Perce Harpham - Some Voyages Around New Zealand & Elsewhere

SOME VOYAGES

AROUND NEW ZEALAND & ELSEWHERE

Written just after my eightiethbirthday by collecting prior accounts, memories and photosetc.
For my wife, Myra,

ISBN:978-0-473-23834-6

Smashwords Edition, License Note s

Hold down Ctrland click on the desired location.

Chapter 1 The beginning

I was bornsome eighty years ago in Tauranga. I could hardly have chosen abetter place because Tauranga is in what the discoverer CaptainCook called the Bay of Plenty on the East coast of NewZealand.

The Taurangaharbour is about 17 nautical miles long with two entrances andlarge tidal flats between them which dry out at low tide. The greencolour on the chart shows the extent of these tidal flats. With atwo meter tidal range and a number of rivers draining into theharbour the tidal currents at the entrances are often some fiveknots or more

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Tauranga Harbour

My home forthe first sixteen years of my life was roughly where the arrowpoints on the chart. It was ideally situated between the frontbeach and the "back beach. As the youngest of five children I wasfree to range with my friends from an early age. The onlyrestriction I recall was that we must be home on time for meals orthe threat was that we would miss out. It was a threat that waseffective. It was never tested and was never applied but wechildren became very good at estimating time without watches.

The frontbeach had nice sand and was good for swimming but the back beachwas somewhat muddy and harder to reach as the roads mostly stoppedat the top of the ridge above the beach. Few children and fewerpeople went there. It was a great place to build a sand boat whenthe tide was out and to try to prevent the boat leaking as the tidecame in and waves eroded the sides of the boat.

There weremany attractions at the back beach. There was a grassy slope wheretwo or three together could toboggan on a sheet of corrugated ironwith one end curved up. There was a good orchard with the thrill ofan irascible owner. As the tide rose there would be shoals ofherring which we could attempt to spear. But best of all was thechance to sail various model boats in shallow water where we couldkeep pace with them.

One of theeasiest craft to make required only a pocket knife and ahandkerchief or rag. The plentiful flax bushes had dried stems fromwhich flowers had bloomed. These stems were three or fourcentimetres in diameter and two metres long. They had a tough outerlayer and a highly porous inside. With sticks pushed into two shortlengths of sharpened flax stem a catamaran was made. Then with twomore sticks for masts and a handkerchief tied on as a square sailone had a sailing catamaran which would sail as fast as we couldtrot in the shallow water. Various elaborations developed withmussel shells for rudders and the masts in different places on thetwo hulls so as to sail with the wind abeam.Further north on theback beach was the fish-works with its wharf and the fishermen whowere always slightly fearsome but rough and kindly. Apart from somemasterly use of words we never heard or uttered at home theysupervised all the urchins who fished from the wharf. They taughtus how to put on hooks and how to rig our lines. It was a happyplace. We mostly caught herring and the occasional Kahawai as wegot older.

Proud Boy

To this day Irecall with joy the occasion when I rode my bike down to the wharfcarrying a harpoon my oldest brother had made from a length of halfinch black iron with a pivoted barb and a cord attached. I parkedmy bike and walked out to the end of the wharf to look over. Then Iput my fishing bag down and dropped the harpoon straight down ontoa fifteen pound (well twelve anyway) kingfish. I pulled it up,collected my fishing bag and walked back down the wharf as if thiswas what I did every day. Some of the kids were gob-smacked (to usethat horrible modern word).

Tauranga had apopulation of about 9,000 at that time but it was a place of boats.Its development as an important port was well in the future butthere were commercial and tourist fishing boats, coastal tradingships, pleasure yachts and hosts of small craft. Among these wasthe ubiquitous Tauranga Class - the 7foot, gaff-rigged,centreboard yacht - in which generations of children learned tosail and race. There was a tiny cockpit with enclosed bulkheads allaround so that the boats were unsinkable. The capsize races weregreat for giving children confidence in their craft. In these racesthe boats had to be rolled through 360 degrees three times betweenmarks. The experts could do this at speed without getting wet.

I aspired to aseven footer but never made it. Fortunately I had friends withseven footers and sometimes borrowed them or sailed with them. Onesuch memorable occasion was on a day with a westerly gale when twoof my friends invited myself and another boy to help them try outspinnakers that their mothers had made for them. Spinnakers werenot normal on these tiny boats and nor was it usual to have twocrammed into the tiny cockpits. But we fairly tore through thewater and rapidly got beyond the shelter of the Taurangapeninsular. We were into the big waves and approaching MountMaunganui when Peter Southey and I capsized. This would not havebeen a problem but the spinnaker was sticking up in the air and theboat was speeding away from us leaving us floating in ourlifejackets and a long way from shore. In a fine piece ofseamanship Bob Brockway and Peter Johnson retrieved their spinnakerand sailed back to our boat. Peter Johnson jumped into the seadownwind of the Southey boat, dowsed the spinnaker, righted theboat and they both sailed back and picked us up.

It may seemstrange to speak of voyages when sailing within a harbour but manyof the same experiences as on ocean crossings were to be had withinthe harbour enhanced by the liveliness of youth and firstexperience. They started in late 1943 when I was eleven.

My brotherHenry had a 10 foot sailing dinghy built for him. It was to be fivefeet wide. The ancient boat builder cursed every plank he bent butinstead of his standard five foot beam it turned out to be fivefoot ten inches wide. It was clinker built with a great bluff bowand quarter decked at the front. A drum was built in at the frontto give buoyancy if ever that was required. Side decks were addedlater.