Sailing Kiwi-style

While these aren't kayaks on car top or trailer, here's what gets NZ kids into sailing, Kiwi-style.

This is a a photo of my cousin Sue's family set-up. On the car top is a Starling--she and her husband have one each--but need to compromise who's out with their two young daughters today. The two boats on the trailer are the famous NZ P Class. This, with the Optimist, are the two most-sailed boats for Kiwi youngsters. The P, as it's most affectionately known as, helped produce some of NZ's most famous skippers, including Sir Peter Blake and Russell Coutts, to name only a few. It's often said that if you can sail a P, you can sail anything!

The 2.13 m (7ft) P was designed in 1923 by Harry Highet, and was first known as the Tauranga class, as Harry lived in Tauranga, which also happens to be my birth place. And they've been strenuously raced ever since.

If you happen to be able to find a copy, there's a terrific novel called Tauranga Adventure (Harrap, 1963) based on kids sailing P Classes. It was written by Tauranga resident (and one of my best friend's late uncle) Patrick Wilson.

The Starling is the next boat up, once you've outgrown your P. It's a 2.9m (9.6ft), one-design, and also has a great racing pedigree.

Great to see that some classic designs just never die!

Where did you find that?

One of our favourite sayings we heard from our grandfather, Gramp, was, "Where did you find that? Floating down the river on a log?" (I use it often now with the WeeOne.) And seeing this wonderful sleep concept from Okooko (which means "to cradle in arms" in Maori) just brought this old saying to mind. Heaven knows why...

Okooko is a New Zealand company with a new store just opened in Philly, of all places. "Float," as above, was launched at NZ's Furniture Fashion in May last year, and voted by the public as 'Best piece of bedroom furniture' in the NZ made competition.

Designer David Trubridge has worked from boatbuilding to furniture making, and sailed through the Caribbean and the Pacific with his family in Hornpipe. He sees “Sleep is a voyage through dreams when we wholly give ourselves up in trust, lying curled up in our bed vessel feeling safe and cosy. It can be ten minutes in the office, an hour on the lawn or all night in any place we pull our cradle to.”

Personally, if we could all kayak in something like Float, imagine what a happy world this would be!

Of course, I also love the photo as it's taken from the beach in front of the marina in Tauranga, my home town. That's the famous "Mount" across the harbour - Mount Maunganui - many a time have we sailed out that entrance on a new voyage, or walked up the Mount's summit and marvelled at the view across the Bay of Plenty. Sigh.