''Rona'' was a

sailing yacht A sailing yacht (US ship prefixes SY or S/Y), is a leisure craft that uses sails as its primary means of propulsion. A yacht may be a sail or power vessel used for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, so the term applie ...

George Lennox Watson George Lennox Watson (30 October 1851 – 12 November 1904) was a Scottish naval architect. Born in Glasgow, son of Thomas Lennox Watson, a doctor at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, and grandson of Sir Timothy Burstall, engineer and entrant at the ...

. She was constructed in 1892 in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, by master craftsman and designer Robert Logan Snr. for

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...

merchant and

book collector Book collecting is the collecting of books, including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever books are of interest to a given collector. The love of books is '' bibliophilia'', and some ...

Alexander Turnbull, and is the oldest continuously registered ship in New Zealand. The boat was sailed from Auckland to Wellington, leaving Auckland 14 February 1893 and Arrived Wellington Harbour on the 21 February 1893, An article in the Wellington Evening Post on the 22 February 1893 recounted it maiden voyage. The boat is one of the finest surviving examples of a six-beam cutter (her beam fits into her length six times; i.e., she has very slim lines), she is a gaff-rigged racing cutter, and she is one of the oldest yachts still sailing in New Zealand. ''Rona'' is an example of 19th-century racing yacht design and construction. The boat was originally painted black, the colour used on New Zealand's America's Cup yachts. ''Rona'' was restored to original condition by her last private owner, John Palmer, which took over nine years. That ''Rona'' was able to be maintained as a fully operational sailing vessel for over 110 years is due to her construction in kauri pine (''

Agathis australis ''Agathis australis'', commonly known by its Māori name kauri (), is a coniferous tree in the family '' Araucariaceae'', found north of 38°S in the northern regions of New Zealand's North Island. It is the largest (by volume) but not t ...

''), a fine-grained timber of excellent quality for boatbuilding. The Rona Preservation Trust was set up to purchase ''Rona''. This was accomplished in November 2006, with the assistance of grants from the Lotteries Foundation others, and the boat was made accessible to the community through sailing events, maintenance and training days and public open days. In May 2023 the yacht was transported to Peter Brookes Yard near Waimauku, Auckland for the next chapter. Andrew Barnes, Larry Paul and Peter were instrumental in making this happen. She needs much remedial work. Garboards need to come off, deck beams, beam shelves, deck and gunnels need replacing. A Give a little page is to be set up soon. The end goal is to get her racing in Auckland harbour alongside other contemporary gaff yachts like Gloriana and Rogue.

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External links

* * * {{cite web , url=http://www.maori.org.nz/korero/default.php?pid=sp67&parent=55 , title=Rona and the moon , website=Māori , department=Korero O Nehera Ships of New Zealand Individual sailing vessels 1892 ships