ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER RAINFOREST.......................

THE TIME:..........Probably the summer of 1956, which would make it January/February '57 in the Southern Hemisphere............. AND THE PLACE:.......... The rainforest near to the town of RUSSELL in the North Island of NEW ZEALAND.........

Where, after almost a hundred and fifty years of logging, some of the magnificent stands of "KAURI" trees still remained, albeit that today they are considered a National Heritage and are totally protected............

This then is the story, told once before, of Pat & Dick McILVRIDE, who got hold of this magnificent KAURI TREE and turned it into the yacht "ARITA", and unlike most of us, did it all themselves..................
STEP ONE: SELECT THE TREE (Not sure if you ceremoniously pee on it or something) STEP TWO: SHARPEN YOUR AXE............
STEP THREE: FIND SOMEONE WITH A CHAINSAW........................

These photos are from 1956 and pretty old but they tell their own story........Do a double-click to enlarge them and put yourself in Dick McIlvride's shoes....... He is the one on the right with the black hair standing behind his daughter, who by the way managed to find the box of Kodachrome colour slides in their attic, from which these digitized photos were taken.......................In these photos she is seven years old.................Today Dick's daughter is 65+.............. Oh, how time flies and waits for nobody...............



You will see the tropical 'cycad-like' fern trees or palm trees in amongst the kauri trees despite the fact that this rainforest was probably previously logged.

That's "ARITA" on the right, circa 1958............Does that sound historic enough ?..........O.K. let me add that the KAURI tree was probably about 700 years old............Now does that sound historic enough ?.................



The square gas (gasoline/petrol) can indicates that they did get a chainsaw, probably a vintage Evinrude (not vintage in those days) and the wedge marks are clearly visible to stop the blade from jambing............ Enlarge the photo on the right to see the size of this tree..................



The story has it that Dick wanted 60 feet long planks cut from the tree, hence the tape measure, but the logging truck that came to remove the tree eventually got stuck on a bridge and could not be moved and they were forced to cut the tree in two............. Thus 30ft planks..........What a shame........You would be lucky today if you could get a 16footer...................



After months and months of work in the boatshed at RUSSELL, the yacht "ARITA" emerges in 1958, to take on a life of its own..................... Then is hauled up on the pebble beach above the high tide mark, while the interior work of floors, cabin fittings, bunks and galley are finished off.....................



So for those of us struggling with a project where "motivation' seems to be waning, give some thought to Dick McIlvride, and what he must have gone through, for truth to tell, most of us don't really have to start in the "RAINFOREST".................