The tradition of boat days on the Oamaru Harbour continued on Waitangi Day.
Organised by the Friendly Bay Boat Society, the sixth annual Oamaru Harbour Regatta was held on Saturday, despite the rain, with events including Seagull outboard motor races, sailing races and dinghy rowing races.
For the enthusiasts, there was ‘‘quite an amazing collection'' of boats to see, one of the organisers, John Baster, said.
Attracting the most attention was Christchurch man Andrew Wilson's Valdigarth, named after the Scottish town were his grandfather Gilbert Duncan was born in 1912.
Mr Duncan, a founding member of the Timaru Yacht Club, finished building the boat not long before he died in 1986 and it was never launched.
When he died, Mr Wilson was offered the Shetland yoal, but, had no place to store it and it was donated to the Timaru Maritime Museum where it stayed for more than 21 years. For the past five years, it had been sitting in Mr Wilson's garage.
Since 2014, he had been lseeking an opportunity to launch the boat for the first time.
That came after a fleeting visit to Oamaru recently where he met Mr Baster at the Friendly Bay Boat Society's Tyne St boat shed.
Mr Baster told him about the regatta and his family saw it as the ‘‘perfect excuse to come down and launch it'', Mr Wilson said.
Oamaru man Mike Firman's two boats also attracted the attention of crowd and competitors on Saturday.
Mr Firman raced Packing Crate, his boat made out of packing crates, and had on display a 1970s Glasscraft runabout, which had been restored after he bought it from a refuse tip for $30.
The 6m wreck seemed to have found its final resting place at a Cromwell dump in 2011, but Mr Firman had other ideas.
The superstructure, cabin and frames were rotten, but the hull was in good condition.
The boat was nicknamed ‘‘FORD'' (Found On Rubbish Dump) and Mr Firman restored it to a very tidy condition.
Alongside Mr Firman's $30 rubbish tip rescue on shore were two project boats, under restoration, belonging to Peter Thorn. He bought one from an owner in Nelson and the other, he rescued from a farm in the Awatere Valley.
‘‘It was being used as a storage for fencing materials, but it was still in good condition and well worthy of restoration,'' Mr Thorn said.
He will work with the Friendly Bay Boat society and continue to restore the boats.
He moved to Oamaru from Christchurch in December and was enjoying the atmosphere of the town and the boating opportunities in the district.‘‘I love old wooden boats ... I've had an interest in boats for many years,'' he said.
It was ‘‘difficult to say'' exactly how many boats he owned, but it was rumoured to be seven.‘‘Some go and some don't,'' he said.
The regatta has been running for the past six years and has grown from the traditional boats day, which was last held in 2008.
The Friendly Bay Boat Society was formed out of the organising committee for the 2010 Oamaru Harbour Regatta, which was held on March 14 that year.
The harbour regatta is the society's biggest event but members are active throughout the year, running a workshop and public display area at their Tyne St boat shed, as well as smaller events and promoting of the use of the harbour.
They received about a dozen entries for races on Saturday.
Entertainment on shore included live music by Johnny and the Cashtones.
