Plenty of good wood will be on parade

The Lady Glad was originally built to be a tug and cargo boat.

In Rotorua and the surrounding areas, the annual Lake Rotoiti Parade of the Wooden Boats, which will be held next Saturday, is a highlight of the marine calendar.

Now in its 11th year and organised by the Lake Rotoiti Classic and Wooden Boat Association, the parade brings together the many and varied classic boats of the lake in a way that allows the public to share in their beauty and craftsmanship.

The popular lake provides an ideal setting for this display of maritime history. Lake Rotoiti was an important waterway for Maori waka and played a significant part in the early settling of the region by Te Arawa and, later, Pakeha.

These days, as well as being the most popular lake in the region for sailing and cruising, Lake Rotoiti is also home to many classic launches from the 1920-40s. Members of the lake's classic boat association purposely look for older boats that others would consider past their "use by date". They then bring them to Rotoiti to be rebuilt and refitted. Local boat builders apparently have long waiting lists, full of boats waiting for such work.

However, this year, one of the stand-out boats of the parade is likely to be a more recent addition to the fleet: the delightful little Lady Glad. Owned by the Wilkins family, from the Okere Arm at the western end of the lake, this little ship was built in 1981 by Bill Visser of Kingfisher Boats in Tauranga.

Strangely, while it is undeniably a beautiful example of wooden boatbuilding, its origins were somewhat more basic. A Mr Marshall-Lee commissioned Dutchman Visser to build him a Dutch-style workboat to be used as a tug and cargo boat servicing his farm on Matakana Island. As it turned out, Lady Glad was never used for this purpose and lay unfinished until 1987, when the Wilkins family bought it. They then returned to Visser, asking him to complete the little ship, this time for use as a pleasure launch on Rotoiti.

At 6.7m overall with a 2.4m beam, Lady Glad is powered by a Yanmar 3 cylinder 28hp diesel and, very elegantly, now gets around the lake at a sedate 6 knots or so.

Lady Glad and the rest of the historic boat fleet will assemble in home waters in the Okere Arm at 10am next Saturday for the start of the parade, which will be led by the two majestic Te Arawa waka.

After a shoreside karakia of the fleet and three cannon shots, the waka will lead the fleet out "line astern" into the lake. Still led by the waka, the parade will then circle Okawa Bay before the fleet cruises down the lake for a weekend of festivities.

Those wanting to view the parade from shore should probably head for the stretch of State Highway 33 that lies beside the Okere Arm or for somewhere along the shoreline of Okawa Bay. A shore-side commentary, describing each boat as they pass the starting point, will be provided.

* Lake Rotoiti's Parade of Wooden Boats is a great opportunity to see some of the boats that featured in the early history of the central North Island lakes. It is well worth a look for those in the area and more information is available on the parade's website: www.woodenboatparade.co.nz