After selling Arethusa, Hereward Pickmere bought Winsome from his father. She's a 1918 Bailey & Lowe, he carried out most of the charting of his atlas from her. Caught up with David Pickmere in Omakiwi over the weekend and we got some shots of the two boats side by side...

Here's some shots of a beautiful Z-class the Janet-Ann in the Auckland Maritime Museum built by Colin Grant in the 1950's. The Z-class was designed by Arethusa's designer and builder Bob Brown.

Arethusa had developed some good leaks, we had over 200 litres a day coming in. So off to Ashby's to pull all the old fastenings out of the garboard and refasten. Graeme, Mike, Paul and Michael did a great job, we're now down to 15 litres a day.

Arethusa's old cap rails were high maintenance. They were fastened with galv bolts which meant rust, bubbling paint and rot - so thankfully they're now a couple of wheelbarrows of salt laden firewood. No more painting and rust killing, amen to that.

Got a wonderful email from Janet Watkins (Hereward Pickmere's daughter) with the info and pics below. Many thanks Janet, gold.

After four seasons of getting fried on the back deck we've got a boom tent. What a difference. Shade and breeze, no more hiding in the wheelhouse :) Thanks Bev for a great job - perfect fit really easy to put up and down. Thanks John for all custom woodwork at the stern to support it.

I don't know how many season's the old prop had been on the boat but it was pretty well had it. We dealt with Arthur Smith from the Propeller Shop in Whangarei who organised a new 24 x 16 4 blade through Briski's.

We got Alan Boyd from X-Foul-E-8 to strip the hull paint off from the beltings down in July. He did a great job. Three days to get rid of countless seasons of paint right back to bare boards. He probably could of done it in two but had so many folk stop and ask about the process he uses. Sure beats burning it off.  Once she'd dried out we were able to prime straight over the top.

Not for sailing, but we may rig a steadying sail somtime in the future. By summer we'll have a boom tent and the boom is great for lifting the dinghy aboard.  The ratlines are a great place to climb to get elevation for pictures and when the water warms up no doubt it'll make a good diving plateform. The mast's made from macrocarpa 6 x 2"  planks laminated and scarfed. The boom we picked up second hand at Stanley Marine. .

We'd like to find out who Arethusa's previous owners were and if possible, her launch date. If you can fill any gaps, please post in the comments section below.