Image for Auckland in Frame event - MaritimeMuseum-credit Ted Ashby, image supplied by New Zealand Maritime Museum.jpg

Ted Ashby, image supplied by New Zealand Maritime Museum

Ted Ashby Sailings

New Zealand Maritime Museum
Opening hours
Currently closed
Monday: Closed
Tuesday: 11:30 am-12:30 pm, 1:30 pm-2:30 pm
Wednesday: 11:30 am-12:30 pm, 1:30 pm-2:30 pm
Thursday: 11:30 am-12:30 pm, 1:30 pm-2:30 pm
Friday: 11:30 am-12:30 pm, 1:30 pm-2:30 pm
Saturday: 11:30 am-12:30 pm, 1:30 pm-2:30 pm
Sunday: 11:30 am-12:30 pm, 1:30 pm-2:30 pm

 

Get out on the water this summer and book a journey aboard the New Zealand Maritime Museum's iconic sailing boat Ted Ashby. Help hoist the sails, then relax and enjoy an hour-long cruise on the sparkling Waitematā Harbour.

Sailing dates & times:

  • Tuesday-Sunday 11.30am and 1.30pm

Prices:

  • $31 per Auckland Adult (Children $15)
  • $63 per Visitor to Auckland (Children $30)
  • $74 Auckland family pass, $149 visitor family pass

 

Ted Ashby

About TED ASHBY

Ted Ashby is a ketch-rigged deck scow, typical of the fleet of scows that once operated in northern New Zealand waters.

Built by Museum staff and volunteers in the traditional manner, she was launched in August 1993. Freightways Ltd sponsored her construction with assistance by many other firms.

Ted Ashby is built of blackbutt, an Australian hardwood grown in Northland, instead of the traditional kauri. She is fastened with galvanised steel bolts and spikes. The hull is framed with fore-and-aft bulkheads, known as partitions, and the bottom is cross-planked. Underwater the hull is sheathed in worm-resistant totara over tarred felt and schenam, a mixture of lime and oil.

Scows were flat-bottomed, centreboard vessels, most of which carried their cargo on deck. They were ideal for working estuaries and shallow harbours, and they carried logs, firewood, sand and shingle, machinery and stock. A few of the larger scows carried timber to Australia and America.

Scows ranged from 45 to 130 foot in length and most were two-masted, ketch or schooner rigged. The largest were three-masted. Some 130 scows were built in the north of New Zealand between 1873 and 1925. The first was the Lake Erie, based on the American Great Lakes scows. New Zealand scows quickly developed their own characteristic form and construction. Today only half a dozen survived.

The Maritime Museum chose to name the vessel after Ted Ashby, a man whose whole life was intimately involved with the scows, and the author of the book 'Phantom Fleet'.

Flat fee of $7 per day on weekends at Fanshawe Street carpark. Find out more.

Kids ride free on public transport on weekends and public holidays. Find out more

Last updated: 27 November 2023

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