Highet design
LOA:30
LWL:21,6
Notes:Draft 6'.
From a very young age, Harry Highet was a successful and innovative centreboard designer and sailor. He designed and built New Zealand's first racing catamaran ca 1906 or 8, and designed the P-CLass, still an integral part of NZ's development racing fleet. This design for a displacement yacht, which owes a lot to the Wellington-built 2 1/2 raters Mawhiti and Kotiri, was never built. The half model above was built to the lines in 2011 (compare it to the half model of Mawhiti, which was built by a neighbour 12 years before). Instead, with W. Waddilove he built and launched Seabird in 1914. Highet's lines were published in in the journal "Progress" 01 Feb 1910, accompanied by these comments:
"The above is the design for Port Nicholson by Mr. Highet, of the staff of Messrs. Baldwin and Rayward, Wellington. The dimensions are: Length o.a., 30 ft. ; length, load water line, 21 ft. 6in. ; draft, 6ft. ; overhang, forward 3ft., and aft 5ft. 3in. The design is the first attempt by a self-taught youth to do good work. We publish as an example to the young men of the Dominion to strike out for themselves. Original constructive work in all branches of human activity is one of the great passports to success, especially when it is acquired in leisure hours."
View the lines here
Photo source:Gavin Pascoe