Mullet Boats on Show - Images from the Viaduct raft-up

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com on 7 Oct 2016 This weekend Auckland's Mullet Boat fleet is on public display in the Viaduct Harbour, close to the Events Centre.

The exhibition was opened today with speeches from Tony Stevenson of the Tino Rawa Trust who is organising the floating exhibition and Harold Kidd, the noted historian with an expert knowledge of Auckland and New Zealand's sailing history.

Also on exhibition was the Lipton Cup, donated by Sir Thomas Lipton in 1920 as a Challenge Trophy (now, where have we heard that one before?).

The opening was attended by many of the old mullet boat hands.

Designed originally as a work boat, and sailed by a man and a boy the mullet boat was used to catch fish for the Auckland markets. Nets were pulled aboard, and the beamy over-canvassed gaff-riggers were sailed back to Auckland to be unloaded. They needed a shallow draft to work the creeks and tidal estuaries around the Hauraki Gulf, and carried a steel retractable centreplate.

With the decline of the mullet stocks, the boats became used for racing, with race-boats being designed and built specifically for that purpose. Many of Auckland's top sailors competed in the Mullet boats. Now they are still raced hard, and several have been recently restored.

A current restoration project is Tamariki - a 13 times winner of the Lipton Cup.

A book, written by Harold Kidd, is on sale at the exhibition - with proceeds going to the restoration of mighty Tamariki.

The floating exhibition is free - opens at 10.00am and closes at 4.00pm on Saturday and Sunday.