NZ Visual Diary - entry 152

harbour front skyline - Auckland City

With my wife, our older daughter and her son, I sailed yesterday on the Ted Ashby scow across a stretch of Auckland harbour from the Ferry Building to the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

It was a brief but lovely excursion, which also afforded another opportunity to capture a segment of Auckland’s skyline from the water.

The boat was built and the outings are operated by the New Zealand Maritime Museum, located in the Princes Wharf area of Auckland’s harbour front.

The museum’s website offers an overview of the Ted Ashby’s history:

A gaff rigged ketch deck scow, typical of the fleet of scows that once operated in northern New Zealand waters.

Built by Museum staff in the traditional manner, and involving 11,000 hours of volunteer labour, Ted Ashby was launched for the opening of the Museum in August 1993.

Ted Ashby is built of blackbutt, an Australian hardwood grown in Northland, traditional kauri being no longer available. She is fastened with galvanised steel bolts and spikes. The hull is framed with fore-and-aft bulkheads and the bottom is cross-planked. Underwater the hull is sheathed in worm-resistant totara over tarred felt and schenam, a mixture of lime and oil.

In 2004, the original laminated masts were found to have serious rot. The new ones are of solid Douglas fir and were hand crafted at the Museum, using traditional tools and skills.

Scows played an important role in New Zealand’s early coastal trade. Designed with a flat-bottom, they typically carried heavy cargo on the deck and were able to navigate in shallow waters. ¹

1. New Zealand Maritime Museum website <https://collection.maritimemuseum.co.nz/objects/193/vessel-hobson-wharf-scow-ted-ashby-1993>