Malcolm Steedman's boat finally leaves his front lawn after more than 20 years. Photo / Supplied
Malcolm Steedman's boat finally leaves his front lawn after more than 20 years. Photo / Supplied
Today marks the end of an era for one Auckland family as their boat, which their father has been renovating for more than 20 years, has finally being moved off the front lawn and into a marina.
Beach Haven resident Malcolm Steedman has been working on the family boat for about 23 years as it sat on their front lawn, upgrading it from a "handyman sailboat" worth about $30,000 to a modern cruiser worth around $300,000.
He built the boat originally many years ago and the family of four children and two adults sailed it around New Zealand for 11 years, getting as far as Kerikeri in the north, out to Great Barrier Island and to the Coromandel.
After more than a decade of sailing, the family boat needed some attention. Rainwater has seeped through screw holes and rotted the windows, he said.
Malcolm Steedman's boat in its earlier days. Photo / Supplied
He decided to give the almost 11-metre boat an extreme makeover, using a marine architect and spending around $180,000 over the years.
"It's taken so long to do because I didn't want it to look like a handyman had built it. I wanted to make it look like it had been done professionally," Steedman said.
"I looked around at other boats and thought I wish I could afford something like that but that was impossible. You'd see photos of other boats and think that [part] would fit here so you work it around that."
After sailing around New Zealand for a decade with his wife and four kids, Malcolm Steedman's boat needed some work. Photo / Supplied
He said it's a relief to have the job done.
"At some stage, I thought, it's not going to get there. You get frustrated with some parts and it just doesn't work the way you want it to. You get sick of spending months and months sanding. All that's behind now. It's the easy part [now], everything is in other people's hands, not mine."
Steedman said the boat is a landmark in Beach Haven, with people using it as a way to give directions.
"It's been a landmark because people say you know where that boat is, well you turn up that road. Now they'll have to find another landmark."
Malcolm Steedman's boat finally leaves his front lawn after more than 20 years. Photo / Supplied
The boat holds special memories for the family as well. Mid-renovation, when the plywood had been peeled of the back third of it, it was a great hiding place for the kids, he said.
"You'd have to go and look all over the place to try and find them. They'd get in it from underneath it easy enough."
He has memories of when the weather turned stormy, the family rushing out in the rain and wind to pull the covers over the boat.
And in the final unveiling, his 8-year-old granddaughter had an important job.
Malcolm Steedman's boat restoration project was 20 years in the making. Photo / Supplied
"She was allowed to come up with me on the cabin top to help take all the covers off and unscrew all the bits holding it on. The very front of it you could see from the road, but everything else was undercover. So over the last few months more and more of the cover was coming off and more was getting unveiled."
A Facebook post about the moving of the boat on a community Facebook page attracted more than 70 comments, many sharing their memories of the boats over the years.
One person called it a "local icon" while another said they were going to miss it when it was gone.
After more than two decades, restoration work on the Steedman family's boat is finally complete. Photo / Supplied
The catamaran was winched by crane off Steedman's front lawn and onto the back of a truck. It was then transported to Hobsonville Marina where the motors will be mounted.
It will stay there for around four days before it's put into the water. Steedman plans to advertise the boat for sale "and see what happens" once he's got it running - but not before taking a few family and friends onto the water to watch the America's Cup.
