Professional Skipper - Free Sample issue (July/Aug 2011)

COASTAL CHARACTERS FROM A HALF-MODEL TO COMPUTER-ASSISTED DESIGN BY BADEN PASCOE P eter Peal started serving his time as a boatbuilder with calls the Vos site looked a lot and state Percy Vos in 1937. Peter rec different to its present layoutt and state. The main building was a lot shorter in length and there was each summer, pleasure boat owne vacant land on either side of the building where at the end of each summer pleasure boat owners hauled out for the winter. This also gave quite a large time frame for the Vos staff to carry out any repairs or alterations if requested by the owners. Barney Robertson was the foreman at this time and Percy Vos spent most days organising work or drawing in his office. Peter states that Percy was always well dressed and set a very high profile for his business. In 1939 Peter left to join the New Zealand Army and eventually served overseas. The initial three months of boot camp was at Waiouru and then he was seeded out to join the ruction at Trentham. From this Signal Wing Army School of Instr point on he was an instructor. In early 1944, Peter and some of his fellow instructors got itchy feet and wanted to be part of the action overseas, so they filed a request to go abroad, but were not permitted to go until men from the division with active service knowledge could replace them. Eventually, after after final leave Peter and his group boarded a small Dutch liner and sailed to Egypt. After more training, they headed for Italy and en route were engaged in active service. Eventually they reached Trieste, a very pleasant seaside town where the most prominent building was an old castle that was the Army. The leader of this group was a named Freyberg, yep, our very own General commandeered by fellow countryman Bernard Freyberg. Right at the end of the war, Freyberg encouraged the men to get involved in sport. This may have been a way of keeping them out of trouble. A sailing club was set up in the Royal Trieste Yacht Club with Freyberg g as the patron, Arthur Angell as commodore and Bill Macindoe as chairman. The committee of 10 included Peter, Higgins, Randall and other Auckland yachtsmen. Regattas against men from the English division were sailed down the coast at Monfalconi. Freyberg came on occasions to Star class boats and eventually the club was sail one of the five handed over and t he division left Trieste in late July, 1945. After a short holiday in England, Peter returned to Italy and then, when the war ended, he was one of a group of soldiers who formed nine br des to go to Japan before the arrival of Newiga On returning to New Zealand he was very Zealand's J Force. keen to get back into boatbuilding and visited Percy, with the hope of completing his boatbuilding apprenticeship. At first Percy had been a bit annoyed with him for swapping his job for a military role when his existing job could have been retained, as Percy could have requested him to stay home under the Essential Services Act. Nevertheless, he got his job back and Percy said he was in exactly the same situation in 1918 at the end of the FirstWorld War. He was so grateful when his old boss, Ernie Harve y, took him on again, he felt obliged to do the same for Peter. So, what was going on at the Vos yard about this time? Peter can remember a lovely surf boat with a nice sheer being built for AB Donald Ltd, who was situated across the road from the Vos yard. They were island traders and had many boats designed and built by P Vos Ltd. d He can also re member doing lots of ship's carpentry work down at the main wharves, caulking decks and other ongoing repairs. Some of these ships were damaged due to the war. Percy's younger brother Skita often supervised this work. At that time, nig ght classes were held at Seddon Memorial Technical Institute in Symonds Street, where Alex Collings and Jack Brooke were the tutors. Once Peter had attended a few of these classes he fell in love with the more technical points of boat design and drafting techniques. Peter was recognised as a good man on a drawing board and I would imaginei Al w was a close friend. So Peter was one of the very few, if not the first, to have the opportunity to design and draft at the Vos yard. Peter can recall that Percy would come into the office in the ld i ld h hi hli ht d thi t P h Peter Peal shows off his latest build, a model of the San Elizabeth, built at P Vos Ltd in 1962. This model was built from her original lines and working drawings 28 Professional Skipper July/August 2011 r morning with concept sketches done at home in his personal office. It was up to Peter to set these out to scale and shape the liines to what was required. This was followed by buoyancy and sttability calculations, all done longhand on bits of scrap paper. Alex would have highlighted this to Percy, who r final leave, Peter and his group boarded a

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