Whangārei Maritime Festival at the Town Basin attracted 13,000-plus visitors last year. Photo / Whangārei Maritime Festival
Whangārei Maritime Festival at the Town Basin attracted 13,000-plus visitors last year. Photo / Whangārei Maritime Festival
Whangārei’s second major maritime festival sets sail in the Town Basin this weekend with thousands of people expected to attend.
Whangārei based Blackball Maritime Society chairman David Irvin said this year’s festival would build on the success of an inaugural maritime festival last year which attracted 13,000 people.
The free festival celebrates the district’s maritime spirit - past, present and future - which contributes significantly to the economy locally and beyond.
He said it aimed to link those attending more closely with the district’s iconic maritime world and was for those who knew nothing about boats, through to those with a lot of experience.
More than 100 different things to do and see will be part of the 2024 event which is held over Saturday and Sunday.
A lineup of 30 notable boats from the past, present and future is featuring at the weekend’s event opportunities.
The lineup includes the giant 16m ocean voyaging waka Ngahiraka Mai Tawhiti built by Sir Hek Busby, that once sailed in the 1800km Waka Tapu voyage from New Zealand to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) to close the Polynesian triangle.
It also includes the 8m SS Puke, New Zealand’s oldest operating steam-powered tug, built out of kauri at Aratapu near Dargaville in the 1870′s to transport kauri to the settlement’s mill, which is being brought to the festival in a first-time event participation by the New Zealand Maritime Museum in Auckland.
A new 13m Royal New Zealand Navy high-speed chase boat, with capacity to mount machine guns forward and aft will be coming north for the first time.
Blackball Maritime Society chairman David Irvin in the Town Basin with one of the boats to be seen at this year's maritime festival. Photo / Susan Botting
And festival punters will also get the chance to see a first-time electric boat brought to the show, made by the same Northland-based company that built Wellington Harbour’s electric ferry.
The R Tucker Thompson will also return, providing opportunity for visitors to participate in pirate play.
The festival will be formally blessed in the Town Basin by local Māori on Friday afternoon, ahead of a formal opening by Whangārei mayor Vince Cocurullo at Whangārei Cruising Club later in the afternoon.
The hugely popular ancient art of gyotaki will make a return to this year’s festival. This ancient art was once used by Japanese fishermen to record their catches.
Irvin said people were welcome to bring their own T-shirts to the festival to print on to. There would otherwise be flags and bags provided to print on to. This would see people applying printing paints to the bodies of real fish to then make prints from.
A 10-lecture series held over both days of the festival in the Hundertwasser Art Museum building will be a feature. One of the lectures will be about Hundertwasser’s boat Regentag that he sailed to New Zealand in, and the artist’s relationship with the element of water.
The story of the ongoing project from schooner Daring's Muriwai Beach wreck to its rebuilding and now Mangawhai-based life will be among the lectures at the festival.
The rescue of the 1863-built Daring that can now be found in Mangawhai community park alongside Mangawhai Museum will also feature in another of the lectures. The 17m schooner is the only example of its type in the world.
There will also be a presentation about the Ocean Flyer’s seagliders which are being proposed as a new mode of transport from Whangārei to Auckland.
This new maritime opportunity will also be showcased among the festival’s emphasis on highlighting the huge economic contribution that the maritime sector makes to Whangārei district. A new online visual map developed for the maritime festival this year will show where the district’s maritime businesses are, along with other aspects.
A women who sail networking event will also be held at Aqua cafe on Saturday at 4pm.
Irvin said one of the key goals of the Blackball Maritime Society was to provide scholarships for youth wanting to develop maritime skills. A new givealittle page has been set up.
Several live bands will roam the festival. A wide range of food stalls will also be present.
Events will be taking place throughout the weekend including the return of the popular Northland rescue helicopter rescue demonstration with a person being picked up from a Coastguard-provided boat below.
A demonstration of flares would also be included.
And this year’s festival would also include demonstration of how to inflate and get into and out of an inflating liferaft.
