Life on the slipways

Brought to you by the New Zealand Maritime Museum 

In the days of wooden boats, Auckland’s waterfront was dotted with slipways where most wooden boats were hauled out like clockwork into a yard every winter for maintenance. 
P. Vos Ltd operated one such yard. Each boat had its own wooden cradle to sit in while ‘on the hard’. When its turn came to be hauled out, the cradle was put on the slipway and pushed into the water.

The yard of P. Vos boatbuilders in the 1950s. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1730-078

The boat would sail onto it at high tide and the job of hauling it up the ramp commenced. Cast iron winches were hand turned, with thick steel hawses tensioning to haul the vessel out of the water on planks and cross beams greased with tallow from the local abattoir. Everyone kept well clear in case something broke. 

The boat would spend most of the winter undergoing maintenance, to be ready for summer adventures. It was hard physical work, out in the elements. But it was also necessary, and it forged bonds and memories just as much as the time sailing did.

James Mitchelson recalls the famous Vos built race yacht Kahurangi on the main slipway in the early 1960s. “The guys would arrive in their dinner suits because they had been out all night. Everyone would be on their boats working. It was a time when the crews were expected to do their bit. Most of our winter weekends were spent sanding, painting and filling.”  

Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19220928-48-01