in the hips.

Slippery when wet

Launch day went well. Here are some of the photos taken from my camera. Of course, I'm not in them so if anyone can send me a picture or two with me and Keryn actually rowing the thing around, please send it to me!

She scoots along quite nicely by the way.

Big thanks to Janet for providing some bunting and flowers, and Jo for getting the food out and about.