New Years Resolution

Christine and I recently went to hear a talk at the Himalayan Centre in Whangarei by a Nepalese Buddhist Monk. It was an introductory talk about Buddhism. I am not sure why I wanted to go to this, I have read enough about Buddhism and meditation not to be in need of an introductory talk but I think I went because I wanted to hear something about meditation from an accomplished practitioner and make some sort of contact with a community that has meditation at its center. I was curious.

The talk was a most complicated affair. It was done via a Skype link with someone in Auckland. The monk talked to the computer screen and a disembodied Kiwi voice made the translation from Nepalese for us. Except for a brief connection with the computer screen at the very end we heard only the voice translating the easy on the ears Nepalese language. Despite all of this the talk has proved useful to me. It was the small beacon I had been looking and praying for and I have gained a sense of strength. I am now determined to pick up where I left off in my own personal meditation.

My meditation practise has been stop and go for years. About 18 months ago I started to take it a little more seriously but this was stopped short by a heart attack and By Pass heart surgery.

After the heart operation I found it quite difficult to meditate. In fact I found a large number of things difficult to do. The heart operation was such a physical assault on my body that I found myself somewhat disorientated for a long time. Some things once easy, now became hard, both physically and emotionally.

I had expected meditation to be some sort of solace in all of this but it proved not to be so. I found that I simply could not concentrate at all for any length of time on many things including meditation practise. I know a seasoned practitioner would obtain great solace from their meditation practise.

So my new years resolution is to attempt to meditate at least once a day and come to grips with all this meditation malarkey - and the local Buddhist community run meditation classes.

In 9 days time it will be the 21st of June which is the first anniversary of my heart operation. New Years day is the next day - the 22nd of June - Om mani padme hum.

CLOSING THE CIRCLE

 Photograph Ben Bongers Kerk-Avezaath The Netherlands

If you have been reading my last few blog posts you will understand that my friend Ben from The Netherlands read a book when he was twelve years old called 'South Seas Vagabonds' that  has provided him with one of several associations with New Zealand. When the intrepid Ben came on a recent visit to New Zealand with his equally intrepid wife Renee he actually tracked down the yacht 'Ngataki' that features in Johnny Wrays book and went and took a look at it. This is his photograph of the Ngataki (above).
If my memory serves me well, Ben told me that the current owner is like himself of Dutch nationality and that their common first language helped oil their conversation. I must email Ben and get him to remind me of his meeting with the owner so I can get more full details of what must have been for Ben a closing of the circle of sorts for him.

What pleases me greatly about this photograph is the fact that Ngataki looks in absolutely original condition. From the outside at least there doesn't appear to be any additions that seriously compromise the way she looked when she was built and sailed all those years ago.

As mentioned in a previous blog post the Ngataki is being relaunched after restoration in conjunction with a republication of Johnny Wray's classic New Zealand book 'South Sea Vagabonds'.

..... Being A Post That Informs And Explains Aspects Of The Last Post ....

 Ngataki Hauraki Gulf Auckland New Zealand Circa 1930

Wreck of the 'Rewa' near Kawau Island Warkworth - Circa 1935 / 36

Well Shipmates these old photographs tell a lot of stories and have a lot of associations in the annals of New Zealand nautical folklore. The old square rigger is the 'Rewa'. The gaff sloop is the Ngataki which I will refer to later. In the second photograph the year is late 1935 early 1936. I know this because the vessel to the right of the picture is the American Dwight Long's ketch 'Idle Hour' in which he did a great circumnavigation during the 1930's. The launch alongside the Rewa looks to be a long lean Logan design of which there were many during that period and of which many remain. Being a romantic I would like it to be Harold Pickmere's 'Winsome' of Pickmere's Atlas fame - (Pickmeres Atlas being a book of wonderful easy to use charts, still relevant and usable today (I have a copy on my yacht) which show lots of neat little anchorages that small yachts and launches can anchor safely in) - So if the launch lying beside the Rewa is Pickmere's Winsome, that would really complete the picture.

The archetype of nautical number eight wire though is none of the aforementioned skippers, this mantle in my mind rests on one Johnny Wray who built the gaff sloop 'Ngataki' in Auckland and to which the 'Rewa' had an important contribution.
You can read about this adventurer and free spirit in his book "South Sea Vagabonds". It is the story of a man who during the great depression of the 30's and after losing his job, (mainly for day dreaming about sailing the south seas) proceeds to build a yacht on a shoe string and the smell of an oily rag.

Those far off days were entirely different to today's quagmire of rules and regulations and compliances and red tape. It was a generally more rugged age, no life raft, SSB radio, EPIRB, GPS or an Orion search if you went missing. There was a strong imperative to make sure the blade of your wits and skills was keen.

During the late 1920's and 1930's kauri trees were still being logged and floated to the mills in big log booms. Often logs were lost in the process and they were found washed up all over the Hauraki Gulf . Johnny Wray and his friends found seven of these and towed them to Auckland and had them milled so he could build himself a boat.

In New Zealand the term "number eight fencing wire" is used to describe a "of course we can do it and we will do it through hard work, ingenuity, thinking outside the square and using available materials in new and novel ways" type of mentality. It is a legacy from times of colonial hardships.
Well Johnny Wray with very little in the way of money and other resources used this kind of thinking, in fact he actually used fencing wire in the construction of the Ngataki. Quoting from his book:

"My next problem was the question of fastening the timbers together and this I accomplished in a manner of which I am rather proud as it has since proved to be absolutely satisfactory. No bolts were used. The timbers were joined with large staple-shaped pieces of heavy fencing wire, which were driven through the wood and the ends hammered over"

And the Rewa? I hear you ask. Well shipmates, the Rewa had been bought by a man called Charlie Hanson, lock stock and barrel. Charlie lived ashore in a sort of nautical Nirvana. Listen to this:

"To anyone nautically minded his little home was a perfect delight. It was built largely from gear salvaged from the ship "in his front garden," as he called it. Lifebelts, binnacles, wheels; flags, shrouds, ropes, rails; in fact everything dear to the heart of a sailor was built into that little home. There was a library there that must have contained every nautical book ever published, a library that would have be the heart's desire of any true sea - lover. A perfect home for an old sailor."

It was from Charlie and the Rewa that Johnny got the mast, boom, rigging, assorted fittings and enough canvas to make the sails for the Ngataki. The price? - "a bag of flour, a bag of potatoes and a few other things" The serendipity of the Rewa and Charlie in the building of the Ngataki were most fortunate, for as Johnny Wray said, "You can't cut a sail out of a log."

The rest of the story of the Ngataki are well featured in Johnny's book. The South Sea Island cruises, the trans Tasman yacht racing, the capsize in a hurricane, searching for lost treasure on Savarov Island etc.

I think it is fitting to leave the last word to Johnny Wray from the preface to his book.

".... it is written for the man who works in a city office and dreams about sparkling blue waters and coconut palms and white sails bellying to the warm trade - winds. It will, perhaps, show him how it is possible to break away from the ties of civilisation, build himself a boat and sail in her whereever he wills. I was a dreamer once, but now my dreams have come true, and I am satisfied and happy"

An archetypal No 8 wire man, a man living intensely and creatively in the moment, day to day, hmmmm, I wonder....

SYNCHRONICITY (Again)

'Dark Matter' is the unknown reality (It is there but we can't see it or find it) that when accounted for in mathematical models of the universe allow the mathematicians sums to add up. They don't know what Dark Matter is but acknowledging its existence is very useful in astronomical theoretical terms. Of course at any time someone may have a Galileo moment and a fundamental law of physics may well be stood upon its head which basically means we will have to think again - by 'we' I mean the pointy headed ones.

I sometimes think that synchronicity is the 'dark matter' that binds the human interrelatedness aspect of the cosmos together. Let me explain.

Here are two good friends of mine, Ben and Renee from Kerk - Avezaath in The Netherlands. A couple of years ago they came to New Zealand and completed a camper van journey around the North and South Islands. They visited Christine and myself here in Whangarei and I took them for a sail on the good ship Mariner on Whangarei harbour. Ben was very keen to go for a sail, so we took the opportunity and seized the day.
There was a gentle breeze, Ben proved to be a good helmsman, Renee looked relaxed and very much in holiday mode and I know they both enjoyed themselves. I hope they journey again to this part of the world, they are two lovely people.

Bens interest in New Zealand began at the age of 12 years when he read a Dutch edition of Johnny Wrays classic book 'South Sea Vagabonds'.

Bens first contact with me was in response to a blog posting I made about Johnny Wray and his good ship Ngataki.

Recently Ben has been in contact with Greg Ansley who had been approached to write the Foreword to a new edition of Johnny Wrays book. Greg kindly posted to Ben scanned photographs of old newspaper clippings regarding the Ngataki and her adventures.

The synchronicity bit comes in here. Gregs younger brother is Euan.

Euan Ansley was my best friend at Central New Brighton Primary School. We were as thick as thieves together and as troublesome and naughty as any young fellas who thought it was their duty to make their after school activities an extension of Blackbeard's piratical Spanish main. I swear there wasn't a fruit tree within a mile radius of Euans house in Lonsdale Street that hadn't felt the sticky fingers of us two naughty thieving little buggers.

So...... out of the blue I get an email from Euan (whom I have been in contact with) who relates to me that his big brother Greg has had an email from someone regarding Johnny Wray and that the good man in question had mentioned my name in passing and that the emailer is none other than my good, good friend Ben from Kerk - Avezaath in The Netherlands.

Coincidence? - Full blown, unadulterated, one hundred per cent good old Jungian Synchronicity I say, and long may it grow and fill the cosmos with nice surprises. You don't have to understand 'Dark Matter' to enjoy its existence.

PART 2 - "And always Mantis would have a dream", they told me in the desert. "And the dream would show him what to do."

 This is not my own personal review but I endorse this review which perhaps speaks more clearly than my own often convoluted writing.

"The key word in this remarkable book is awe. Laurens van der Post is not afflicted by that `certain cowardice' he writes of `in the face of the inexpressible.' Hence he follows a chain of coincidences of a nature far beyond the haphazard arithmetic of chance. Clue after clue assails him; A Mantis Carol resembles a kind of metaphysical-physiological whodunnit
        After he had written The Lost World of the Kalahari, his classic account of the Bushmen of southern Africa, Laurens van der Post received a strange letter from an unknown woman in New York. She wanted his advice about, of all things, a recurring dream, the central feature of which was a praying mantis. The woman was a psychoanalyst and knew that we ignore our dreams, particularly our recurring ones, at our peril. . . . The mantis, she felt, was haunting her for a reason.
        The analyst was called Martha Jaeger. It struck van der Post as strange that she should have a name which meant `hunter' in German. He was currently writing -- with great difficulty -- a book called The Heart of the Hunter. It too was concerned with the Bushmen -- and the mantis, which for them was god.
        Thus begins this account of an episode in van der Post's life which took him to New York and involved his meeting, at one remove, with one of his own Bushmen. Hans Taaibosch, as he was called, had arrived in America via Jamaica, where the little man . . . far from his native Kalahari . . . had become a star circus attraction.
        Van der Post's theory is that the almost exterminated Bushmen constitute a crucial link with our own remotest past: `his conscious mind corresponds in some sort to our dreaming selves' and thus is a mirror for some of the imponderables which arise from the modern unconscious, between which Taaibosch himself, a man of the Stone Age working the circus circuit in modern America without loss of dignity, makes a physical connection.
        As well as an account of a memorable episode A Mantis Carol is an affirmation of primitive love and meaning, hard to explain except in Jungian terms, but both inspiring and stimulating to read. Van der Post has written a perfect Christmas fable, full of mystery but oddly satisfying."

PART 1 - Stream of Consciousness

It is a function of our mind that one image or thought leads to an association with another and so on (which is the bane of mediators, but that is another story) in what is often referred to as a "Stream of Consciousness" which of course is the name of this Blog. So this is a little story from the stream.

 If you look at the fella on the right it is obvious that he is not what you would call a handsome or good looking specimen by any manner or means, BUT, he is probably more attractive in the ordinary sense to other homosapiens than the large praying mantis on the brim of the hat of my good shipmate on the left.

When looking at this photograph I was reminded of a book by the South African writer Laurens van der Post. The book is called 'A Mantis Carol' which is the true story about the adventures of a South African Kalahari Bushman. The praying mantis is special to the bushmen because the most important southern Bushmen spiritual being is Kaggen, the trickster-deity who in bushman theology created many things, and appears in numerous myths where he can be foolish or wise, tiresome or helpful. The Deity would appear in the myths in many forms, often as a Praying Mantis.

Hans Taaibosch the Bushman in 'A Mantis Carol' finds his way to the United States where he works in various circuses. He is a most appealing personality whose openness, honestly and what we call 'groundedness' is beyond compare. He is open to the world in a special way. He is a man without guile with a wonderful laugh that stops people in their tracks. It is a laugh that sings of a deep connectedness with his own nature and being - he knows himself beyond compare.

"Van der post's theory is that the almost exterminated Bushmen constitute a crucial link with our own remotest past in that his conscious mind corresponds in some way to our dreaming selves and thus is a mirror for some of the imponderables which arise from the modern unconscious, between which Taaibosch himself, a man of the Stone Age working the circus circuit in modern America without loss of dignity, makes a physical connection."

 To fully understand this connection and the special place of the praying mantis that informs Taaibosch's world you need to read the book.

Laurens van der Post is one who writes wonderfully of Africa. I have read all his books and it is from these writings that any understanding I have of Africa springs.

Van der Post was a friend of the great Carl Jung. Jung who was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud (but whose theories and conclusions about the psyche are quite different) is considered one of the fathers of modern psychology.

There is a story in Van der Post's book 'Jung and The Story of Our Time' where my stream of consciousness in this Blog post continues.
Although born and raised in Africa, Van der Post lived in England. When traveling too and from Africa he would always travel via Switzerland where he would visit his friend Carl Jung. Van der Post tells a story of Jung which has echoes of Hans Taaibosch. Often, Van der Post writes, when taking lunch with Jung in his garden people walking past would backtrack and peer through the gate in the hedge seeking the source of the sound of the wonderful uninhibited laughter they had heard that peppered the conversational gezelligheid of Carl Jung. In echoes of Hans Taaibosh the laughter spoke of wholeness and connectedness of being.

My stream of consciousness then lead me to this idea - that this wholeness of being, this connectedness sounded something not unlike the parable promise of the mustard seed in the New Testament, which states that:

"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches."

When I view this in my own metaphorical way the parable tells me that wholeness, connectedness and  completion (the kingdom) resides within us as a potentiality that can be developed over our lifetime (the image of the growing tree) not with reference to dogma, doctrines, hollow rituals or the following of some guru but by taking seriously the idea that we live in the 'Kingdom' NOW, the Kingdom is truely upon us now, if we use our eyes to see and our ears to listen. Jung was quite firm on the point that 'wholeness' or the 'individuated self' is something we are born with, it is there with us from the beginning - life is the process of unfolding it, letting it bloom, like the opening of a flower. So, in my way of thinking the word "God" becomes a placeholder for the continuous revelation of meaning that streams forth from a life fully lived. "God"  is not 'out there', transcendent, separate, nor is "God" an end to be attained -  rather "God" is the truth we discover as we live the journey, NOW; in all its fullness; and if we live this fullness in a deep and meaningful way we become whole, complete and connected. We become a place of relatedness with and to others (including all living things) on this planet (the image of the birds of the air nesting in our branches) - and this all begins from the time of conception when we were as small as a mustard seed. 

How should we live this journey? - probably in the same spirit that the Dalai Lama lives his, who said, "My religion is compassion and loving kindness" - I personally can't argue with that.

All of what I have written is an echo of what I quoted long ago on the right hand sidebar of this Blog under  the heading 'Wisdom From Karen Armstrong'. She gives some strong statements about how we should live our lives; and in living fully, practise always trumps belief.

Just a thought. (Or Stream of Consciousness)

OK

I took this photo at the Auckland Boat Show a few weeks ago. I used to sail one of these. It is an OK Dinghy. It was the pinnacle of my young sailing days. These boats are not just beautiful to look at (They make an International Laser class yacht look like a floating fridge door) but beautiful to sail - they move to windward like a huge soaring eagle and they run down wind like smoke.

This Ok is constructed of exotic materials - mainly fiberglass and kevlar. Mine was constructed of plywood. It was painted spinnaker red and had a glorious varnished deck as expansive as a Steinway piano. Now - without wanting to influence the future (yes, yes, yes, I secretly really, really, really want to)..... it would be rather nice IF ... and its an IF predicated on Moi finding himself with a new, large and expansive workshop (watch this space) ..... then after the restoration of my little Starling dinghy (God bless her little wooden heart).... fortune may wash up on my shores an Ok dinghy in much need of TLC and a thorough restoration. Sigh, so many boats, so little time.

Always My Friends The Stars

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
By Walt Witman

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Invictus (Unconquered)

Invictus

By William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.  

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the Skipper of my soul.

Into The Boundary

Dear Reader, if you double click on the above photo then it will be enlarged for your visual edification. To the right you will see 'The Hen' the main island in the 'Hen and Chickens' Islands. In the distance to the left you can see 'The Chicks' the other part of the 'Hen and Chickens' group of islands.

This photo shows a very recent trip to Bream Head (the headland to the left of my kayak). What a great, great  adventure it was, kayaking close along the headland amongst the rocks and caves, with the ever present bush clad land dropping almost sheer from the Bream Head walkway high above.

I love the boundary between the sea / lake / river / estuary and the land. I love too the open ocean with its pure wave and wind blown majesty, but the boundary area contains an interaction that more than complements the deep sea - and in a sea kayak or small centreboard yacht it is hard to resist - rocks, surf, waves, reefs, kelp, marine life, caves, beaches and in New Zealand the ever present sight and sound of native bush.

Today I bought a small belt sander from our local 'Bunnings' hardware mega store that will facilitate the next stage in the restoration of my Starling sailing dinghy .....

...... I know where I shall be headed with a tent and a weeks provisions 'Swallows and Amazons' style when she is sailing......... Into the boundary.

Milestones and Penultimate Moments

In the Nana Olympics Christine would be without a doubt a gold medalist - without a doubt; she's that good.

When we see our beloved grandson approximately every month he has either reached some sort of milestone in his development or he is just a step away from the next one. To date Zane is pulling himself up from the floor and hanging onto furniture. Soon it will be one small step for our grandson, one giant leap in his mobility. Such a sea change in Alex and Ramizas bright new world of parenting will mean that things will never be quite the same again. Intelligence, curiosity and mobility will be an interesting alliance.

How quick has been his development, how so very, very rich the experience of watching him grow - such an abundance of love flows in his direction - he deserves it all - love, his doting parents and his gold medalist Nana.

Modifying The Honda Accord

These two photographs from the Auckland Boat Show picture how some seven foot long P Class yachts were transported in the first half of last century. It was back in the real days when sensible people in New Zealand grew their own vegetables on their quarter acre sections, women knew how to make Pavlova correctly, men hadn't lost their mojos, teachers used real sacks (not these new fangled, pathetic, synthetic thingies) for the children's sports day sack races and real cars had running boards on which to cart small yachts around on - what the fuck happened to the world?

These photographs are fortuitous because I have 7 boats (A sea kayak, a small inflatable dinghy, Two rigid fiberglass dinghies, two sailing dinghies and one relatively large ocean going yacht.) [That's a lot of boats - not as many as I would like; BUT there's still time - but I digress] ...... and I have no way of getting any of the six of the seven boats to the water! I recently put a tow bar on my Honda Accord with the idea of purchasing a trailer to take these little boats down to the sea, but I can see the solution right here in these photographs - a running board on the Honda is what is needed, now, without a moments sailing time to be lost. Bingo! I now have a use for that old sheet of corrugated iron.

Camping With A Seven Footer

On a screen between two seven foot P Class yachts at the Auckland Boat Show I watched a slide show complete with themed music for each decade; beginning in the 1920s, showing the P Class in all its various guises. I took photographs of some of the slides.

This very early photograph shows something I never did do with my own small P class yacht - camping. This is a very New Zealand version of Ransomes' "Swallows and Amazons". On the right of the photo is a P Class turned on its side. One of the yachts mainsails is being used for a tent and the dining table is one of the centreboards. The photograph was probably taken by the other P Class skipper with a Box Brownie camera. The young fella in the photograph is so handsome it could almost be me.

It is said that when you get to a particular age all you do is look back and reminisce - bugger that. Hanging up in my carport on a six part purchase pulley is a small P Class yacht that I restored a couple of years ago. Her name is 'Cygnet'. As I mentioned earlier I never got to go camping in my spinnaker red coloured little P Class called 'Elusive' but I am going to change all of that when the weather gets a little warmer -phfff, who said Halcyon Days are only for those of a certain decade.

IT MADE ME SMILE

Every Friday here at School the children can order a sausage on bread with or without tomato sauce. It costs $1.50 for a sausage at our 'Friday Sausage Sizzle' school fund raiser.

Today a hand written order arrived, delivered by an adult as he dropped off his children. He was doing everything possible to make sure the sausage order arrived and was processed. The hand written note was precise, legible and with exemplary spelling. The signature at the bottom of the note had the flourish of a mission accomplished. It was the sort of note whose nuance (ripped with precision from one end of an envelope) stated unequivocally: "If this note doesn't elicit sausages at lunchtime today then the Cosmos in general and Einsteins General Theory of Relativity in particular needs some serious tweaking."

Lets call the children Jack and Jill. This is the handwritten order.

Hi ******

Could we please get three sausages.
1 X for Jack Rm 1
1 X for Jill Rm 3
           ______
           $3.00
Thanks  enclosed $5.00 (Change $2.00)

signed (Adult signature)

This makes me smile. I love this sort of thing because it makes me feel not so alone in the universe. May God bless this man many times.

Auckland Boat Show

There are two annual boat shows held in Auckland. One is on the waterfront where moored boats can be viewed and the other is at the Auckland Show Grounds. I have been very disappointed in the Auckland Show Grounds boat shows in the past as there have been no yachts displayed at all. What is displayed is mainly power boats, fishing rods and their associated paraphernalia and those detestable surf ski thingies that turn pleasant anchorages into dangerous race tracks with their noise and their poncy, ostentatious hubris. In my opinion never has such a lamentable addition to the boating scene  ever been invented - but I digress - I was pleasantly surprised this year to find a small part of the 2014 Auckland Boat Show devoted to centerboard yachts. There weren't as many as I would have liked to have seen but enough to put a smile on my face. I found them unexpectedly just as I was leaving. I had gone to the show to get some information on a new diesel engine for my yacht 'Mariner' and caught the small pavilion out of the corner of my eye as I was leaving. Inside amongst the displays I found a couple of P Class dinghies, an OK Dinghy and a fine example of a Starling sailing dinghy, a boat that I am currently restoring.

This P Class yacht in the photo used to belong to Dean Barker, New Zealands' Americas Cup skipper. I must have been a little over zealous in my removal of the signage in front of Dean Barkers P class so I could take a photograph, as an amused voice enquired, "Are you an old P class sailor?" I replied that I certainly was and added "How great to see not only some yachts at the boat show but some wooden ones into the bargain."

The voice belonged to Dean Barkers father, himself a former P Class sailor. He told me that this P Class yacht in the photo is the boat that Dean won the New Zealand National Championships when he was a young fella. He told me how he had tracked down this boat, restored it and presented it to his son Dean on his 40th birthday. When Dean arrived at the party 'Evolution' was floating in the family swimming pool. I think that's just about the best present I have ever heard of and I told Deans father so. 

"Yes, Dean was pretty stoked to see his old boat again!"

 I can imagine, I know Exactly; how he would have felt.

THE JUNK RIGGED FOLKBOAT 'JESTER'

Well shipmates, anyone immersed in yachtie folklore with the degree of obsession that this writer has knows about this little boat. She is the famous converted 'Folkboat' Jester. The only original part of the Folkboat (a class of yacht with its own illustrious history) is Jesters hull. The deck, cabin and rig are additions by Hasler. She was conceived and built by Colonel 'Blondie' Hasler back in the late 1950s.

Colonel Hasler is well known for his involvement as one of the 'CockleShell Heroes' of WW2 during the commando raid 'Operation Frankton'. Six canoes were taken to the area of the Gironde estuary in France by submarine. Twelve men paddled up river and successfully placed limpet mines on Nazi ships. Two men survived: Hasler, and his number two in the canoe, Sparks. Eight were caught and executed by the Germans, while two died from hypothermia when they capsized. Prime Minister Winston Churchill stated that the mission shortened the war by six months. Admiral Louis Mountbatten, called the raid "the most courageous and imaginative ever carried out by the men of Combined Operations during World War Two."

After the war Blondie Hasler was one of four crews in the inaugural single handed Transatlantic race along with Francis Chichester, David Lewis,Val Howells and Jean Lacombe - all yachting legends.
He was also influential in a number of other areas. He designed the Hasler Wind Vane (which is attached to the stern of Jester in the photo) which enables a yacht to self steer. He took Jester to Loch Ness and made a thorough search for the Loch Ness Monster! (Something any yachtie worth his salt would do - having a good reason to sail on a Loch must enhance the experience!
He was also an early pioneer and promoter of the Chinese junk rig which is known for its simplicity and ease of operation. The rigging and reefing of the mainsail and the steering of Jester is operated from the steering position without going on deck at all. Hasler married at the age of fifty a woman nearly half his age and went on to live a fruitful and interesting life farming and building another small experimental yacht and being involved in other interesting design projects.

Now the yacht in the above photograph is not the original Jester. Let me explain. In 1964 Jester was sold to Mike Richey who sailed her in every OSTAR (Observer Singled Handed Transatlantic Race) (Observer being the sponsoring English newspaper) with various degrees of success until 1988 when Jester was lost and sunk in a huge storm. This was the second time she had come to grief. In an earlier OSTAR she had been hauled aboard a passing ship like a huge fish after suffering damage in a storm.  At this point in yachting history Jester had become such an icon of the OSTAR, so well known in the anals of small boat sailing and being much loved by the yachting public, that a trust was formed and a new exact replica of Jester was built and presented to Mike Richey. It is this Jester that is in the above photo. Richey sadly passed away recently at a ripe old age and a life of sailing his beloved Jesters. I am not sure who now owns and sails Jester but I will find out.

Whilst Googling for this post I found out something I didn't know. That is, a sister ship to Jester exists. Her name is 'China Blue' and what a fine little craft she looks in the photograph below.

From a classical point of view these are not beautiful yachts but I find them strangely attractive. The attraction is one of function over form. Functions that have been planned and created by Blondie Hasler in the same inimitable way he designed a kayak that could be loaded down a submarine hatch for the raid in France, a self steering wind vane and an adaptation of the junk rig for a small yacht which sailed into yachting history.

LISTENING CORRECTLY

 
In the deep core 

I felt the hearing of it 

Felt it with my heart

If I had been deaf

I would still have heard it

 Clambering up onto the deck 

Of my small boat

I heard the high sailing stars singing

Singing

Singing

Singing in my heart

- Alden Smith

"An Engine, An Engine, My Kingdom For An Engine!"

Well, actually it was William Shakespeares' Richard III in the play of the same name who, when unhorsed on the field at the climax of the battle, cries out, "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" We didn't end up in  the same desperate plight as poor old King Richard but we could have been I guess, if time, tide, luck and chance had been against us. But we did have our own tricky time. 

The crew deals to our first fish. Every time we have caught a Kingfish from Mariner it has always been on the first day of a trip and it has always been off Bream Head, the first headland of our journeys north. This one was caught by David (right). Gerry (left) a keen naturalist was able to give us a running commentary on every bit of bird life we sighted - (Prions, Stormy Petrels, Fluttering Petrels, Skuas, Shags, Gannets, Blue Penguins and various Gulls).

Fair weather saw the spinnaker being flown. A downhill ride with a spinnaker drawing hard and fast is always a joy in moderate conditions - in fresh breezes one gets the taste of what it might have felt like to be a kamikaze pilot.

We caught over eight Schnapper off Limestone Island on our return journey. We had to throw half of them back as they were undersize. This one was a couple of centimeters over the legal minimum size.

The first set of tight situations we found ourselves in were when entering Tutukaka harbour on the Northern coast. The entrance is narrow and the wind was flukey when tacking in. We then had some fun tacking amongst the anchored yachts looking for an anchorage. I wanted to go in nice and close to the land. This meant weaving in and out between yachts and being given some anxious looks by some of the owners. We anchored in about two fathoms and had a quiet night out of the harbour traffic and swell.
The second tight situation was returning to the mooring up stream of the new Whangarei lifting bridge. The first stage had us anchored for the night off Limestone Island. Gerry who had abandoned all hope of sleeping in his bunk the night before and had retired onto the floor of the boat was very keen to spend the night on Limestone Island in a 'normal' bed. He knew the  ranger (Gerry is on the Limestone Island Trust Board) and was sure of being able to persuade the ranger to give us a tow up river, which he did. Gerry complained that his berth was too short and that it felt like he was being tipped out onto the floor all the time. We replied with, "Gerry, you are English and we rest our case." We could have said, "Gerry you an anal retentive whinging Pommy bastard, not happy with just colonizing the world with your redundant stiff upper lipped world view, you also complain like the Princess and the Pea about having a kip in quite adequate sleeping arrangements, so take your feather duvet, unmanly powder puff pillow pretensions and fuck off ashore to unchallenging luxury".
But we didn't say that, for we on Mariner like to take an encouraging Whanau approach to things.

Dave the ranger towed us as far as the bridge, but no further, as he had visitors coming to Limestone Island. We were very grateful for the tow as it is nearly impossible to sail around the last very narrow bend in the river. He left us waiting on the bridge pontoon pondering our situation.
We didn't have to ponder very long because within ten minutes another yacht turned up wanting to go through the lifting bridge to the Whangarei town basin. The yachts owner kindly towed us up channel, past the bridge where close to our mooring piles we cast off the tow line and coasted up to the mooring.

As we coasted in we watched with amusement at the manner in which the owner of this overseas yacht was cleaning his dinghy. He had flipped his inflatable upside down and was vigorously scrubbing the bottom with a brush.
It was a short but eventful trip. All I have to do now is fix the engine so we can go on another sortee up the coast or out to Great Barrier Island (My goal for the next trip as I haven't been there in years) - but I am faced with some very major work which may entail replacing the old engine - time consuming and expensive. In the mean time I have thrown myself into doing a good job of work in the classroom at my school and are ignoring the compelling voice of Richard III.

A Brief Sail North

Here I am headed North with a couple of friends. The motor blew up just as we approached the first exit through the new Whangarei lifting bridge. It was a case of aborting the mission there and then or continuing on with our brief holiday and taking my chances at being able to get in and out of anchorages and make passages without a motor. Small auxiliary diesel engines are very useful on small yachts as they enable you to get in and out of tricky harbour entrances and among anchorages when there are a lot of other yachts at anchor. Engines are also good when there is no wind and there is a set return date. I thought "Bugger this, if it was good enough for Abel Tasman, Captain Cook, Maori since circa 800AD and every other man and his dog to have tootled around these waters without the aid of an engine then I would take the chances of a skinny white man with a dodgy ticker and sail engineless".
I thought hard about the implications but knew that my experience and sailing skills would probably keep us safe, which they did. We had a fine old trip, be it short, but it contained some interesting situations that I had not be involved with before. More of that in the next post.

Back She Goes

After what was a lot of quite pleasant but hard work Mariner was put back in the water and onto her mooring. As I motored back up the river I was not getting any water coming out of the exhaust which meant that something drastic was wrong. Back on the mooring I fixed or thought I had fixed the problem - I ran the motor and cooling water was flowing and exiting the exhaust - but the problem persisted later with some decisive consequences which I will fill out in some following posts.