What I’m personally more interested in is the mentality… the relentless determination.. that drives this group of volunteers to show up every week and chip away at what must at times seem like an infinite task.

No romance, though! Bill was a working man with a work boat. He changed the oil and patched the bottom as necessary, but always in the unsentimental way you would care for a cash cow. He loved the chink of coins in the worn leather bag he wore on one shoulder.

The young colonial town of Auckland, built on the isthmus between the Waitemata and Manukau harbours, for centuries traversed by Maori waka, was completely dependent on sea transport.