Pona

Vessel numberHV000752

Date1922

DimensionsVessel Dimensions: 4.88 m × 4.72 m × 0.15 m, 0.56 tonnes (16 ft × 15.5 ft × 0.5 ft, 0.55 tons)

DescriptionThe Low Head Lagoon Bay Dinghies were originally built to a modified design based on yachts in the Norfolk Broads in England. The designer of these was Francis Charles Morgan-Giles (1883 – 19 March 1964) who was a boat designer and builder from Devon, England. Cyril Perrin, who had been recovering there from wounds he had received at the European War Front, brought back plans at the end of World War 1.

PONA was built by EA "Ned" Jack at his Launceston yard. PONA has a carvel built hull with a planked deck of Huon pine and is gaff rigged. It has a pivoting centreboard with a transom hung rudder. PONA is 4.88m long x 1.83m beam x 015m draught.

Perrin owned PONA in circa 1922, the second owner was Cecile Woodruff (nee Perrin) and the 3rd was Geoff Tyson. Since Geoff’s ownership PONA has remained in the Tyson family younger gerations. PONA has been in constant summer use for pleasure sailing by the family including the informal Lagoon Bay handicap events. PONA was also used for fishing around the shallow reed banks and reefs off Kelso and the Sheer and Black reefs and she occasionally made trips to the Hebe Reef. It has made one voyage out of the Tamar to attend the first Australian Wooden Boat Festival in 1994.

The Lagoon Bay Dinghies were designed as sailing dinghies for the shallow conditions off Lagoon Beach, Low Head, Tasmania. The early dinghies had lugsails with a spar that crossed the mast, and no headsails. These were called “Cat boats.” Later on they were built as gaff-rigged sloops. In their original form they have no auxiliary engines and were fitted with rowlocks and oars for rowing when becalmed.

For more than 50 years these yachts raced each summer off Lagoon Beach. A handicap starting procedure was used designed to bring all yachts together during the finishing stages of the race. Events were held during high tide. The race circuit was usually of three laps, starting and finishing off Lagoon Bay, with the anchored pilot boat and a marker buoy off the southern end of Lagoon bay forming the legs of the circuit. Competition was taken seriously.

SignificancePONA is a wooden sailing yacht built in Tasmania in 1922. It was built by well-known Launceston shipwright EA "Ned" Jack. It is one of the few surviving examples of the many historic Low Head Sailing Dinghies regularly raced as the “Lagoon Bay” dinghies at Low Head on the Tamar River in the 1920s and subsequent decades.