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I motored Huia up to the refuelling dock while keenly watching the windicators on the masts of nearby boats. While Huia is only 26ft, the addition of her enormous downwardly bending bowsprit extends her to nearly 32ft overall. Wanting to turn around and tie on the starboard side, I gunned the little Yanmar hard to port so I could catch the southerly breeze inside the marina with the bow, thereby letting the wind help me with my docking manoeuvre. Having sailed a range of old vessels which are unwieldy in tight spaces, I’ve learned it’s always best to make short, committed course changes and simply see where the vessel wants to go. The Huia weighs three tons and my philosophy is why fight her inertia? She will go where she wants to go and I will simply manage her decision - the most graceful manoeuvres in both life and at sea are those which move in unison with the surrounding natural forces. As intentioned, the light southerly caught the bow and she slowly turned on a dime into a starboard tie-up. My good friend Paul walked up as I centre-tied off the top of the bronze chainplate - looking from bow to stern, he exclaimed “Nick, you are a romantic, and this is the perfect boat for you!” - to which I agreed.
Six months ago, we as a family were living aboard our 42ft pilothouse cutter named Euphoria near the border of Queensland, having sailed some 2000km from SE Tasmania in winter. I was working on building a rowing scull in a rented workshop by the water, unable to sail north or south, stuck in Covid lockdowns. My sculling ambitions were to row up & down the Clarence River, wait out the pandemic, then continue our sail north in the following season. The pandemic ruined my Land Rover expedition around the world and now it was ruining our voyage into the paradisiac waters of the Great Barrier Reef and beyond. Truth be told, living aboard in a marina was wearing thin too (a floating caravan park) - bombarded with pandemic gloom, an ever brightening summer sun and general restlessness.
Euphoria was a big boat with many complex systems: Hydraulics, electrics, pumps, a big old Cummins engine, push-button furling, lots of steel to chip and epoxy, teak to varnish and big maintenance projects to keep her in optimum offshore sailing condition. She was the ultimate boat to live aboard and these particulars come with the comfort of such vessels - besides, these little jobs become part of the adventure in a way - yet when there is no adventure to be had and it’s impossible to tell where the world is headed, the energy begins to wane. We began to realise that perhaps we couldn’t continue to justify living aboard… And if we weren’t living aboard, did we really need a boat of this size? While I am a romantic, I am also a brutal realist - polar emotions in constant conflict; the required traits for all explorers: An ability to dream and an ability to do.
My favourite boat in the marina was a small 32ft expedition boat from the drawing board of Jean-Pierre Brouns, built by the famous META yard - those French boat builders located nowhere near the sea, in Tarare, France. META were once water tank builders, made famous by Bernard Moitessier’s request to build him a hull - for a water tank is not so different from the hull of a boat, is it? Moitessier was always working out a way to keep sailing; always making his way forward in the face of adversity - pure traits of every proper seaman - he can even be attributed to genuinely trying to build a boat from paper mache… Not only was he a deeply romantic soul, he was also a fine example of someone who was never hindered by the standard list of boring excuses many make for not following their ambitions: Can’t afford to go sailing? Start mixing some paper and glue!
This little turquoise expedition boat stood out amongst a sea of white-hulled fibreglass, those vessels lacking any sense of a pleasing sheer-line - the boring boats found in every marina and every mooring field, likely reflecting their equally uninspiring owners. I began to wonder what it might be like to own a small sailing boat again, a vessel of simplicity, design and minimalism. I began to think that perhaps we didn’t need to live on the sea full-time to enjoy it? Besides, we weren’t really enjoying it right now anyway... In the spirit of living with inertia, inertia was beginning to turn against our dream like the tide of a blood moon.
So just like that, we sold Euphoria. Sometimes it’s astonishing how dramatically the world can pivot on the whim of a single decision.
So here I am, aboard a very wet, very old and very open small boat on the waters of Port Phillip Bay, several degrees south of the warm latitudes we managed to reach aboard Euphoria. While Huia is something quite different from that little expedition boat (which was in many ways the trigger for our course change), Huia is a majestic and minimal former wooden fishing boat, sporting an enormous boom which extends beyond the transom, a gaff rig supported by lashings, bronze chainplates and wooden blocks - the stuff of proper salty romantics. Not a winch can be seen anywhere, her sail plan wrangled into shape by muscle alone - the only mechanical aids are cleverly arranged blocks and sheets to improve purchase.
Launched in 1936, Huia spent many years fishing Western Port Bay for barracouta, snapper, flathead, gummy shark and crayfish. Back then, fishing was so prolific, a boat of just 26ft was ample in size to be used commercially - today, super trawlers are twenty times in length, scraping the bottom of the sea for whatever might be left, black clag billowing from their exhausts.
The romantic pines for a horizon lined with linseed oiled cotton sails, gaff rigs and men hauling pots. The romantic of today sees an ad for a boat from another time, and the romantic of today falls in love with an idea - he dreams of where he might sail in a wooden boat launched 86 years ago, by men who went to work in suits, with hammers and bronze fasteners in their twill-lined pockets.
And where shall the romantic of today sail? Home, of course! With the exception of our voyage aboard Euphoria, sailing home has been an ongoing theme. While these very unusual south easterly winds batter the eastern seaboard of Australia, Huia is ready and waiting in the port of Geelong for her voyage home to Tasmania, across Bass Strait.
Addendum
What happened to the still unnamed rowing scull I wrote about previously? It’s finished except for the mounting of her riggers - however - she is stuck in the northern rivers region, far away from Tasmania… First, she was stuck because of Covid related logistics issues. Then she was stuck because 99% of couriers will not transport her because of her length, and now she is stuck because the entire region is experiencing some of the worst floods in recorded history. The world is bonkers right now, best enjoy it if you are in a position to…
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I have followed you for some time on Instagram but didn’t realise you write. Just beautiful. I don’t know the first thing about boating but love a good yarn from an explorer. Very inspiring.