With a zero budget it was probably rather modest. Perhaps a sheet of corrugated iron bent in half with the ends folded over. Almost certainly it sank, but as you walked home through the mud and the mangroves with a little experience gained there was time to dream of better things.
Not everyone persisted, but those who did continued making improvements with every new craft until their ambitions were no longer modest.
Sandy and Joan Mill wanted to sail the canals of France. They designed and built a boat with a retractable keel suitable for the canals, but to get there meant having a boat which was also capable of first sailing around the world.
They did the building in their back yard in their spare time, ignoring the people who said they would never succeed. They did sail around the world and went on to moor in Paris in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Having realised their dream it was now only necessary to sail across the Atlantic and back through the Pacific to complete a circumnavigation of the globe.
While they were on their four year journey my humble owner-built yacht provided an excellent roost for all the terns and cormorants who had been chased away from their owner-built homes by the local dogs. She looked something of a wreck with a solid layer of guano when I put her onto the grid of our local yacht club to clean her down. It was all rather embarrassing as she was surrounded by polished fibreglass hulls brought out to race before being carefully stored away again out of the sun.
A little boy wandered away from the very expensive yacht his father had bought for him to muse about the grubby stranger. "Gee, mister" he said "have you sailed around the world?"
In my dreams I had, but I needed the wisdom of a little boy to explain all that to me. He did not need the boat which someone else had built for him. He only needed the wind blowing through his hair, He wanted to be free. He wanted to break the mould and go to places no building inspector had ever been.
The Commodore of the Royal Akarana Yacht Club understands all this. He wants Okahu Bay to be a community facility. One where old-timers spend months working of the repairs to their boats. It takes time because they always stop to talk to the youngsters who want to know how to build their first boat or what it is like to sail around the world. The hard stand is a mixture of boats, cars, paint tins and coffee mugs. A place where people still smile and everyone loves to yarn to anyone with the time to listen.
In another culture and another time this would have been the piazza. The heart of the city. Now our cities have become unfriendly places, and so the heart has moved out to places like Okahu Bay.
The urban designers and city bureaucrats understand none of this. Their cities of polished granite and pretentious architecture are built to be displayed in world-class magazines where you will look in vain for any sign of real people, or life.
Granite is fine but when sustainability is so fashionable every vision statement now has a theoretical commitment to diversity.
Westhaven is for the millionaires who expect their sailing skippers to have their boats polished and the refrigerator stocked ready for the next time there are visitors to entertain. Okahu Bay is for the old salts who build and repair their own boats. Westhaven for those who have it all, but do not sleep well at night. Okahu Bay for those who have no money, cannot quite work out how to get started, but do know how to dream.
Diversity however, like sustainability, does not make economic sense. The Council have decided it is more efficient to put the managers who run a tight ship at Westhaven also in control of Okahu Bay. The fences are going up and the rules are coming in. Soon you will pay for parking and all the messy boats and messy people will be gone. The laughter will die. The stories will be forgotten. The next generation of children will have nowhere to go for ideas about how to build a boat for themselves.
Aussies and Kiwis never assume it is impossible to build yourself a house or sail around the world. We have done it for generations, but if our Ohahu Bays die we will forget who we are.
Great cities nurture those who dream of what might be. Great cities treasure those places where people learn about life and how to do things for themselves.
This article first appeared in 'From the back porch...' The Owner Builder magazine No.133 February/March 2006
Also published in the New Zealand Herald.
Footnote
Canoes were hauled up on our beaches. Cook careened his ships to clean and repair them as he passed by. Over time where there was some flat land boats were traditionally brought out of the water for repairs, or perhaps for the winter. In Europe the piazza was the focus of the community. In New Zealand it was the boat haulage area. For an island nation this was both beginning and ending. It was here that sailors told stories of their journeys to places far away, and dreamed of what might be. Everyone understood. Then a new breed of people came to Auckland, concerned only with money and power. By 2010 the Auckland City Council had destroyed the rich whakapapa of Okahu Bay.