Boating New Zealand — February 2018

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Young built when he came out of his time and 30 feet was the

length of his shed. Arnold (Bill) Couldrey had designed Cleone

for Bert Follas in 1948. John and Jean bought her in 1987 from

John Grainger and kept her until quite recently. John still visits

her at her berth in Milford.

Twelve years ago John joined Ancient Mariners, a group

fostered by Mark Steele which ran events for radio-controlled

models of all types at Onepoto and meets there every Thursday

morning. John’s first model was of his Mohawk, its scale

dictated by the size of the boot of his station wagon.

Since then he has produced a large number of magnificent

models ranging from the pilot cutter Jolie Brise, a Stewart 34, the

26ft mullet boat Celox, a Chesapeake oyster boat, a Herreshoff

canoe yawl and a highly detailed model of Cleone of course.

A forest of models, a wonderland of yachting history in

miniature, lives in one bedroom of John’s retirement village

unit. Incredibly, John is still negotiating for a place in the

village’s workshop to continue his model making. But his drive

to create things of beauty will prevail. BNZ

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