The Club of Queer Crafts

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 62, 4 June 1927, Page 10

The Club of Queer Crafts

No. 3 The Ships’ Block Maker A rotten carcase of a boat. Not rigg'd. Nor tackle, sail, nor mast. Shakespeare did not have a steamer in his vision yet some o£ the quaint trades of the waterfront have reason to call the steamer hard names. Where are all the sailmakers, ship joiners, the block and spar makers who lived and thrived and apprenticed youths in the great days of sail? Here is another candidate for the Club of Queer Trades. Last of the ships’ block makers Is Blakey. who pursues his calilng when there is any work offering, at 43 Swanson Street. A look through the door of a, large iron shed reveals a deserted scene like the dried river bed. Where once a large volume of work passed there is nothing but a trickle of the old craft. “Once,” said the ships’ blockmakgr

reminiscently, “there was a fine fleet of schooners and brigantines trading out of the port and there were three factories at work in the city. There was a good deal of local ship-building and we fitted them with locally-made blocks.”

“The trade is on its last legs now, like many others. It’s all steam now and there’s not the rigging and tackle about a ship. Do you remember the Rotomahana? She was wonderfully fast and had fine lines, but they used to hoist sail on her in those days—yes, even on the steamers. Nowadays though a lot of blocks are used, they are mostly imported, and a good many of them are iron because wire falls can be used with them. “Yes, the trade’s done. When I retire there’s no one in Auckland who could take it up and follow it. I’ve had 55 years of it now. I knew it would go after the shipbuilding was gone.” The old block and spar-making is certainly a quaint craft now. In the deserted old factory old blocks from old ships lie scattered on the clay floor. Pieces of the light, durable New Zealand mangaio and huge logs of lignum vitae from the West Indies born only too late lie patiently but purposelessly awaiting their fate. It seems almost doubtful if they will ever be mated with the stout manila and run smoothly to the sailors’ swinging heave. The trade is dead and the craft fast dying. Those steamers—rotten carcases of ships.