Tawhiri's Touch and Go Tale

You have probably heard the indifferent saying "today's news is tomorrow's fish and chip wrapping"; I am therefore unaware of the actual date of the stray newspaper article that prompts my latest outburst for the Coracle Oracle on snippets of history from our historic little Oamaru harbour.

It's the story of the seaworthy sailing boats to have docked here.

The newspaper article referred to the 150 years anniversary of the Nelson Yacht Club. That takes us back in time to about 1856, and almost 20 years before Oamaru even had its first set-back in harbour development, the failure of the Oamaru Dock Trust's creek mouth project.



Part of this Nelson Yacht Club report was dedicated to memorable times and events during this past 150 years it was celebrating. Among the important events highlighted was the gruelling 1951 Wellington to Lyttelton ocean yacht race sailed in storm-force southerly winds and in which 10 competing New Zealand yachtsmen lost their lives. The winning yacht, the only boat to complete the course, was from the Nelson Yacht Club. Look to the harbour and you'll see it moored: the Tawhiri.

Oamaru was also linked to this 1951 maritime disaster with a local entrant, Mr G.T. Gillies' traditional yawl Caplin, a proven excellent cruising boat, and crewed by several Gillies family members, relations and friends.

During this ill-fated ocean race Caplin with several other vessels sought shelter from the increasing storm-force winds in the lee of some shelter provided by Cape Campbell near Blenheim. At the height of the storm when Caplin's anchor started to drag, the crew were forced to start the boat's auxiliary motor, thus disqualifying the yacht from completing this dramatic 1951 Canterbury centennial ocean yacht race.

Caplin returned to Oamaru and graced the port with her presence for a further 43 years before being sold to an overseas interest based in Marlborough Sounds. Ironically, this delightful product of Anderson and Son of Somerset, while on her delivery trip to Picton in 1995, was again forced to take shelter behind the same cape that had provided a refuge in that 1951 dramatic race: Cape Campbell.



With Caplin gone, Oamaru harbour's link with that 1951 ocean race also appeared to have gone and for a few years this was correct, until one day, the familiar profile of another traditional yacht appeared on one of the harbour moorings.

Unsighted by the writer since the fearful race more than 50 years previously, there was no mistaking the flowing lines of that ocean race winner, Tawhiri, now owned by local man Lindsay Murray. It had arrived to grace our little harbour and to take over the task Caplin had displayed while swinging to the whims of the harbour breezes on her mooring during those intervening years.

Tawhiri, just another boat to the majority of harbour viewers but to some, a graceful reminder of a storm-lashed ocean and the 10 ordinary New Zealand blokes who lost their lives half a century ago, doing what they liked best.

by Graeme Ferris
photos by John Baster