Born in Takapuna in 1938, Senior’s involvement in boats began aged six, rowing a clinker dinghy up and down Milford Creek.
“Dad bought this for about tuppence, and I thought I was a captain.”
Senior’s next boat had more class, one of the nine-foot Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron’s (RNZYS) Squadron dinghies designed and built by Bill Couldrey (mentioned in Harold Kidd’s January column).
Senior built his first boat when he was 12, a Jack Holt-designed Cadet, a 3.2m hard chine sailing dinghy. His friend Ken Campbell built another, which the pair regularly raced together. The Cadets were kept on the beach at Castor Bay, with the cotton sails dried out in the rafters of the 12m x 7.6m shed at the back of the Senior family home.
After building and quickly selling a Mk I Moth, Senior bought the Silver Fern Ajax, which he raced for two years out of Murray’s Bay. This stimulated his competitive sailing interest and, like many, Senior started eying up the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
So, in 1955, he approached dinghy builder Jim McKay to build him aPorana Road, McKay had a reputation as one of Auckland’s best centreboard boatbuilders.
