(1930–)

Innovative boat designer and builder Owen Woolley has produced many successful racing yachts, cruisers and launches.

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Wild apprentice

Owen Woolley did his boatbuilding apprenticeship in the early 1950s with one of Auckland’s best – Colin Wild. He considered his teacher a brilliant yacht designer and builder.

While still an apprentice, Woolley built the radical International 14 Class Atua Hau (1951). This boat won the Prince of Wales Cup in 1958 and many national titles. It was among the first plywood yachts – ‘all glued and cold moulded’, as Woolley said.

Innovation

Such innovation typified Woolley’s practice after he set up his own business by the Tamaki River in Pakuranga, Auckland, in 1954. For example, he experimented with using the bend of the mast to flatten the mainsails when heading into the wind. In doing so, he consulted with mastmaker Jürgen Carsten and builder Murray Jones.

ON DISPLAY

See the Prince of Wales Cup-winning International 14 Atua Hau in this gallery.

Speed, safety and style

Woolley built many successful racing and cruising yachts. The 26-foot (7.93m) Primitive Man (1990) won 14 successive races, beating the record of Jessie Logan (designed by Robert Logan Sr). Another yacht, Beyond (1967), was described by British sailor and author Eric Hiscock as the best-built boat he had ever seen.

Woolley was also responsible for several successful fibreglass production yachts, including the Venturer and Raven series. The first Raven, the roomy racer–cruiser Raven 26 (1970), was designed to perform well but was also, according to sailor John Lasher, ‘as safe as houses’.

An eye for design

Woolley designed many of his boats largely by eye. Interviewed by Boating New Zealand in 2008, he said, ‘I don’t muck around drawing things too much. In the time that drawing something would take, I could probably build half of it.’

Woolley retired in 1993 and sold his boatyard to another boatbuilder. Hundreds of Woolley-designed boats are still sailing.