Jack Brooke sailing with his wife, Elsie, and crew member Tony Yates on their K Class yacht Kiariki. Kiariki was launched in 1959 and remained in the family until 1980.

Photographer unknown, courtesy of the Brooke family

The Brooke family dinghy Kiatoa. She was a New Zealand champion in the Frostbite Class, which Jack Brooke designed.

Photographer unknown, New Zealand Maritime Museum Hui Te Ananui a Tangaroa (9999.997)

Pamphlet for the Sunburst all-purpose dinghy designed by J. B. Brooke

Gifted by John Brooke, New Zealand Maritime Museum Hui Te Ananui a Tangaroa (10850m)

John Brooke helped get young people sailing with designs like Frostbite and Sunburst, and youth-training ship Spirit of New Zealand. Advertisement from Weekly News.

Gifted by John Brooke, New Zealand Maritime Museum Hui Te Ananui a Tangaroa (10850a)

JOHN ‘JACK’ BROOKE OBE

(1907–1992)

Engineer Jack Brooke helped get thousands of young people sailing with designs like the Frostbite and Sunburst and the youth-training ship Spirit Of Adventure.

Small, affordable yachts

Jack Brooke qualified in engineering – a profession that would greatly contribute to his innovative yacht designs. In 1926, he co-founded Auckland’s Wakatere Canoe Club, designing its small sailing canoes and, in 1932, the 14-foot (4.27m) Wakatere Class.

Brooke taught at Seddon Memorial Technical College (now Auckland University of Technology) throughout the 1930s. In these Depression years, his designs enabled young people to get sailing at little cost.

JACK BROOKE

Frostbite and other hits

Brooke’s first major hit was the two-person trailerable Frostbite dinghy (1938) – hundreds were built after World War II. Kiatoa was a Frostbite champion, sailed by Brooke and his children Don, Robert and Judy.

Brooke also designed 14- and 18-foot (5.49m) ‘skimmer’ yachts in the 1930s, influenced by boatbuilder George Andrews. These designs, including Muamai (1934), outclassed traditional yachts.

An early Brooke keelboat was one of New Zealand’s first light-displacement yachts – the race-winning Gleam (1940). Brooke went on to design others, like Judith (1950) and White Wings (1952).

JACK BROOKE

Highlights – Sunburst and Spirit Of Adventure

Brooke’s masterpiece came in 1963 with the two-person dinghy Sunburst – the country’s third most popular centreboard class ever.

His career highlight was designing the youth-training ship Spirit Of Adventure (1972), for which he accepted no payment.

ON DISPLAY

See Sunburst, namesake for the Sunburst Class, which Jack Brooke regarded as his design masterpiece, in the Gallery of Yachts.

JACK BROOKE

Distinctions

Brooke served as Commodore of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (1969–1971). After retiring as an engineer, he was a Director of Salthouse Brothers shipyard (1971–1985).

He received New Zealand’s Sailor of the Year Award in 1973. His earlier Order of the British Empire (1948) recognised his work during the war, designing tools and gauges to improve the success rate of munitions.

LISTEN

DL02 Jack Brooke.mp4

Jack Brooke recalls his experience making simple sailing boats as a child and tell how he developed one of his best-known designs, the Frostbite.

Runs for 3:35 minutes