Boaties wade in to save skills

Hobsonville project trustees (from left) Bruce Tantrum, Robert Brooke, Harold Kidd and Ron Jamieson. The little clinker dinghy they are using as a prop was built by Brooke. Picture / Kenny Rodger

The marine cluster growing at the former Hobsonville RNZAF base is home to some of the nation's leading edge boatbuilders. Early next year there will be an additional activity that leads directly to our past.

The Auckland Traditional Boatbuilding School will open in February. It has been developed by a group of four men with a lifelong interest in our maritime history who were growing increasingly concerned that our traditional boatbuilding skills and craftsmanship were at risk. They registered a charitable trust in December 2005 to create a facility to teach international standard traditional boatbuilding skills and other related activities.

The founding four are businessman Ron Jamieson (chairman), Robert Brooke (boatbuilder, teacher and general manager of the Boating Industry Training Organisation), Harold Kidd (marine historian and saviour of many old craft) and Bruce Tantrum (builder, classic yacht sailor and active member of the trust that among other successes brought the Logan masterpiece Waitangi back to Auckland).

Jamieson researched the project internationally before the trust developed its operational programme. In both Britain and the United States similar training organisations to the one being planned for Auckland were attracting 25 per cent of their students from adults making career changes. The rest were a mix of school leavers and people from the community keen to learn new skills or enhance their skills through weekend and short-term courses. He believes the student mix here will be the same.

The skills acquired by graduating students will enable them to enter all sections of the boatbuilding industry. Jamieson says the school is working towards registration with the New Zealand Qualifications Authority as a private training establishment and accreditation with the Tertiary Education Commission. Most of the courses offered will include units and credits toward the Level 4 National Certificate in Boatbuilding (wooden).

Brooke, as education director for the project, says they will be offering a range of courses including night classes.

Examples are: an introduction to traditional boatbuilding (37 weeks); night school and day classes for apprentices (39 weeks); design-drawing and lofting (two weeks); clinker dinghy construction (12 weeks); small boat construction (12 weeks). There will also be school holiday programmes. One will have students building a canoe in a week with another, devised as a family project, will be to build a dinghy in a fortnight.

He says some specific short courses will be devised to allow boat owners to gain experience at specific tasks (building a spar or a mast for example). "The idea," he says. "Is to provide a hands-on experience within a workshop environment with classroom lectures for appropriate units. These activities will include woodworking hand and machine skills, boatbuilding knowledge and methods, building a range of small craft and repairing/restoring larger craft."

The trustees emphasise that the school will be complementary to existing teaching providers in the region and beyond. The aim is to target a perceived need in one sector of the marine industry. They will work closely with the Boating Industry Training Organisation and the Marine Industry Association.

Jamieson says they are forming Friends of the School support group to tap into the resources and skills of the business community and the hundreds of boat owners and former boat owners both sail and power who have an interest in helping preserve the nation's marine resources.

He is handling inquiries about the school on (09) 416 1023 or email: ronjamieson@xtra.co.nz

* Robert Brooke will retire from the BITO in mid-December. During his term at the helm 400 people have graduated from apprenticeships, there are 520 in training at present and in November another 100 will graduate.

He says the time is right for a change that will allow him to take the skills developed over a lifetime in a new direction.