Real sailors
It starts – as many stories in this column have done – with a humble P Class. “I grew up in Milford Beach (Auckland’s North Shore) and Dad bought me P Class #100, which we kept at Ken Lusty’s. It was one of those kauri-planked ones with a gaff rig,” recalls Grahame. “Then Dad built me a Flying Ant and I did much better with that. I came second – twice – in the Flying Ant Championships.”
The day he turned 15 Grahame left school to start a marine engineering apprenticeship with Allerley Brothers, then located next to Percy Voss’ yard in Beaumont St. “We mostly worked on the old Northern and Union Company ships, tugs and ferries.”
Aged 20 and apprenticeship complete, Grahame went to sea as a marine engineering officer with the New Zealand Shipping Company, which despite its name was owned by British interests. “I was mostly in the big refrigerated ships travelling from New Zealand through to Japan and Asia. But I’d met Lynne by then and yearned to be back sailing.”
Lynne [nee Taylor] was also an Auckland [E66] as a wedding present. They spent their honeymoon sailing her all over the upper North Island, marking the start of a lifelong passion for cruising.
