(1878–1942)

Amateur yacht designer and builder George Honour was dubbed the ‘father of the 14-foot square bilge class’ in Auckland.

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** ‘Father of the 14-foot class’**

George Honour was born in Wellington and became an experienced yachtsman there. He moved to Auckland in 1914, when he was 36. He built his first boat in 1918 – the 14-foot (4.27m) square-bilged centreboarder Sasanof. He had sailed similar types to this in Wellington. They had flourished there as ‘scows’ for several years, but were new to Auckland.

Honour’s success in selling the boat prompted him to build two more – Sea Sprite and Sea Spook. The design was so popular that eventually a racing fleet was established, becoming the Y Class in 1922. Honour’s final 14-footer, Sea Gnome (1920/21), was a class champion.

Honour had a big influence on youngsters building 14-footers to his design. He built from full models, so anyone wanting to build 14-footers in his style had to visit him to see the models and boats being constructed. One of those visitors was a young Bill Couldrey.

ON DISPLAY

See the model of George Honour’s Y Class yacht Sea Spook in the Rise of a Yachting Nation section.

18- and 22-footers

Honour moved on to an 18-foot (5.49m) square-bilged design in 1922 with the racer–cruiser WIZARD. Others followed in this design, which eventually became the V Class.

Honour later built the ‘shovel-nosed’ Miracle for the 1939 J. J. Giltinan Trophy (the so-called ‘World 18-Footer Championships’).

In 1926, Honour produced a very fine design for a 22-footer, of which two examples were built, Mirage and Aurora.

Man of the moment

Honour was not a trained boatbuilder, but he was a dedicated student of yacht design. He spent a great deal of time in libraries keeping up to date with overseas trends in the design of small yachts.

His legacy was to single-handedly spark a revolution in the thinking about yacht design and construction in Auckland.

Round bilge 14-footers had been hugely popular in Auckland since the 1910s. Honour’s square bilge design was much easier to build by amateurs. He inspired a post-war generation of young people and returned servicemen to get out and build simple and cheap, but fast and weatherly, boats for themselves.