My Account
It’s been referred to as a ‘living museum of maritime history’ and there’s no mistaking that when it comes to workplaces, the Whangateau Traditional Boatyard takes some beating. Sitting on wooden piles over a small spit of sand in Tramcar Bay, the sea laps at its doorstep on one side, while the tide rises and falls over the slipways in the behind. The wind whistles through the countless cracks and crevices in the building, seabirds squawk overhead and smell of salt mixes with the rich aroma of sawdust. Hundreds of tools sit neatly arranged on the wall over the workbenches where boat builder Pam Cundy uses the skills acquired over nearly 30 years of “mucking around with boats” to restore the classic wooden boats that are slowly beginning to disappear from NZ’s coastlines. She’s been on site for nearly seven years, but still says its feels like a privilege to call the old shed her workshop. Pam told editor Jannette Thompson that had it not been for her extreme shyness, she probably would have been a graphic designer ….
My family moved from Birkenhead to Mangawhai when I was still at school and I learned to sail in the estuary. I remember the headmaster filling in report cards one year, asking each student what their sports and hobbies were. When it got to my turn, I said I liked sailing. His response was ‘no you don’t, that’s not a sport. I’ll put down netball’. When I thought about it years later, it really hacked me off and I wondered if he would have said the same thing to a boy. I was terribly shy at school, still am really. When I finished I did some planting on the Mangawhai sand dunes with DOC and then worked as a caretaker. I’d have liked to have been a graphic designer illustrating children’s books, but the thought of going to Auckland to study was just too overwhelming.
One constant source of fun for my family was sailing on the Hauraki Gulf in our old 18-foot mullety. We’d go away for two or three weeks a year and although it certainly wasn’t always comfortable, my sister and two brothers and I have such fond memories of these times. The mullety leaked, like they do, and was pretty basic with no electrics or VHF, just a transistor radio. We’d have to throw our sleeping bags over the boom every morning to dry them out and for some reason, the potatoes were stored next to the cooker so always tasted a little like kerosene. One year we ran into a horrible storm and took shelter in the woolshed on Tiritiri Matangi. We brought a few supplies ashore, but fortunately there was a chest full of blankets in the shed. It was quite an adventure for us kids, in spite of the gale howling outside. On another occasion we sailed to Mangawhai and again struck some heavy weather. Lucky for us, Dad was a competent sailor. Sometimes, when we were young, he would only venture around the headland for a weekend trip, but it would still be awesome to us. Fathers are clever like that.
The first boat we had as kids was a P class and it arrived courtesy of Santa, who left it in the lounge by the Christmas tree. It’s in the boatyard now and I shall give it a much-needed tidy up one day soon. When I was about 18, I bought a Hartley 12-foot trailer sailer and then when I was in my early twenties, Dad encouraged me to buy a 30-foot Hartley sparkle design trimaran, which was in three pieces at the time. Of course, after we bought it, when found out it was in worse condition than we anticipated. But with Dad’s guidance – he was a panelbeater who went in to boat building – I started to learn how to use power tools, repair rot and so on. As another part of its reconstruction, I totally redesigned and refitted its interior. There was no time for boys then because all I wanted to do was work on my boat. Eventually I sold her to help finance a trip off shore but I did keep a small amount aside to put a deposit of my next boat. My partner George and I went away cruising for 18 months – the trip of a lifetime.
A few years later, Dave Blair invited me to join his business in Warkworth and from then on, work just came by word-of-mouth. When I was working with other boat builders, I realised that even though I didn’t have any formal training, I was going about things the right way. That gave me a lot of confidence and I remember thinking how cool it was that I was making a living doing something that I loved. There aren’t a lot of women boat builders and maybe that had something to do with my decision to do the National Certificate in Boatbuilding (Wooden) Level 4, through the NZ Marine Industry Training Organisation. It was just something personal that I felt I wanted to do. I’ve always been treated like a boat builder and I certainly won’t be showing off the certificate or anything like that, but it feels good just knowing that I’ve achieved it.
Since setting up in the boatshed seven years ago, we’ve mostly been restoring traditional boats but I look forward to building some small boats here in the future. We have become selective in choosing what to restore as it takes time and money. Some are obvious candidates, like those built by reputable boat builders such as Logan Bailey, but others can also be worthy of a second look. We’ve restored simple dories and punts as they were typical boats of yesteryear used for fishing and netting, rowing to church, collecting the mail and other commonplace work. An aspect of boat building that I really enjoy is being able to take a customer’s idea or drawing and make it a reality. Some of the boats at the yard are family heirlooms or fast becoming so, and every one comes with a story. There’s a lot of satisfaction in putting a boat back on the water to be useful and pretty again.
There are about 30 traditional boats at the yard and about half are in various stages of repair or restoration. Learning to master old traditions such as reviting, caulking, steaming, rigging and sail-making is ongoing, and I’m really grateful to some of the local sea salts and other wise men who have passed on their knowledge, even giving tools and materials to go on with. It’s becoming harder to find the old tools – most of them are antiques now and some of the ones I use were my Dad’s. When George and I travel, we always look through the second-hand shops to see what we can find. It’s not cheap to restore these old wooden boats, but thank goodness some people have the money and passion to want to do it. We need to look after what we’ve still got left because the artistry, detail and craftsmanship on these boats is really beautiful, and it would be sad if these skills and boats were lost.
People who discover the yard, love it and we’d average around 700 visitors a year. They are all welcome and appear happy to have stumbled on the place, with comments of stepping back in time to their youth and the familiar smells of their grandfather’s shed. We receive lovely emails from overseas visitors, stories of their boating adventures, and photos and prints from photographers and artists, which are precious keepsakes. TV commercials have been made here and Tiki Tane recently featured the yard in one of his music videos.
George is an awesome corner post for me and the yard. He has an abundance of knowledge and is always there to help. We continue to do maintenance on the building and planting around the yard. The boatshed is an important part of our maritime history and the community has done an awesome job in standing up and protecting it. So yes, this shy girl that works and plays with boats is really pleased to see folk latch on to her ‘happy place’ and be a part of it. I don’t have the words to describe how much it means to me to be here. All I know is that I would hate for anything to change – I’m surely living the dream. This place and occupation offers enough challenges to grow as a person and I’m really happy with how the yard has evolved.
Read this story online to view the Tiki Tane video, shot at the boatshed and in Pakiri.
