Steeple-chasing the Otago mole
Professor Robert Julian Scott, locomotive engineer and head of the School of Engineering in Christchurch, cast a long (and broad) shadow over New Zealand yachting of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Last month I left the good Professor and his yacht Yvonne “jilling about” at the Otago Harbour Heads just on dusk on Christmas Eve 1909. In 1928 Scott wrote about the wild events of that night in an article in Yachting magazine. Yvonne was one of nine entrants manoeuvring for the start of the Otago Yacht Club’s Rudder Cup Ocean Race to Oamaru and back. There were a hundred miles to go and an uneasy calm, a faint southeasterly air and a light drizzle.
Now the starting boat, Commodore A.C. Hanlon’s big launch
Inishfree, with the Blue Peter flying, made for the entrance. The nine yachts followed, running before the light breeze. All were carrying every inch of canvas they could set, slatting about in the oily swell kicked up by the last of the ebb at the entrance.
Even though the sky was blackening to windward, it was thought to be only rain. As they lined up outside the Spit between the pilot beach and the mole the larger yachts sheeted home their gaff topsails as the five-minute gun fired. At 7.15pm
Inishfree fired the starting gun.
But, just as it did, the southeast breeze gave way to a swirling southwest line squall that burst down and lashed the surface
Scott’s drawing of Yvonne being driven across the mole on her beam ends.
Prof. Scott seen by a contemporary cartoonist.
Scott’s track of Yvonne from the onset of the squall.
The Mole in recent years; the piles have lasted 140 years.
Annis,
The mid-section of
Pera, another entrant.
Yvonne. dismasted at the start.
A.C. Hanlon’s motor launch Inishfree, the start boat.
Iorangi as she was in Otago at the time of the race.
this sail alone while they close-reefed the mainsail.
Through darkness and blinding hail squalls Yvonne beat up the channel. Scott thought she had never sailed faster. On the way they overtook several launches running for shelter. They spotted some of the entrants sheltering under the various headlands and finally, Lady Roberts, the Defence steamer, going down to their assistance.
At 9.30pm Yvonne picked up her moorings at Carey’s Bay, the whole wild escapade having occupied only a little over two hours. Remarkably, a few strokes of the pump cleared all the water which had found its way below during the first violent squall, the sideways career over the mole and the heavy beat up the harbour. After stowing ship and “absorbing a liberal amount of cherry brandy”, Scott and his crew caught the last train to Dunedin.
By the next morning, Christmas Day, the weather had settled down to a steady 50mph blow. At 6am Scott telephoned the Harbour Master’s Office to learn that all of the yachts were safe with the exception of Pera.
Lady Roberts picked her up off Danger Reef 30 miles downwind the next day and towed her in to Moeraki. Scott then arranged to have Yvonne slipped at Port Chalmers. The shipwrights found that the triple diagonal kauri hull was scarred on the starboard side but not a seam had started nor a plank split. There was however a large cavity in the forward end of the lead keel, probably from striking one of the mole’s fearsome piles, and much of her copper sheathing was torn and displaced.
So well did the shipwrights work that, within a couple of hours, Yvonne was in trim and ready to race if the club should decide to restart the race. She now showed little evidence of the battering she had received in steeple-chasing the mole.
To Scott, a skilled engineer and yacht designer, this was eloquent testimony to the combination of the strength and natural elasticity of Robert Logan’s diagonal system of construction and the quality and great resilience of heart kauri timber.
The Otago Yacht Club ran the race again on 15th January 1910 starting at 3.30pm in light weather. Scott could not wait and had sailed Yvonne back to Lyttelton. Iorangi romped in first, Carina second and Roma third.
...a sea broke over aft, completely smothering us; her bows disappeared and her stern rose high into the air...
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Heritage
e Rapunga (‘longing for the dawn’ in Maori) was discovered in an Auckland front yard in 2018 after some 20 years on dry land. She was bought by a Bruny Island tourism group – together with some sailing enthusiasts. The restoration, they believe, will shine a light on the remarkable life and philosophy of German-born seafarer and ‘citizen of the world’, George Dibbern.
But the job is going to be quite a bit tougher than initially envisaged, says Denman Marine’s Andrew Denman. “Our survey found she was too far gone – she would require a complete rebuild.”
The project is being supported by a team of shipwrights – with additional guidance from Erika Grundman, the author who researched and wrote Dibbern’s biography – Dark Sun: Te Rapunga & the Quest of George Dibbern.
The vessel will be planked in huon pine and celery-top pine over hardwood frames. One concession to modern materials is the use of WEST SYSTEM epoxy for deck beam lamination and other laminated hardwood components. The glue’s renowned for its “reliability and cold weather curing,” says Denman.
WEST SYSTEM is a structural marine adhesive and often stronger than the wood being bonded. It has been used around the world for timber boat repairs for over 50 years and is ideal for repairing existing damage and reducing flexing. It also serves as a moisture barrier.
TThe project is on track to be completed by end of the year, with the aim to sail her into the Wooden Boat Festival in February 2021. The owners want to bring the venerable vessel back to life and share her adventures with Festival visitors, telling her story online and in the flesh as she travels.
“The sea epitomises island life, wooden boats and the tradition of exploration. Seafaring vessels have always been crucial to Bruny Island, connecting it, at times in surprising ways, to a world otherwise so isolated from it,” says Denman.