The Rebirth of Whitney Rose
By Matt Vance
WHITNEY ROSE smiles at relaunch
Previously published in Boating NZ, Matt Vance now shares the beginning of his adventure with the WHITNEY ROSE with us here at SWS. This is a story of dreams and follow through that shows us, opportunities to connect with a special vessel are simply a matter of good decisions and that the best questions we can ask ourselves is - imagine if? I hugely admire Matt’s final paragraph - a true Kiwi, tallying up and playing down a fantastic and quite enviable achievement. We hope this is the first of many articles from you Matt - thank you. This story also happens to be a brilliant addition to an article from last week about Lyle Hesse and HEATHER BELLE - make sure to read it if you haven’t already done so and now, over to Matt.
It had been a long time coming; this dream of owning Whitney Rose. It was 22 years ago that I had watched her being built and launched in Lyttelton. Her lines were striking and based on the traditional Bristol Channel work boat lineage that had been refined by her talented American designer Lyle Hess. The original design had been made famous by the wonderful voyages and books of Lin and Larry Pardey.
WHITNEY ROSE had been built and sailed by Mike Brown. Mike is an engineer by profession and he seems to be able to adapt his skill to any material from the Calophyllum strip plank construction to the nickel bronze fittings he had cast. Mike had sailed her around a corner of the South Pacific and had many great adventures on her. He had lifted her out of the water and transported her to his back yard for a refit. His life moved off in a different direction and the refit did not happen.
When I found WHITNEY ROSE in Mike’s back yard she had a forlorn look that boats too long on land get. The peeling paint could not hide the mighty collision of a good design and a superb builder. Inheriting her took many of cups of tea and three years of courtship to achieve. I say, “inheriting” because it was very much an emotional transaction rather than a financial one.
Hoisting WHITNEY ROSE out of Mike’s garden and onto the transporter was a miracle of physics. The crane squeezed into the driveway and turned in its own length to find a position as close to the boat as possible. The truck was casually backed down Mike’s driveway with an inch to spare each side while the driver ate a pie. Mike could not bear to see her go, so it was his wife Rosemary who gave her the final pat as she headed skyward over their garage and on her journey back to the water. Once she had arrived at the haul-out yard a snotter of a south westerly had got up. Jamie the crane driver did not bat an eyelid as we got her into her cradle with a rough mate and I being dragged around on her painter like a couple of cowboys holding a rearing horse.
In the early days at the yard the advice swirled like sanding dust. Most of it revolved around painting a super yacht. I quickly came to the conclusion we were not painting a super yacht; we were painting a yacht that would be used three or four times a week and have to suffer dinghies full of kids bashing along the side.
After much filtering we found people whose advice we could trust. The yard manager Tim provided sound advice and good references for people who he would trust. Tim would filter much of the rubbish with statements that started, “To be fair…” He was fair, and he introduced us to fine folk who could help, like Nick who has painted more fishing boats and ships than he can remember. Nick cleared the air for us. He talked us out of spray painting and into roller and brush, vertically tipped. He also steered us away from “yachty paints” as he called them. We eventually went with International Paints Interthane 990. Normally this stuff is used to paint ships and oil rigs and most definitely not super yachts. It goes on strong and has a solidness that is reassuring. Nick knew if he told me how much sanding was head of us that I would burst into tears, so he edged us on in small steps. “Once more around and you will be getting close.” He would say. By the end I had lost count of how many times I had been around the boat.
Putting the paint back on was much more rewarding than taking it off. With the help of our friend Vic we managed to master the two-pot roller and brush technique. With Vic on the job singing grandly into his respirator, mohair roller in one hand and synthetic brush in the other, I was happy to be relegated to paint mixer, scaffold shifter and barman.
The 2GM Yanmar motor on WHITNEY ROSE was an unknown. It had been looked after well, but it had not been used for over five years. Being saltwater cooled we expected the worst. We waded through the usual cloud of advice and with the help of my uncle and a well-spent two hours of local diesel mechanic Mike’s time, we flushed out the cooling system. Mike peered at the world through thick coke bottle lenses, thought a lot and had hands that were smooth from their constant covering of oil and diesel. We had discovered yet another quiet genius. With the water pump intake in a bucket topped up by a hose, the engine roared into life.
The original twin spreader alloy mast had never held its paint. As it turned out this was due to it not being etch primed. Nick turned up with his 41000-psi industrial water blaster and stripped the mast in no time flat. It disappeared on Davie Norris’s mast trailer and came back two weeks later looking brand new. Matt Oborn set about redoing the rigging so that it would stay upright. We stepped the mast on a windy Nor-west afternoon and immediately Whitney Rose began to look like a boat again.
It all began to come together with a rush at the end. Time was soaked up in reinstalling all the fittings and running rigging. On a cracker of a calm morning, we gathered to spray a bit of champagne over WHITNEY ROSE’s bows and reintroduce her to the sea.
The final tally was twenty two years dreaming, three years courtship, four months work, six dozen beers, 40 pies, 2 sanders, five rolls of sand paper, fourteen brushes, twelve rollers, two pairs of overalls, one iPhone dropped twice from the scaffold, much profanity, lots of advice, unexpected help from great people and in the end a beautiful boat.
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