History – Jack’s Frostbite

Fittingly, the Kiatoa, a kauri-timber racing dinghy, is currently on display in the Volunteers’ Hall of the Kauri Museum. Its designer and builder, John (Jack) Balmain Brooke, himself contributed many hours of volunteer service and technical expertise to the New Zealand sailing community. His innovative designs, the Frostbite and the Sunburst, underpinned New Zealand’s secondary school sailing competitions for decades.

Kiatoa is on loan to the museum and visitors can examine the craftmanship and genius of this small racing dinghy. The Frostbite class has fostered a love of competitive sailing in our nation.

The basis of the construction of the Kiatoa is as old as the hills, being ‘clinker-built’. Clinker-built, also known as lapstrake-built, is a method of boatbuilding in which the edges of the longitudinal hull planks overlap each other (like weatherboards on a house). This allows for a greater distance between the frames, leading to the construction of a stronger, yet lighter, vessel.

Wikipedia claims the technique originated in Northern Europe, with the first known examples using metal fastenings that join overlapped planks in c. 310-320 AD. The technique was successfully utilised by the Vikings between AD 700-1100.

Fast forward to1930s New Zealand – the Great Depression was biting economically and a number of keen racing members of the Wakatere Boating Club in Devonport talked about developing a new class of racing dinghy which could be built for £10. Initially the club was largely comprised of canoeists, but over time canoes were modified and fitted with lee boards, masts and sails.

In 1937, Jack Brooke, a founding member of the club, unveiled a design he called the New Zealand Frostbite, of which Kiatoa is one. This design was based on the international Frostbite class, then sailing in England and America. The first NZ Frostbite was launched in 1938 and within a year some 36 boats were racing at Wakatere.

Brooke’s contentious skimmer designs outperformed the traditional yachts in the popular 14-foot and 18-foot classes in the 1940s. This was developed in 1938 for Neil Wing to sail on Hamilton lake.

By 1946, the Frostbite design had been elevated to national racing status. In 1951, it was adopted for secondary school competitions, retaining this honour until 1975 when it was succeeded by the Sunburst – also designed by Jack Brooke.

It has been suggested that the success of the Frostbite was because modern materials such as fiberglass hulls, aluminium masts and state-of-the-art sail materials have been allowed, while retaining the key elements of the original design. And in 1970, the fiberglass Frostbite was developed using Kiatoa as the mould.

In his lifetime, Brooke designed over 250 different types of yachts, and built a great number himself. His designs included the Spirit of Adventure, the Sabot dinghy (1957), the Sunburst (1964), some of the first New Zealand light-displacement C-class keel yachts, and he even produced several successful outboard-power boat designs.

But Jack Brooke’s interest, and that of his children, was always around enabling and encouraging the ordinary New Zealander to participate in sailing.