Online Boat Register

none

Name of Boat

Hinemoa
(Previously none)

Owner's Name

Colin Grazules 

Boat Location

Sandringham Yacht Club 

Registration No.

SM284 

Sail No.

SM248 

Dimensions

Feet & Inches  Outside of stem to outside of transom

Overall Length

36 ft 

Maximum Draft

6ft 

Maximum Beam

9ft 

Centreplate Case Length

Construction

Planking
Structure
Framing

Rig

Ballast

Weight

Material

Lead 

Engine

Make

Yanmar 

Horsepower

Heritage

Built

1938 

Builder

Ivar (Chips) Gronfors 

Designer

Ivar (Chips) Gronfors 

History

Hinemoa was designed and built by Chips Gronfors in 1938 for Newcastle optometrist Major Clem Walsh at Marmong Point Lake Macquarie.

Clem Walsh was member of the Lake Macquarie Yacht Club and wanted a fast cruiser-racer for Lake Macquarie.

If you wanted a yacht, launch or speed boat designed and built around Newcastle and Lake Macquarie in 1938 then Chips Gronfors and Les Steel (Rani) were the best builders in the area.

Chips Gronfors was a Finnish boat builder and designer that jumped ship in Newcastle in 1910
Nickname Chips in Australia for the amount of wood chips he created with the use of adze and hand tools when building boats.

In designing Hinemoa Chips used his knowledge of yacht design and experiences gained through his years working with Tasmanian One Design yachts, and building the famous Restricted 21 footer Tassie with Charles Lucas in 1925.

Chips had also travelled in 1936 to New Zealand and was inspired by the boat building that he had observed in Auckland.

Having designed and built Ambermerle in 1937 (which was placed second to Rani (Les Steel) in the first Sydney to Hobart 1945) Chips took on the commission from Clem Walsh to design and built Hinemoa, a large yacht that at the time would have been considered radical, going against the conventional wisdom of the time where the keel was built down into the hull.
Hinemoa has a bolt on keel with an almost flat bottomed, canoe hull shape; a design that was first adopted from Chesapeake Bay Skipjacks of Maryland, North America.

Over her 72 years Hinemoa has served 9 owners in all, including Nelson Rundle who won the 1961 Sydney to Hobart in his yacht Rival Built by Les Steel. Other owners included the film producer David Elfick and Russell Morris.
After spending some ten years at Painesville in the Gippsland Lakes. Hinemoa has for the last 20 years been part of the Sandringham Yacht Club in Port Phillip Bay.
 

Race Record

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