How this remarkable wooden boat yard was nearly lost – but bought back to life
For generations of New Zealand boat owners, the name Percy Vos Boat Yard has needed little introduction. Since 1922, his yards on Auckland’s western waterfront has helped shape the wooden vessels that sailed, raced, and worked across the Waitematā Harbour and beyond.
Photo / Percy Vos Charitable Trust
In the late 1960s, Percy and his manager (and son-in-law) Bill Ostick, could see that the days of wooden boat building were coming to the end. While they adapted as best they could, focusing on woodworking of internal fit outs for large new generation steel boats, change was in the air. Percy died in 1972 and gradually the client base slipped away. The yard was closed in 1994, becoming a storage and maintenance facility.
Although prime waterfront land on the edge of Westhaven Marina, it sat largely forgotten for fifteen years.
But not quite forgotten. In 2010 a group of heritage maritime enthusiasts including the late John Street articulated the vision of turning it into a hub from which Auckland’s heritage fleet could be based. They formed the Maritime Heritage Working Group which later became the Percy Vos Charitable Trust.
Fast forward some years and with funding and support from New Zealand Maritime Museum, Auckland Council and other public groups, and the professional expertise and guidance of Mathew and Mathews Architects, they were ultimately successful:
The restored Percy Vos Boat Yard is once again a genuine working boatyard. The restoration prioritised authenticity over modernisation, retaining and reusing original materials wherever possible so the shed still feels and functions as a true boatyard.
Percy Vos Boat Yard opens up for the Auckland Wooden Boat Festival
For the duration of the Auckland Wooden Boat Festival, the Percy Vos Boat Yard is on display as a working space, showcasing the skills, stories, and spirit that have defined Auckland’s wooden boat heritage for more than a century with the Pou Kapua Creations Trust and the New Zealand Traditional Boatbuilding School.
Photo / Percy Vos Charitable Trust