"VERY QUIET."

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 128, 2 June 1927, Page 8

"VERY QUIET."

BOAT BUILDING AT AUCKLAND AGE OF THE MOTOR CAR. ——— PROSPECTS OF A REVIVAL. To put it mildly, boat building at Auckland is quiet. Builders are agreed that the advent of the motor car has made a tremendous difference \o the industry. In fact, some of them will go as far as to say that the ''all-season" motor has killed the trade. A visit round the city's boat-building yards tells its own story. At the present time five firms are building between them one trading vessel and two launches. Twenty years ago all the yards would have been busy, and probably would each have had an order list in addition. But that was in the days when the sport of boating occupied a much more exalted position than it does I to-day.

The most pessimistic of a number of builders interviewed this week expressed the view that the boat-building industry at Auckland is "dead." Boating, he said, is nothing like as popular as it was twenty e and thirty years ago. Other games, chiefly tennis and cricket, have claimed many boating men. In that respect Auckland is not an exception, the same condition of affairs existing throughout New Zealand.

Playing Tennis Now. "Other sports have undoubtedly given boating a severe bump. Why, "i used to be sailing whenever I got the chance, but I play tennis now," he added. "Yes, business is ba4," he reiterated. To illustrate his rather gloomy contention he pointed to a half finished pig pen. "When the game was booming we would never have wasted our time building one of those," he said. Another expert was a little more optimistic, although he admitted that the trade was "pretty slack." His firm, he said, built seven launches last season, and at the present time was engaged in the building of two cruisers. Asked ': whether he thought there was any likelihood of a revival in the industry, he said that he believed there was. Aucklanders possessed one of the finest yachting grounds in the world and it was not likely that boating would ever die right out. The splendid boat harbour in St. Mary's Bay, which is now nearing completion, would doubtless inspire confidence and give a much needed fillip to the sport.

Trading Ship on Stocks. The only trading vessel on the stocks at the present time is an auxiliary scow iwhicb, is being built to the order of the

Northern Company. She has been specially designed for the East Coast cargo trade, and will be of the same construction as the Otimai. The keel of the vessel was laid two and a-half months ago, and the hull is now rapidly taking form. It is expected that the vessel will be ready to leave the ways earlv in December.

Owing to the slump in the trade, there is considerable unemployment connected with the industry, while the majority of the men in work are engaged on repair jobs and in building dinghies and other small craft.

That boat building will revive with the further development of the outboard motor is the contention of a number of prominent launchinen. Speed boats, it is claimed, will be in considerable demand as tin , popularity of this sport increases. "Why, speed boat racing has a hundred more thrills than motor car racing," declared one enthusiast.