The Shipbuilders.

There were many great craftsmen in the making of ships of all classes among the pioneer Waipu men from Nova Scotia. They built most of the vessels in which they came to New Zealand, every stage of it, from felling and sawing the trees to finishing them, and they navigated and sailed them. The Rev. Norman McLeod, the famous spiritual head and teacher of the settlers, was a good navigator himself; he took sights and checked the captain's reckoning on the voyage. In New Zealand they have left a tradition of clipper shipbuilding; the Mathesons, Meiklejohns, Darrochs, and others built some fast and handsome vessels, chiefly schooners, at Waipu, Whangarei Heads and Omaha.

A typical product of these wellskilled and most faithful of shipwrights was a very fast fore-and-aft schooner of 100 tons we used to see in the Waitemata, the Three Cheers. None to beat her, among all those speedy craft.