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He worked as head of miniatures for Weta
Workshops, collaborating with some of the
world’s best miniature artists building models
for the Lord of the Rings set. But when that ended
he moved from Wellington to Oamaru and took
up building full-size coracles.
Tere’s not many places in the country
where you can knock up a boat and be on
the water in between a few fat whites – and
Oamaru ofered the perfect lifestyle for a
minimalist boating man.
“In prehistory times they were built using
cow hides over a frame work of withies (willow
saplings),” he explains, “but after the Industrial
Revolution they adapted to woven cloth
waterproofed with coal tar. Modern coracles
generally use 10oz cotton duck with tar on it.
“Tey’re a basic boat, built with whatever
materials you have at hand. If you gave a Stone
Age man a plastic tarpaulin and some cable ties- he’d be able to whip you up a coracle. People
think the thwart – or seat – is in the middle but
it’s actually closer to one end for paddling.”
Tere’s about half a dozen diferent types of
coracle, he says, and they are still used regularly
in a number of places – Pakistan, India, Tibet,
Romania – in fact, all over Europe and Asia.
Television host Neil Oliver recently flmed
a coracle-building- and-operating lesson with
John for screening in an upcoming Coastwatch
programme.
“Te ocean forms us as humans,” John
adds, “and coracles are built from nature –
bits and pieces you fnd around the place.
I suppose they go back to before some
prehistorical character fgured out that boats
went better with a sharp end.
“Tey race them overseas – it beats dragon
boating. Tere could be a World Championships- here in Oamaru we’re poised, ready to start.”
Oamaru’s historic harbour, sheltered between
its rock breakwaters, has all but silted up these
days. A few fshing boats jostle for space behind
the north pier and tourist buses vie to ogle the
yellow-eyed penguins at the south east corner of
the harbour.
“You know,” Peter refects,” there are dozens
of beautiful working boats going to rack and
ruin in this country. Boats built by the likes of
Roger Carey, Miller and Tunnage, Doug Robb,
Logans, Baileys. Quality craft we’ll never see
the likes of again.
“We could turn the harbour into an on-water
museum for them.
Yachting history
is catered for, but
working boats are
part of our heritage
too – and they get
ignored.”
Te Friendly Bay
Boating Society,
Oamaru’s clique of
folks who love boats,
could be out there
leading the charge.
BNZ
Designed for use
in swiftly-flowing
streams, coracles
have been used for
millennia.
Fishermen stretch
a net across the
river, between two
coracles. Paddling
one-handed, the
men drag the net in
the other. When a
fish is caught, each
hauls up an end of
the net until the two
boats come together,
and a ‘priest’ (a small
block of wood) is
used to stun the fish.CORACLE
FISHING