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by Mark
Steele - Auckland, New Zealand
A `toot sweet’
cruise, Seriously windling,
Moonen’s latest
and a late friend Melvin.
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Sixpence
worth of a
cruise |
I woke early, the first indications of a tropical
summer sunrise but a mere hint as I opened the shutters
of the small villa I had rented on the placid East
coast at Winklemans Quay. Waking with me was a decidedly
sore head, caused no doubt I quickly came to the conclusion,
by the five (or was it six ?) double rum and coke’s
I had consumed in the island bar the night before.
Heady stuff that if consumed in excess and I remembered
that when I had told the woman behind the bar that
I had planned to sail to Bigga-Banga Bay
the following day, she had kept correcting me…“Ya
means Cove Beach ?” She also kept passing me
a bright yellow banana ! Now it led me to wonder whether
the more I had been consuming at the Chirpy Canary,
my destination was coming out as `Big Banana !’
Anyway today was another day and after carefully
picking my way down to the pier it was not long before
I had hoisted the sails on the little twelve-footer
Jizzery and we were moving up the coast in
a freshening breeze, the soft colours of an emerging
autumn dawn just having made their appearance on the
horizon.
Jizzery
in a toot sweet blow |
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Soon we were twenty minutes away from the cove on
a course due east. A small and colourful yacht that
I’d swear had nobody on board crossed my path,
and a scruffy looking island fishing sloop that I
could smell as it approached passed us the red haired
native man grinning at me and waving with his straw
hat yelled “wind real toot sweet mon !”
just prior to losing the hat in a gust, and a sleek
schooner passed me headed towards the mainland. Ten
minutes later I would understand what the man had
meant by `toot sweet’ as we ran into a westerly
so strong that Jizzery repeatedly tried to bury her
bow giving me the second, third and fourth bath of
the day.
We ploughed onwards, a school of flying fish at one
stage skimming over the water with one hitting the
sail before being thrown back overboard, the wind
eventually abating as we moved gently inwards through
a break in the reef, where I dropped the mooring weight
with a plop about ten feet from the pristine, tide-swept
beach. Our crossing to what turned out to indeed be
Cove Beach at Bigga-Banga Bay had taken us
over two hours. The headache had cleared somewhat,
but the constant staring into a rising sun, the saltwater
spray, and perhaps the lack of sleep and the liquor
consumption the night before had brought on tiredness.
A little lie-down on the sand seemed a good idea and
soon I was cat-napping and dreaming of island life,
blue seas, island women and the variety of sailboats
working in island waters.
A
Bigga-Banga
cat-nap kind of place
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Loud shouts of “HEY – YOU SLEPT HERE
LAST NIGHT?” (and from another person) “I
JUST SAW YOUR FOOTY SMASHED AGAINST THE WALL !”
woke me suddenly, swiftly brought me to reality as
I realized I had been dreaming. Worse than that, here
I was lakeside at Onepoto in Auckland and flat on
my back at ten o‘clock on a Thursday morning
– our Ancient Mariners model sailing
day, and five members of our group were looking down
at me, all grinning madly and laughing loudly, with
the joke entirely on me.
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Just
before a rude awakening |
No native island women, no palm trees, no sandy beach
and no sign of Jizzery. There was duck crap
all around me and a wet trouser leg on which a dog
had presumably peed as it perhaps had mistaken me
for a log. Had I been there all night and whose boat
was that on the ground beside me ? As for the little
Footy model Sixpence she hadn’t hit
any wall and was enjoying safe anchorage, upright,
nose inwards between the reeds on the opposite side
of the pond.
There is a moral to this story, this being that day-dreaming
can sometimes be too realistic – in addition
it can oft be tinged with embarrassment for he or
she that dreams. Perhaps I may never live it down,
that chapter in my life when I thought I had cruised
to Bigga-Banga bay on a boat called Jizzery.
Or had I done so, considering that on my return home
my wife said that my breath smelt strongly of rum
?
`Dreams come true, without that possibility, nature
would not incite us to have them’ (so wrote
John Updike)
The two photos (above) both typify the true model
yacht windler whom not unlike the fisherman to some
extent, having launched his boat is then totally content
just relaxing and watching it sailing placidly up
and down and criss-crossing the lake or pond, and
waiting on a breeze as was Auckland friend, Roy Lake
doing with his Brixham trawler Revive. The
second image shows Ken Impey’s son in Cornwall
doing much the same thing with his father’s
schooner, John Fossett Bonds. Taking in the
peaceful atmosphere, indulging in a bit of `imagination
journeying’, joyfully enjoying thoughts of nothing
and traveling to no particular place, pleasant traits
of the sailboat model windler. Men at peace, where
even the yelling of “BUOY ROOM!” would
be an intrusion, and where the silence of the pond
with only the sound of the bow wake ripple audible
is an enjoyable factor.
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Melvin
with his beloved Lynx |
We never met but for years corresponded regularly
and despite his diminishing health he still loved
sailing his model Baltimore schooner Lynx
It was he who introduced me to the Great Schooner
Model Society on the Chesapeake Bay, a society
dedicated to the building and operation of multi-masted
sailing boat models of which he was Founding Commodore
until his passing after which he became Commodore
Emeritus. Melvin A Conant (above
and below) and I shared views, exchanged trophies,
swapped stories and photographs and all that without
ever meeting. Often that kind of bond of friendship
is precious to say the very least and I think I will
always remember him. I have been so very lucky that
model sailing boats has resulted in such contacts
and put me in touch with so many people who have become
lasting friends. When you come to think about it,
people are the key ingredient in a world that appears
to be changing into somewhat of a most untrusting
and impersonal one. Here’s to Melvin A Conant,
now gone with the wind and one of natures finest.
always
time for everyone |
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Here is the latest example of Dutch ship modeling
excellence from Wim Moonen of the
Netherlands, a sailing model of the Prins Willem,
the largest ship at the time of the Dutch East India
Company. Built in 1649 in Middleburg, Holland and
classified as a `Spiegelship’, she sank near
Madagascar during a severe storm in 1662. Wim built
the 155cm long model weighing 13kg of which 6 kg is
the keel over a three year period. He was keen to
make it as light as possible. As we get older we pay
more attention to both weight and size. The carvings
on the model were out of pearwood with mahogany and
teak also used.
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Wim’s model shipbuilding is exceptional and
it is interesting to note how he has built the model
in two halves, the entire superstructure separate
to the hull which makes the task of transporting the
model exceptionally easy. Interesting also that he
has made the winches from parts taken from old video
recorders. He made the hull of selected fine grain
oak taken from an old table and the model took him
three years to build. (Now I wonder how many old tables
Wim has left, as well as what his next project will
be? ED)
To some extent not unlike Dave Heanly’s one
time sailing barge, Ebb Tide is a more recent
coastal sailing boat, Star Lit_in ketch rig,
built in usual quick time by Ron Rule of Auckland
on a Smeed Starlet design hull. Sailed with the Ancient
Mariners, it displays visual traces of being
a working vessel plying the coasts of `somewhere’
and it seems to sail well enough in freshening breezes.
LOA is 40” including a 5” bowsprit and
the hull using the standard Starlet plans was built
with 1.5mm ply over ply frames. The ketch has an 11”
drop keel with a 4 ½ lb lead bulb. In typical
light-hearted mood, Ron adds that `careful and exacting
calculations were of course taken, ie mast height,
boom length, centre of effort on both main and mizzen,
together with the Southern hemisphere wind patterns,
with allowances for the curvature of the earth (Nobody
told me that it was curved before ! Ed) together with
the directions seagulls fly when there is a tail wind!’
(This guy can be a worry!)
Dave's barge Ebb Tide |
Above and below, Star- Lit
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Red
sail sailing |
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`Sam Swipes he was a seaman true,
as brave and bold as tar,
as e’re was dressed in navy blue on board a
man-of-war.
One night he filled a pail with grog, determined he
would suck it:
He drained it dry the thirsty dog, hicupped and `kicked
the bucket’.
Courtesy THE MODEL YACHT
The publication of the US VINTAGE MODEL YACHT GROUP
Previous Columns by Mark Steele:
Articles by Mark Steele:
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