Boating New Zealand – April 2018

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he Friendly Bay Boating Society’s

headquarters are right where you

might expect them to be. In Oamaru’s

historic district, past the Steam

Punk headquarters where an ancient

locomotive snorts steam into the air. Past

patisseries and galleries and nearby Adventure Books, where

you can walk around the flm replica of Ernest Shackleton’s

James Caird, and access shelves full of almost every sailing

book ever published.

On the corner of Tyne Street, the door of a weathered

whitestone former warehouse has a hand lettered sign that says

• Friendly Bay Boating Society. And in more forid font – Tyne
  Street Boatshed. Te building exudes friendly and, as the door
  slides open, a collection of boating projects is fooded in light.
  “Tat’s Duet – she was [legendary boatbuilder] Lionel
  Jefcoate’s frst build.” Mike Harris pulls dusty covers of a
  nuggety little hard-chine planked hull. “She’s a bit neglected
  right now – I’ve just bought a Hartley Fijian that I’m reftting
  at Port Chalmers.”
  Beside Duet is a shapely double-ended plank hull, partly
  decked, with a vintage Kelvin diesel sitting amidships.
  Highland Lass is chiselled into a name board which rests across
  the foredeck. “She was built in 1910 by Miller Brothers at Port
  Chalmers,” says her owner, Peter Torn. “Ten they sunk the
  boat for a year to pickle her in salt water.”

T

In Oamaru, amidst the country’s capital of quirky, a group of

passionate boating folk are hard at work on their maritime labours of love.

feature

Oamaru

mariners

WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY

LINDSAY WRIGHT

ECLECTIC,

ECCENTRIC

MAVERICKS