Paddle power

By ROBIN BAILEY

It seemed like a good idea three years ago when Electronic Navigation chief Mike Hodson thought of a team-building competition for the marine industry.

The result was the inaugural New Zealand Marine Trades Challenge at Pah Farm, Kawau Island. Eleven teams signed on for a competition that turned into a co-operative exercise to build a grandstand. At the end of the day they used it to watch New Zealand lose the Bledisloe Cup on TV. At the same time they managed to deal to a good supply of liquid attitude adjusters.

Last year the challenge saw 17 teams building a boat in an hour and paddling it around a tricky course. By that stage the Boating Industry Training Organisation had devised some rules and lined up serious sponsorship.

For this year's competition, BITO general manager Robert Brooke and his planning team got really serious. The rules of the event went out to the industry at the beginning of the year, the logistics of running it were sorted and, by closing date, 23 four-person teams were entered.

Each team had to design and kitset the boat, pack it into a container, build it in an hour, then paddle, sail and motor it around a marked course in Moore's Bay. Points were awarded for the most innovative container, best built boat, most innovative design, best on-the-water performance, best presented team and boat and the quickest built boat.

Last Saturday three ferries left Auckland loaded with competitors, kitset containers and support teams.

They headed for Kawau where they joined a contingent from the north that arrived via Sandspit.

Brooke estimates nearly 500 people were in the marquee at Pah Farm when John Street fired his cannon to get the competition under way. What followed was a degree of organised pandemonium as the kitset craft were hammered, screwed and glued together. Keeping a close eye on the builders were judges John Lidgard, Max Carter and Alan Wright.

Also taking in the action were marine industry design and building veterans Don Senior, Jim Young, Ken Lusty, Des Townson and Tony Mason. Young summed up the day when he was called on stage by compere Bruce Duncan.

"It's been great seeing these youngsters in action, seeing the standard of their work and the thought that they have put into both design and construction," he said. "The challenge shows just how far the industry has come in recent years."

Street sees another aspect of the challenge as an important pointer to how things have changed: "When I started in the industry in 1960 boatbuilders would hardly talk to one another. Now they are exchanging ideas and working together - particularly important at the training level which is what the challenge is all about."

The teams competing this year were not all from boatbuilding companies. The Westhaven company Electrics Afloat had a huge team of supporters, all in corporate uniforms. They made their presence felt among the spectators and they finished seventh on the overall points table. A team from ENL added to the impact made by the electronic side of the industry.

Robinson Marine Interiors fielded two teams and did well in the design and presentation aspects of the challenge, but did not perform so well on the water.

The Bay of Plenty and Northland polytechnics also entered teams and the New Plymouth company Fitzroy Yachts received the award for coming the longest distance. The Whangarei company Specialist Marine Interiors did best on the water and got the nod from the public, though not the judges, for their rocket ship container.

Yachting Developments took the overall points prize which gets the team an invitation to compete in the Australian challenge at next year's Sydney Boat Show. The invitation came from Australian Boating Industry Association executive member Paul Burgess who promised an Aussie team for next year's challenge at Kawau.