• Auckland environmental consultant Josh Markham was spurred on by nostalgia to take on restoring the classic yacht Tawhiri, which won the historic 1951 Wellington to Lyttelton race.

• The restoration project, estimated by lawyers to cost about $300,000, aims to make Tawhiri available for community and youth sailing.

• The complex legal transfer of ownership, not yet complete, requires a High Court blessing.

A yacht which carried its crew to victory in a fatal New Zealand yacht race 74 years ago is being salvaged from near decay by the son of one of its earlier owners.

Josh Markham has taken the wheel of a major restoration project to restore the historic yacht Tawhiri, which his family owned for 21 years from 1982.

The wooden sloop, whose name translates loosely to “Goddess of the Wind” was the only yacht from a fleet of 20 to finish the 1951 Wellington to Lyttelton yacht raceheld to mark Canterbury’s centennial.

Instead of being a celebration, the event turned into the worst disaster in New Zealand’s yachting history after a fierce southerly storm struck the fleet resulting in the loss of two yachts, Argo and Husky, and the loss of 10 lives.

After Tawhiri’s historic achievement, the yacht and crew returned to Nelson - its home port at the time, to a hero’s welcome and a place in the city’s maritime history.

Tawhiri's Nelson crew upon finishing the historic Wellington to Lyttelton yacht race in 1951, that claimed 10 lives. From left, Tawhiri owner at the time Noel Brown, Peter Cooke, John Evans and Charlie Patterson. Photo / Nelson Yacht Club

About 30 years later, Tawhiri was sold to the Markham family who back then lived in Palmerston North and were looking for a larger yacht than the trailer sailer they were used to.

“They [parents Peter and Sue] stumbled across Tawhiri in Nelson and fell in love with her shape and lines, so, that’s pretty much why they bought her,” says Markham, a young child at the time.

Tawhiri was re-homed at Mana from where the family would often sail across Cook Straitto the Marlborough Sounds.

Markham described his parents as competent sailors, “with a dash of madness”.

They would pack up the family after work on a Friday, drive to Mana in an old Bedford van, and place the children on board where they would fall asleep for the crossing and wake up in the Marlborough Sounds.

“My memory of that yacht is spending all our holidays on her - my mum, dad, brother, and two sisters.

“We always had a cat with us or a couple of cats.”

When Peter, who later shifted Tawhiri back to Nelson started to lose his sight, he offered the yacht to Joshua, who grew to regret his decision to turn it down.

“He said to me, ‘Do you want to take Tawhiri over?’ And I just looked at him blankly and said, ‘Why would I want to do that? That boat takes so much work’.

“At the time I was having so much fun, sea kayak guiding in the Abel Tasman and then six months of the year snowboarding.”

Tawhiri was then sold and sailed off to Oamaru, but Markham never forgot the sleek sloop that held so many fond family memories.

He says the tipping point came when his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

“That was the point I knew I wanted to do something about it.”

By then, the near-derelict yacht was back in Nelson under the ownership of Tawhiri Trust which had been established to revive the vessel to its glory days.

Markham had seen Tawhiri in its grim condition in a yard beside the Nelson Marina but didn’t know then who owned the yacht, so phoned a Nelson dive shop, and within 10 minutes, he had the answer.

The classic yacht Tawhiri, arriving back in Nelson after its historic achievement in finishing the 1951 Wellington to Lyttelton race. The yacht is now back in Auckland and undergoing what will be a 10-year restoration. Photo / Nelson Yacht Club

The 92-year-old yacht is now back in Auckland where it was launched in 1933 and is in the beginning phase of a 10-year restoration project.

Markham was able to tell his father before his death two years ago that Tawhiri was back in the family.

“He was very sick when I sat down beside him and told him what I was doing, and he just looked at me and said with a little smile, ‘You’re so silly, why are you doing that?’.”

The legal process to transfer the yacht from the Tawhiri Trust to a new trust set up by Markham has been almost as onerous as the nuts and bolts of the rebuild.

The Tawhiri Trust was established in 2008 by a group of Nelsonians after the yacht was salvaged from its mooring in Oamaru and sailed carefully back to Nelson.

Tawhiri’s profile and historic feat in 1951 were revived during celebrations in 2007 to mark the 150th anniversary of the Nelson Yacht Club. It triggered interest from Nelson-based businessman Tom Sturgess who bought the yacht for $38,000 and then leased it for a small fee to the newly set up Tawhiri Trust.

Full ownership was later transferred to the trust when it became apparent it needed legal title to apply for funding.

Despite many efforts to attract grants for the historic yacht’s restoration, which in 2012 was estimated at $200,000, none was successful.

Tawhiri sat in a cradle in the yard, deteriorating further, as the trust’s position dwindled to the point it was unable to afford storage costs.

“Its only future is to fall into total ruin,” the Tawhiri Trust Board said in its application in June 2024 for an order consenting to the sale of its property.

Markham had by then, with the trust’s consent, loaded Tawhiri onto the back of a large truck and at “enormous cost” had it driven from Nelson to the Auckland boatyard of traditional shipwright Peter Brookes.

Tawhiri was loaded onto a truck and driven from Nelson to Auckland for the next chapter in its long and colourful life. Photo / Josh Markham

Tawhiri is the central prop of Markham’s Historic Wooden Boat Charitable Trust set up to promote public interest and education in New Zealand’s maritime history and encourage an interest in the preservation and use of wooden vessels among young people.

“In a snapshot, Tawhiri will be set up as a boat for anybody in the community to sail, and will also be sailing in the Classic Yacht Association races in Auckland.”

Markham said a “significant amount” of time and effort had been spent from both sides on the legal process to allow Tawhiri to be traded between the two trusts.

At the High Courtin Nelson, a brief hearing earlier in February for an order consenting to the sale of trust property brought the finish line closer to a lengthy and complicated three-and-a-half-year legal process.

The law around charitable trusts precluded the sale of the yacht without the court’s consent.

There was no one at the High Court hearing opposed to the application, prepared pro bono by the law firm Glasgow Harley, which also has links to Nelson’s maritime history, and the yacht itself.

Justice Dale La Hood reserved his decision.

Markham says having classic boat expert Brookes on board was hugely important, as he was integral to the restoration.

“He completely understands how these boats have been designed and made and also knows 100% how to restore them,” said Markham, who is shouldering the cost of restoration, now thought to be closer to $300,000 according to legal documents.

He imagines he’ll be juggling the restoration over the next decade with the demands of a busy career, and a young family he is keen to introduce to Tawhiri, now in a cradle, the deck removed and the yacht stripped back to almost a skeleton.

The frames, which keep the hull in place will also be removed and replaced with new, handmade timber frames in the traditional form. The keel will be replaced and the cockpit, decking and cabin top will be remade. The rigging will include new canvas sails true to the original, right down to the stitching.

Markham says it’slikely the reborn Tawhiri will be 40% new wood, albeit native timber including kauri, so that the yacht will look exactly as it did when it was launched in 1933, only stronger.

Markham says he’s aware of what Tawhiri means to a lot of Nelsonians.

He thought long and hard about reverting to the original sail No B9 when Tawhiri carried sail No 1477 throughout most of its history but was eventually swayed by the opinion of classic boat historians in Auckland.

“I’ve also made a commitment to myself, that she will be returning to Nelson on an ad hoc basis and will be made available for youth sailing in Nelson.”

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.