Steve Newcombe has always had an eye for lovely boats. Back in the day, oh about 1,000 years ago, we had raced Jollyboats against one another, the most beautiful sailing dinghies ever, from the drawing board of Kiwi legend John Spencer. Naturally Steve had the finest of them, his immaculate (and fast) E Hoa.
We’ve since been on separate tacks. Steve’s been beguiled by fast coastal racing monohulls. And he’s owned a few exemplars of the type: a Ross 780 and then a Davidson 37 named Sliver with which Steve did the 2002 and 2005 Round North Island Races. His shipmate was Mark Winters, another great Jollyboat sailor. Steve went on to acquire Zen, a Bakewell-White 36-footer and did half another RNI race, withdrawing with an on-board injury.
Then Steve found the boat that really rang his bells, but had to endure two and a half years on Pogo Structures’ production waiting list (the boatbuilders at Combrit in France), before Pipi arrived in New Zealand. Pogo yachts are clearly very much sought after internationally.
While I instead got seduced by
