37' Gander Double-ended Sloop (1999) - WHISPER AND TIME

‘Tree to Sea’ the ‘Whispertime’ project.

In early 1996 we were given five Kauri trees growing on the farm next to our property in the Bay of Islands northern New Zealand and so the’ Whispertime’ Project began.

Lanes mill at Totara North had years of experience milling New Zealand Kauri (Agathis australis) but by now Kauri was becoming very scarce and our trees were about the last sent in for milling together with two good sized Tanekaha trees (Celery pine), New Zealand’s strongest soft wood. The timing for us was right, we had been considering downsizing from our 35 ton Schooner ‘Windborne’ our three children crew had left home and it was time to build a replacement, well actually two, we intended to base one vessel in the Marlborough Sounds South Island and have a sistership in the north.

I admired the looks and characteristics of the Danish Spidsgatter’s and with these vessels in mind I designed a vessel to suit our requirements, 38 ft O.A. x 12 ft beam x 5’8” draught, keeping the displacement to 12 tons. 1 1/4” Kauri carvel planking on steam bent Saligna frames, Saligna being an Australian hardwood that steams well. The timber keel, stem timber and floors are Tanakaha with natural Pohutukawa stern and forefoot knees, the lead ballast keels are four and a half tons. Being wooden yachts for us they had to have wooden spars, the mast and boom’s being Oregon Pine ( Douglas fir ).

‘Whisper’ was the first to be launched in December 1999 after 22 months building time. Building two identical vessel’s has the advantage that when laminating coamings, building rudders and casting lead keels etc. these jobs are done consecutively so on the completion and launching of ‘Whisper’ her sister ‘Time’ was completed after 15 months building time, and launched in November 2001.

When drawing the plans I kept the buttock lines as straight as practical, this did present some challenges bending 1 1/4” planking around the stern sections and the steam box was working hard, Kauri being a softwood it doesn’t hold the heat long after coming out of the steam box so you have to work fast but we only broke one plank bending round the stern. The result is that these vessel’s have a good turn of speed with minimum wake for vessels with a water line length of 34 ft.