KEY POINTS:
High up on the flying bridge of the mighty steam tug William C. Daldy they'd cooked up a devilishly clever plan to better last year's fourth placing in the Auckland Anniversary Regatta's annual tug-boat race. Last January, the 73-year-old retiree had been found wanting when it came to
the standing start and never caught up. So the idea this time was to borrow from the America's Cup and execute a flying start instead. Rush the youngsters who were hovering at the start line from behind, and catch them napping.
Unfortunately, the boy racers in charge of many of the 40 or so other entrants had refined their tactics as well.
By the time the white smoke drifted up from the start boat off North Head, a sizeable proportion of the fleet was already well across the line and heading up the the first leg of the nine nautical mile course towards Takapuna Beach.
Well that's WCD's excuse for coming home, shall we say, rather well down the fleet and, as a guest, what else can I do but agree: We was robbed!
Mind you, watching the front runners jockeying for position ahead, the port company tugs playing dodgems with a couple of cheeky red rivals, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing observing the action from a rather sedate distance.
As befits our seniority, the young bucks did stand aside, before and after, and let us lead the fleet up and the down the harbour.
Back home at Princes Wharf, the port company's still frisky tugs did some wheelies for the benefit of the waiting crowds, while to one side the WCD lay exhausted, trying its hardest not to gasp any coal dust over its gleaming white neighbour, the Dutch-built gin palace, Twizzle, which, according to Google, is available for hire for a modest $360,000 a week, plus expenses.
How else to mark Auckland's anniversary? Chugging around the harbour on a perfect summer's day, the sweet smell of coal smoke wafting through the air, exotic old sailboats drifting back and forth, and a barbecue sizzling away at the blunt end.
As I sipped from a plastic cup of sauvignon, it was hard to fathom what those political doom merchants and their reports knocking Auckland as a Third World place to live could be on about.
That's not to say we can't do even better, particularly when it comes to caring for our elderly relics.
I'll get it in the neck from skipper John Hurst for even raising this, but the recent lifestyle of this old tug has been a little like that of the Flying Dutchman, condemned to sail from port to port, with nowhere to call a permanent home.
The WCD's current home at Victoria Wharf, Devonport, now has a question mark around it after North Shore City's decision to call for a consultant's report into the structural integrity of the wharf.
Until this is completed, a ban has been placed on vehicle access. The upshot is that to take on coal and other supplies, the tug now has to cross the harbour to the Tank Farm.
Phil Consedine, North Shore City's group manager for transport infrastructure, says an initial report suggests there could be problems with the decking.
A "proper structural assessment" could take a couple of months, "then we'll have to decide what to do".
The council would like to retain it but "we'll have to wait and see how the numbers stack up". In the meantime, the volunteers of the William C. Daldy Preservation Society wait nervously.
Leased by the society from the Auckland Harbour Board in 1978 and then in 1989 sold to the volunteers for $1, the tug has had temporary homes up and down the waterfront ever since, including free berths at the container terminal, Captain Cook Wharf, Marsden Wharf and the Viaduct Basin. A few years back, it was invited to join the collection at the National Maritime Museum but there was a catch, the museum wanted to receive berthage costs. For a cake raffle sort of organisation, that wasn't feasible.
As a grizzled old matelot observed, it's the prettiest ship on the harbour. But what's being popular when you have no home?