75-year-old launch on hearty Christmas voyage

By ROBIN BAILEY

The Christmas cruise is always on the mind of this country's boaters. So how about one of 2330 nautical miles involving around 230 hours of steaming?

That's the voyage Sefton Powrie and Boyd Swinburn have devised to relive some New Zealand nautical history and, at the same time, inform the nation about cardiac rehabilitation.

They will head off from Herne Bay in Auckland on Christmas afternoon in Powrie's 75-year-old launch Ruamano to circumnavigate the country. Ruamano last made the voyage fresh from the famed Collings and Bell yard in St Mary's Bay on Christmas Day, 1925.

The 43ft kauri boat was one of the first planing-hull launches built in this country and probably one of the first of its size in the world. Her owner was Alf Court, then managing director of the Queen St family firm John Court Ltd.

The historic 1925 voyage started from the jetty at the Court home in Sarsfield St, Herne Bay. This Christmas the 2000-01 circumnavigation will leave from the Maritime Museum, then make a good luck loop under the Harbour Bridge to Herne Bay before heading into the Gulf.

Ruamano had been carefully maintained by a succession of owners until furniture-maker Sefton Powrie, who has a love of both wood and history, acquired her three years ago.

The idea to repeat the voyage after 75 years came, Swinburn and Powrie say, following a little too much late-night rum.

Daylight, as always, put the challenge in perspective and the decision was made to add a public-service dimension to the adventure.

Boyd Swinburn was about to leave for a new job in Australia after resigning as medical director of the Heart Foundation and his professorship at Auckland University Medical School.

They decided the trip could be used to raise public awareness of cardiac rehabilitation throughout the nation and to possibly get some additional dollars into the foundation's coffers.

"Cardiac rehabilitation helps people who have had a heart attack to return to as full a life as possible and helps to prevent further attacks," says Swinburn. "It is often overlooked for funding support in favour of other fields, like surgery. We are on about education and other preventive initiatives like exercise.

"By taking Ruamano around the country from December 25 to February 16, 2001 we will take the Cruise-Aid for Hearts message to all the main centres and a lot of lesser points in between. Regional Heart Foundation branches will be able to use our stopovers to create local awareness promotions in a unique way."

The seagoing professor and Ruamano owner Powrie will make the complete circumnavigation. Crew for the other legs will be drawn from volunteers Erik Smeele, Sam Swinburn, Malcolm Reynolds, John Green, Ross Green, Malcolm Middleton, Richard Luke, Bill Grayson and David Graham. For the potentially tough leg south to Westport, well-qualified Taranaki-based sailor Lindsay Wright will join the crew.

On its first voyage, Ruamano was powered by twin 75hp Redwing petrol engines. For the long leg south from Greymouth to Bluff - and to allow for some cruising in the sounds - Ruamano carried 200 gallons of petrol in the tanks and another 60 wooden cases each holding two four-gallon cans. Early records show all the crew were smokers, which indicates the launch-as-floating-bomb was fortunate to have survived the voyage.

Ruamano is now diesel powered, but fuel is again a problem. "It's not a matter of getting it, it's all about paying for it," says Boyd Swinburn. "We've had great support from local companies for services and equipment, but we haven't managed to tap a fuel sponsor. We need only about 10,000 litres and with diesel prices at today's level it will be a great boost to our fund-raising effort if the fuel bill is taken care of."

The sleek and graceful 75-year-old will make history and a lot of new friends on her anniversary circumnavigation adventure. Weekend Marine will be updating her progress.