Back to the future for marine exhibition

This year's marine exhibition at the Auckland Showgrounds will feature a huge, man-made lake - not for the first time, as ROBIN BAILEY explains.

When there is a substantial challenge to be overcome, there's no substitute for experience. Which is why the organisers of the 2001 Hutchwilco New Zealand Boat Show looked to John Weller after deciding to create an 11-million-litre lake at the Auckland Showgrounds for this year's marine exhibition.

The recently retired managing director of the Gulf shipping company SubritzkyLine knows all about filling the arena with water. Lots of water. From 1973 to 1981 the marine engineer helped design and coordinate the building of the near-legendary lakes that made the country's major marine exhibition spectacularly successful.

When the current show-organising team decided to revive the water feature, the call went out to Weller, who recalls some interesting experiences from past years.

"In the early days the arena was hollowed out and the concave area occasionally gave way. One year we had a 9m chunk literally disappear into a volcanic cavern. The lake depth went from nearly 2m to 30cm in minutes. We had to work through the night filling the hole with scoria, relining it, then refilling it. We used an awful lot of water that year."

Those early boat shows ran for 10 days and featured water-skiing, Polynesian fire-eaters on a floating stage, and performing animals. "We had boats speeding over ramps and even dogs and chimps on water skis," Weller says, admitting that in those more liberal times there were fewer politically correct restrictions to worry about.

In the lake years the boat show was one of the biggest events in town, with crowds of more than 100,000 over the 10 days. It was the first Auckland Showgrounds event to get permission to open on Sundays and drew 40,000 punters for the inaugural Sunday.

As organising committee chairman for more than 20 years, Weller has seen many changes in marine marketing and the business side of the show, which drew more emphasis, but admits the show business side was fun.

"We were reluctant to phase out the lake in 1981, but the Greenlane-area water system was becoming overloaded and the costs of buying it went up to the stage it became financially impossible," he says.

The last lake included a full-size replica of Captain Cook's ship Endeavour.

Of this year's lake Weller says the materials will be different from the old days, but the construction method will be surprisingly similar. "We used pipes and corrugated iron in the past. This time around we will have big timber poles and plywood."

The good news from his perspective is that this time around he will be supervising professional contractors rather than enthusiastic volunteers. And new technology means the pool liner will be much stronger than those of 20-plus years ago.

The return of the water to the country's biggest marine exhibition comes thanks to a sponsorship deal with Hutchwilco, one of the country's oldest marine-equipment companies. Managing director Gary Sutton is more than just an enthusiastic sponsor. In the 70s he was Weller's lieutenant and spent many arduous days helping to build the lake and as many nights crawling around the bottom repairing leaks in the plastic liner.

Sutton was also a performer on top of the water, displaying the skills he developed as a professional barefoot skier at Sea World in Australia.

Water-skiing will again be a feature of lake entertainment this year. Show manager Dave Gibbs is not giving much away at this stage, but says some of the country's top performers will be in action. There will also be wakeboarding, some new fun boats, jet-sprinting and pedal boats. And he assures dedicated City of Sails wind-power people there will also be sailing at the May 31 to June 4 exhibition.