New masts for scow test for shipwright

By IAN STUART

A traditional boatbuilding skill has been pressed into service to replace the masts on a harbour workhorse - the flat-bottomed scow Ted Ashby.

The 12-year-old, 17m scow - probably the only commercial scow still working in the country - was built by the National Maritime Museum in 1992 from original plans and has been sailing around Auckland's Waitemata Harbour and the Hauraki Gulf on charter trips.

However, the laminated douglas fir masts which were made from demolition material are failing at the joins, and both the 13m and 14m masts have been removed.

The museum hired shipwright Colin Brown to make two new masts from trees felled in Kaingaroa Timberlands forests near Rotorua.

However, finding the trees and the skills to shape the new masts in keeping with the traditions of the gaff-rigged scow had been a mission, said the museum's vessel co-ordinator, Richard Pomeroy.

The Ted Ashby is the newest scow in the country but builders in 1992 followed the plans of the original flat-bottomed scows, scores of which plied the shallow waters around New Zealand in the late 1800s and the first 25 years of the last century.

For many years there were few roads and the limited rail system in pioneer New Zealand meant the scows were the only way of transporting cargo around the country.

With the keel up the scows could draw as little as 60cm, which gave them access to many estuaries and rivers for loading and unloading. However, the flat bottom also had its drawbacks and the little ships were uncomfortable in a heavy sea.

Suitable trees were known to grow in Rotorua, the top of the South Island, Canterbury and Otago, but the South Island trees were ruled out because of the prohibitive cost of transporting them to Auckland.

Mr Pomeroy said the trees were felled 10 days ago and Mr Brown was about to start the traditional task of "flitching", which involved making a round tree trunk into a square length of timber.

"It sounds weird. The boatbuilder actually makes the tree square and then lines it up, which means putting a building line from one end to the other, and chalks it up.

"From the square he reduces it to an octagon and then takes those corners off and gives it 16 sides and gradually makes it round again."

Mr Pomeroy said flitching allowed the shipwright to produce a straight and true mast and it was probably the first time in 50 years a scow has been remasted in New Zealand.

The scows originally used kauri for the masts but Mr Pomeroy said that because kauri was now protected they had to find an alternative.

The masts would be dried in Rotorua and that could take several months before they could be treated and stepped in the scow, Mr Pomeroy said.

In the meantime, the Ted Ashby is still working on the harbour, taking charter groups and schoolchildren out under motor power.

- NZPA