Waka and Whaleboat at Thames regatta.

[Bruce]

there were a couple of interesting items on tonights news. In June there will be a huge regatta on the Thames in London to celebrate the queens birthday. Thousands of vessels of varying types are going to take part. NZ's sole confirmed official participant (and even that is subject to funding) is a Beautiful replica of an 1860s whaleboat, "Swiftsure" built by a chap in Nelson, a decendant of the Perano Brothers, who used the original Swiftsure from thier whaling station in the Tory Channel.
another news item showed Ngati Ranana, the Maori expat community in London who were struggling to get permission to take their beautiful carved Waka in the same regatta. They were struggling with Bureaucracy as the "health and Safety" people and the organisers claimed it was too dangerous for them to take part due to the number of vessels and the small size of the waka. It seems there are some double standards here somewhere - The Waka is a similar size to the Swiftsure (in fact it is probably a bit bigger), and with an experienced crew it is extremely manouverable. with individual paddles it takes up less room than the long, mounted oars on the whaleboat. It is also apparently acceptable for Dragon boats to take part in the regatta!

I dont know about you but I would love to see NZ represented by both the swiftsure and the Waka - it would be a fine representation of NZs early maritime history and a great showcase for NZ. I wonder if it is some petty clerk somewhere just trying to be difficult....

[Dave Homewood]

A whaleboat seems pretty un-PC these days but there are still whalers manning the stations through Cook Strait even now. Only thing is they don't kill the whales, now they count and protect them on their migrations through there.

[lumpy]

Mr Perano ( the guy that built the boat )is not just a decendant , he is actually an ex whaler himself . Pretty sure he lives in Picton and built the boat there .He is one of the guys you mention Dave , who keep an eye out for whales passing through Cook Straight ( purely for researh reasons )
There is an article in last nights Marlbrough Express that can be found online ( I tried to link to it , but cant seem to get the right page to link )

[Peter Lewis]

As an irrelevant detail, the Perano's Tory Channel Whaling Co. owned and operated the Piper Apache ZK-CHU during the mid-1960s on whale-spotting flights.

(The fuselage of that aircraft is now at Ferrymead).

[ngatimozart]

I don't know if they still do it, but back in the early 1990's at the Okains Bay (Banks Peninsula) as part of ceremony on Waitangi Day there was always a waka crewed by local iwi and a whale boat with a RNZNVR crew paddled / pulled up the local river. The whale boat belonged to the local museum. Senior officers from the 3 services take tuns about to represent the Governor General each year. This is the main Canterbury event because I think it was here that Ngai Tahu mostly signed the Treaty. The main Kaiapoi Pa had be ben burnt about 10 or so years earlier after Te Raupraha sacked it.