Boating New Zealand – April 2018

100 Boating New Zealand

• the Nicholson name was yachting royalty in a big way.”
  He soon had a job at Camper and Nicholson’s Gosport yard,
  which had ties with the Royal Yacht Squadron and the Royal
  Ocean Racing Club. He got to meet Captain John Illingworth,
  the famous ocean racer, Group Captain Teddy Haylock, then
  editor of Yachting World, and Brigadier Teddy Parker, who
  invited Reid to crew on the 14m yacht, Right Royal, for the
  1959 Cowes Week and Fastnet Race. Reid then skippered a new
  12.2m yacht to the Mediterranean.
  Previously, he had met Charlie Crooks in Barbados, the
  owner of Spot Nails, manufacturers of compressed air staple
  guns. Reid was ofered the New Zealand agency, so in 1960
  he travelled to the USA aboard the Queen Elizabeth and on to
  Chicago to learn about air-powered staplers. Soon after he
  founded Spot Nails in New Zealand, a business he owned until
  the mid 1980s.
  He married Corrine in 1962 and the couple had two children,
  Emma and Hamish. During all this time Norseman had been
  deteriorating on a mooring of Buckland’s Beach, so after
  carrying out a reft, Reid introduced Corrine to sailing. “We had
  our honeymoon on Norseman.”
  He shortened Norseman’s stern, adding a low cabin and
  reskinning the hull in two layers of kauri. Given he’s now a
  passionate member of the Classic Yacht Association, which frowns
  on such practises, Reid shudders at the memory of what he did.
  “In those days we thought we were saving those old boats –
  now I think I was a vandal.”
  Fortunately, Kevin Harvey, the son of the original owner, has
  since fully restored Norseman.
  But with children Reid needed something bigger for family

cruising, so he approached Jim Young to design and partly build

what became Waterwitch.

In many ways a forerunner to NZL37, Waterwitch was a

little longer at 12.2m. But the budget was tight, so to save

money Reid asked Young to design the rig to utilise Stewart 34

headsails, which were commonly available second-hand.

To save more money, he collected two tons of lead for

Waterwitch’s keel from rejected lead-head nails, melting them

to separate lead from the steel nails. So how many nails do you

need for two tons of lead? “Truckloads...”

One of Young’s apprentices at the time was Bruce Farr and he

joined Young’s team on Waterwitch’s maiden sail. “Bruce was very

RIGHT Reid’s converted

Etchell with her Robert

Brooke-designed cabin.

BELOW Reid and Brown

racing the Z class Iris.

In those days we

thought we were

saving those old

boats – now I think

I was a vandal.