The story of a modern day Pied Piper
Preparations for the Inaugrual Auckland Wooden Boat Festival (Friday 1 - Sunday 3 March 2024) are well and truely up and running. Expressions of interest to enter a boat are open and an outline of the program is now on line. Here at SWS we already love the “Stories” page… a sample is below!
Sailors just wanna have fun - and the crew of Rat Catcher probably have more fun than just about anyone, often taking an irreverent poke at the sailing establishment in the process.
Rat Catcher is the second Pied Piper that Gavin Woodward has owned. He bought the first, Harmony, aged twenty, enjoyed it for three years, and got into Rat Catcher five years ago.
He loves his boats so much that he has a picture of Harmony tattooed on his arm.
Gavin only started racing fairly recently, but grew up in a cruising family. Taking part in the big PIC Coastal Classic yacht race from Auckland to Russell was a high point - except for the fact that tough safety criteria meant he couldn’t enter officially, so took part as a pirate entry. The Rat Catcher crew made sure their presence was known in Russell though, taking an official event flag from Russell wharf and replacing it with a Rat Catcher battleflag (yes they did return it later), and occupying the front row at the event prizegiving, keeping organisers and fellow sailors amused.
A couple of weeks after the Coastal, Rat Catcher made headlines for helping to rescue a hyperthermic fisherman (fortunately he had all the right safety equipment onboard)
The boat is class legal but has to leave some of its fancier toys at home when taking part in class racing. While the mainsail is dacron by class rules, headsails are usually carbon and composite laminates, with a progressive committee who enables the fleet to modernise.
While a Pied Piper, which is 6.5m in length, can cost anything from free up to $20,000, Gavin says that the cost of equipping it with competitive gear adds up - a mainsail is still around $3,500 and a genoa $2,500. Therefore, the sum can be greater than the whole.
Ratcatcher is a classically rigged Pied Piper but sports a carbon bowsprit, a Code Zero and gennakers. Gavin says this makes it as fast as an AC72.
Ratcatcher was built in 1976 in Wairau Park. Gavin still keeps in touch with the original owners.
One of the best things about the class, he says, is the people. “I've met a lot of good people and some of them are my best mates now which is pretty amazing. If they aren’t mates they become mates pretty quick.”
With boats in and out of the water for repairs, he says crew circulate amongst boats.
The Intergalactic National Championships last month attracted 15 boats, making for competitive racing.
After a summer of cruising, his next goal is to be able to take part in races like the Coastal Classic officially, and he has his sights on Bay of Islands Sailing Week too.
The Pied Piper boat was designed by Des Townson. Rat Catcher will be on display at the Auckland Wooden Boat Festival.
Rat Catcher getting some TLC at a boatyard