Top: Launch Day 1958. Mum and daughter watch the boys get her in the water at Balaena Bay in Evans Bay.

Below: From left, Frank Ballinger, Roydon Thomas, Pete Prendeville. Date unknown. Pete was on board the Matuku when a whale knocked her keel off in the middle of the Tasman in 1968. They were afloat in a liferaft for 5 days before being spotted and picked up by a tanker. (I think it was Pete) said on his return that the worst thing was his balls being terribly cold in the bottom of the liferaft. One of the ladies knitted him a sock to guard against such future disasters.

Bottom: In the Cook Strait on a fine day in 1972. I still have the spinnaker - in fact all of the sails since built I think.

Introduction

Shemara outside my shed at Clyde Quay, Wellington

I quite like this boat, because it was designed by a Wellingtonian for racing in Wellington, and I am proud to be the second owner, having purchased her from the builder.

Anyone who has been here knows that Wellington boats have special needs. Add the wind to the fact that the Cook Strait funnels Southern Ocean swells through a very narrow and steep gap, and that the Islands’ tides are close enough to alternately suck and pull at each other, and you begin to realise why Wellington sailors develop a rather crazed look in their eyes whenever they talk about taking the boat on holiday to the Sounds. The Cook Strait does not suffer fools, though I like to think she has a soft spot for people with just the right combination of lunacy and respect. See here for a recent account of some people who had just crossed the southern ocean and got a little surprise near their destination of Wellington.

To be frank, the sea doesn’t give a shit who you are, and that’s the main thing to remember, and really why I like it so much.


I sail and have sailed for many years with a local legend Phil Hartley, who has told me a little of the building of the boat and the characters of Roydon and Frank, who were neighbours. Roydon has a reputation of being a hard drinking troublemaker, though the younger Hartleys remember him fondly: Murray remembers a cheerful soul, smiling, red of face, with thumbs stuck in his braces. Phil, whose first keeler (Ondine – which he built) was a Thomas design, says that in many ways he was ahead of his time. I’m not sure what he was referring to, though she sits high on the water, is reasonably flat aft, and there is not much to her for’ard at the water line. He saw Shemara built and says will last forever (barring accidents).

Frank, who was a grumpy old bugger by all accounts, didn’t like going out in rough seas (though he was caught in a few), and Phil says she was never pushed much (except on launch day: She was built on Grafton Road and manhandled down to the water on a succession of greased planks via backyards, roads and steps).

Phil also tells me that Frank would never speak to him, and even if he did, he (Phil) wouldn't have answered.

At left is a photo of my original copy of James Cook's chart of Cook Strait (printed 1780) The crosses you can see along the Western Coast aren't actually rocks (crosses symbolise rocks in chartmaking), they are a mess of breaking water generated at the head of the Tory Channel (not charted here). These rips occur at several places around the Strait at different times.