Boating New Zealand — February 2018

106 Boating New Zealand

I

n his retirement, John has developed his passion for

model boats, a passion that grew from a lifetime of modest

yachting and from the first model launch he built in 1958 as

a young married man.

John has just recently moved into a retirement village at

Whangaparaoa where one bedroom is full of delectable model

yachts which include most of the radio-controlled yachts he

has built over the last 12 years. He has great pleasure in sailing

these yachts on the pond at Onepoto Domain, Northcote.

Hundreds of enthusiasts sail all kinds of craft there. The

Onepoto Yacht Club sails Des Townson-designed Electrons, the

NZ Radio Yacht Squadron sails Kyosho SeaWinds, while radio-

controlled freelance yachts of all descriptions, old time pond

yachts and model speedboats fit in around the schedules of

these clubs. Prolific constructors like Derek Nicholson of Kumeu

and John Stubbs turn up on Thursdays with a wide variety of

superb models.

John became involved in yachting from an early age. His

father Wilfred Stubbs built him an Idle Along in 1947 when he

was 15. Wilfred was an engine driver for NZ Railways, often

on the Main Trunk Line. When overnighting at Taumarunui

became tiresome Wilfred went into administration, eventually

retiring as Stationmaster at Penrose.

The Stubbs family lived at 21 Kowhatu Road, One Tree Hill,

those days a long bicycle ride to the sea. Father and son sailed

with M. J. Whitten in his Idle Along at Kohimarama and both

got the yachting bug, despite one capsize which had John

floundering about under the mainsail and his father bellowing

at him to get out.

Wilfred, who had no previous woodworking experience,

decided to build an Idle Along for John who remembers his

father, in exasperation, saying, “If this plank doesn’t fit, I think

we’ll set fire to it!” But it got finished and named Maggie, after

the Maggie of the Australian wartime radio show “Fred and

Maggie Everybody”, popular on station 1ZB.

John and his dad made no attempt to register and race Maggie

as they knew she would never measure. Instead they kept her at

Okahu Bay and sailed her about just for fun, cycling down from

One Tree Hill with her sails, as one did in those times.

John left Auckland Grammar School and joined Milne &

Choyce as a salesman, a vocation he thoroughly enjoyed all his

working life. After he married Jean in the mid-fifties, boating

went on the back burner until they had a house and started a

family. While living at Titirangi in 1958, John built a model

power boat with a diesel engine. He ran it off Mairangi Bay

beach, no radio control, just the rudder set to keep her circling,

thoroughly scaring the bathers.

Next John built a 12-foot, hard-chine dinghy which they

took on holidays at the Jack & Jill Motor Camp in the Bay

of Islands. Encouraged by the success of the dinghy, John

undertook the construction of a Hartley 16 trailer-sailer, a class

which was booming as a result of sponsorship by Richmond

Yacht Club and their full racing programme at Westhaven.

Again, he had worries about measurement, but the

measurers passed John’s Jaunty in spite of an extra half inch of

beam. The Stubbs family raced her with success at Richmond,

the Freshwater Champs at Rotorua, Taupo and as far as

Wellington, winning a lot of silverware.

with HAROLD KIDD

VINTAGEVIEW

ONE MAN AND HIS BOATS

John Stubbs is not a yachting icon

but rather is a representative of the

thousands of New Zealanders drawn

to the water and boats.

JOHN STUBBS