140 Boating New Zealand
MARITANA
This image of the former Auckland first-class yacht MARITANA
is in Nelson around 1911 when she had finished her racing days
and was lying off the Haven road with a cut down rig, her lead
gone and ballasted with boulders.
Maritana was built at Freeman’s Bay in 1887 by J.W. Carr &
Sons for W. Vereker Bindon, originally as a straight-stemmer,
but altered in 1890 with a schooner bow and two feet added to
her stern. These alterations increased her performance enabling
her to win the 1890 Anniversary Regatta First Class Yacht race.
The following January she sailed down to Wellington for the
Wellington Anniversary Regatta. The Lyttelton cracks Pastime
and Mascotte sailed up for the race, but Maritana had a rough
trip down and missed the start. Bindon sold her to a local
syndicate soon after she reached Wellington.
There she was top yacht until Waitangi arrived in January- Sold to Nelson in 1902 she later became a fishing launch
and was lost at the Chathams in 1938.
ALERT
This pretty little Greymouth centre-boarder, ALERT, was part of
the flourishing of yachting on the West Coast of the South Island at
the beginning of the 20th century, with racing at Greymouth and
Moana on Lake Brunner where the boats were taken on railway
trucks. Clarence Moss and Andrew Steel built her in November1909, but there is no hint as to her designer.
She was 17ft 5in in length with a beam of 7ft 6in.
J. Fitzsimmons sailed her in most of her races and she was
the undisputed champion of the West Coast. Sadly, she sank
on Lake Brunner in 1921 with the loss of a crewmember and
never sailed again.SAND YACHT
Sand yachts flourished at New Brighton from 1894 when
W. Thompson built the first, a three-wheeler, which caused
a sensation by travelling up the beach to the mouth of the
Waimakariri at 30 miles an hour.
This four-wheeler appears to be of the period around 1904
when several more had been built and races were put on for
them at the New Brighton Annual Gala. The rig is not very
efficient and the steering arrangement somewhat scary.
In early 1914 W.A. Judkins designed and built a much more
sophisticated sand yacht which had a sheerlegs mast with a
single sail. World War I brought sand yacht development on
Canterbury’s beaches to an end.EILEEN
Experienced boatbuilder Jack McLellan of Dunedin built the
30ft x 9ft EILEEN for himself in 1902 to the plans of Linton
Hope’s 1894 unballasted centreboard ‘skimming dish’ Sorceress.The rig is not
very efficient
and the steering
arrangement
somewhat scary.SAND YACHTALERTMARITANA