The dream of Ngaio William

Over more than 40 years, the boat took shape in the shed. Finally, the 52ft sloop is in the water.

On Monday morning, 9 March 2015, The Ngaio William settled in the water exactly where her creator anticipated. Her fanfare was the beating hearts of all who had waited a lifetime for her launching.

The scaffolding for Dad’s boatshed had arrived in our back garden in Lower Hutt one hot day in 1971 as I was sunbathing myself nutmeg, at just 14. Dad had a permit for the shed for five years so The Boat, as she was always known, would have to be finished by then.

Dad was Ngaio William Mcmillan, born in Wellington in 1926, the eldest of seven. He had a talent for calculations, drawing and a passion for yachting. In his 20s, he designed and built his first yacht, Prelude: the prototype for what was to come. It was wartime; Prelude was built in timber on a shoestring, but she was strong, practical and pretty.

Dad moored her at Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club in Wellington where he served on the committee during my primary school years. We sailed Prelude to Ward Island for picnics and cruised the Marlborough Sounds before Dad sold her to begin phase two: the big one.

Dad spent much time researching what he considered to be the best designs for his next yacht and eventually produced elegant drawings for a 52-foot sloop in triple-diagonal timber. It was ambitious but he never seemed daunted by what he had taken on.

Dad chose a mighty kahikatea to mill for the hull. He found beauty in different timbers and collected kauri and mahogany, among others. It was sourced from unlikely places like the demolition of the old meat

works in the Hutt Valley. His approach to acquisition, learned early in life, was a hallmark in the construction. Dad was happy to collect way before he actually needed items or wait for the best gear to come along.

Dad worked full time as a designing engineer for Southward Engineering and worked on The Boat in his spare time. Slowly, The Boat took shape. On retirement he worked full time on his project; it kept him busy and happy. The Boat was a constant through the yin and yang of life. Dad’s parents departed. Mum departed. The expiry date for the shed permit came and went by years, then decades but nothing was ever said. Dad kept going. Fast-track ideas were presented and ignored. Good things take time, he said.

The Boat became a legend, and people came to check on her progress. Dad loved showing everyone his latest job, completing every tour with tea and something like baked beans on toast. The visitors slowed progress but were highly enjoyable for the boat builder. He appeared in Blokes and Their Boats by Bill Mccarthy.

As for mortality, Dad ignored it but eventually employed a talented and long-suffering boat building assistant. Father Time took hold, and Dad developed dementia. His wonderful assistant became a boat builder/therapist, keeping Dad on track longer than we knew.

The Boat was to be finished at Seaview Marina in Wellington. On 9 March 2009 the shed was dismantled, and an enormous crane lifted The Boat from her cage. Dad’s debutante paraded through the Hutt and appeared in the Hutt News under the headline: Landlocked No More. Dad couldn’t be there as he was facing a new lifestyle in secure care, but many people celebrated for him.

The work carried on at Seaview coordinated by family. Mortality loomed. The siblings scrambled and we organised a boat naming ceremony with Dad onboard The Boat on Christmas Day 2010.

But what was her name? In a lucid moment only a month or two earlier, Dad confessed that after all the years he didn’t have a name. It was always going to be a ballet or something musical to complement Prelude so possibly Finale or Crescendo but they didn’t seem right.

The someone suggested The Ngaio William. Dear old Dad said, with the new kind of honesty that dementia can bring, that he would be honoured. So The Boat became The Ngaio William, named for her creator, nearly 40 years after he laid the first plank.

Dad set sail for the hereafter just before the second Christchurch earthquake in 2011. His celebration was held next to his beautiful yacht, still awaiting keel, rudder and skeg. Finally, on 9 March 2015 she was launched, and is awaiting mast, rigging and sails. The Boat is the tangible expression of his legacy: that he never let go of his dream.

With the 90hp Suzuki four-stroke at full noise, 40 knots showed briefly on the Garmin GPSMAP 751x5 multi-function display. That is pretty quick for a 5.5m RIB, but not for the boat’s co-owner, America’s Cup skipper Dean Barker.

While helming the foiling AC72 catamarans in San Francisco last year, Barker regularly saw speeds in the high forties and once glimpsed 52.2 knots as Emirates Team New Zealand bore away on a broad reach.

Barker and his family share a beach house at Omaha with another family, and Barker is a director at Kiwi Yachting, which owns Southern Pacific Inflatables, so when the two families went looking for a multi-purpose trailerboat for the beach, a Cormorant 5.5m was the obvious choice.

The beach boat needed to be something Barker and the kids could launch themselves – his last trailer boat was larger and heavier, so he sometimes found it difficult to manage with a young family – and he wanted a single-axle trailer so they could easily move the boat around the property or pull it up the beach.

“We’ll use the RIB to swim from and for family picnics, for fishing and to tow the kids around – everything, really. I thought about our T-top option, but the boat’s easier to garage this way and I like to keep things simple,” says Barker.

NEW DESIGN

The three-boat Cormorant range is a new design from Dibley Marine Group. Available in 5m, 5.5m and 6m variants with T-top and bimini top options, the boats are 100% Kiwi-designed and built.

“The Cormorants are a bit wider than our previous RIBS and we’ve used a new type of high quality PVC fabric for the tubes which should provide excellent service life,” says Barker. Hypalon tubes are also available.

The Barkers’ boat is finished to a high standard, right down to the welds in the 4mm hull with its neatly pressed strakes. The