*The start of the 1934 Trans Tasman Race- Painting by Antony Blake*

“I am afraid I had not swotted upon the technique of racing starts and, it being the first race I had ever sailed, we were a little vague as to the procedure. But after a number of flags had been waving for a while and a puff of smoke had been seen -no sound was heard owing to the fresh easterly wind blowing at the time-we thought we ought to do something in the matter.

We sailed up to one of the committee boats and yelled out,

“Is it all right to start now?”
“Yes! Yes! Go on-go for it!”

We made a beeline for the starting line and crossed it, followed half a minute later by the TE RAPUNGA. The large crowd of white yachts and launches drew closer in around us and formed a picturesque escort down the harbour. But the boisterous weather conditions were not very conducive to escorting – the wind was hard east, making it a dead beat down the harbour – and soon most of the accompanying boats had turned back.

Our rival, as we expected, soon caught us up and passed us with a friendly grin which we meekly endeavoured to return. She was soon a fair way ahead, leaving us wallowing along doing our best against wind and tide. On the wind old NGATAKI is not what you could call a racing machine and there was no doubt now as to which was the better boat under these conditions.”

*A photograph of the race start from the reverse angle.*

So wrote Johnny Wray in his very special book “South Sea Vagabonds”. Chapter IX describes the two boat race across the Tasman in 1934.

Earlier this week Tony Blake, the renowned Marine Artist based in Auckland, sent me an image of his latest creation.

Tony writes

I have just completed a 400mm x 600 mm painting of the start of the 1934 Trans Tasman race to Melbourne. Another connection between NZ and Melbourne!! This was the second Trans Tasman race, the first being in 1931 to Sydney.
The painting shows the 2 yachts (only 2 made it to the start line) slogging past North Head, at the entrance to the Waitemata Harbour, in a very fresh NE wind.
The foreground yacht is the NGATAKI skippered and owned by Johnny Wray.
The one to windward is the TE RAPUNGA, skippered and owned by George Dibbern.
The race for both vessels was fraught . TE RAPUNGA had to beach their yacht in the Bay of Islands, due to extensive leaks. They recaulked as necessary, floated off and continued the race. They won the race on line and handicap from NGATAKI , who arrived nearly 2 days later, after weathering a horrendous storm passing through Bass Strait.

The happy part of this story is that both boats have now nearly completed a full restoration. You can read and watch about Andrew Denman’s work on TE RAPUNGA at Kettering in Tasmania here, and the Tino Rawa Trust in Auckland has restored NGATAKI

The two books that cover the race (and much else), Johnny Wrays "South Seas Vagabonds" and George Dibbern's "The Dark of the Sun" are classics.

Imagine if the two fully restored vessels could sail beside each other again some day!

I’ll leave you with an account of the start of the second leg of the race which began in the bar at the Royal St Kilda Yacht Club (Now the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron) Oh, how times have changed!

A race was organised from Melbourne to Hobart, a distance of about 500 miles, run in conjunction with the Royal Hobart Regatta. Again the TE RAPUNGA and the NGATAKI were the only entries. The starting date was the 23rd of January and so this day was the last day of our stay in Melbourne.
My life in the Royal St Kilda Yacht Club revolved, I'm afraid, mostly around the bar. I had patronised the bar fairly frequently during our stay, and the bar was, I thought a fitting place in which to start the next ocean race. So this was included in the racing rules. The crews of the competing yacht should be assembled at the bar of the Royal St Kilda Yacht Club on the 23rd. The starting gun would be fired at 7pm and the cruise would consume a schooner of beer (for the benefit of the uninitiated, a schooner contains one imperial quart) as rapidly as possible. They would then run down the road and along the wharf and get underway.
Thus at 7pm, we were assembled at the bar of the Yacht Club, together with approximately half the population of Melbourne. The day had been spent largely in saying goodbye to our many Melbourne friends. And as far as I was concerned, at least, the world had become a grand and wonderful place.