Magic Dragons run out of Puff

[chris14679]

I met Shelley and Jane when we bought their mooring and the jetty they built in the beautiful Kerikeri river, where they had been based since 1973.

They had just become too old to live on board any longer (in their mid 80s) and had just moved ashore. Jane had injured her knee and Shelley had been lifting her into the dinghy using a block and tackle when they finally decided living on a mooring was too much!

We had just sailed in from Vanuatu and my crew of backpackers ended up buying their four wheel drive car/camper to explore New Zealand. They were downsizing to one car having also just sold Magic Dragon. We enjoyed spending time with them, hearing stories of their adventures and innovations.

We rebuilt and extended the jetty where we now live aboard our catamaran with our three year old daughter. The original jetty built by Shelley found a new home further up the river.

It's almost unique in New Zealand, when the "Resource Consent" process came in Shelley had managed to obtain consent and ownership for the jetty, without owning any land! The perfect base for live-aboards.

Part of their legacy is this wonderful place where another two generations are now living aboard their yacht. Soon our daughter will be able to walk to school from here.

[chris14679]

Here is Jane's wonderfully entertaining and readable account of the 1981 Kerikeri flood, a major event in their life on the river - starting on page 104:

https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=...page&q&f=false

More of her wonderful articles can be found by searching on Google Books.

[Davo1404]

Thanks very much for sharing this Mike. I used to read all of the De Ridders articles. I would have to say that these articles helped to grow my desire to cross oceans & explore the Pacific Islands.

[Breaking Waves]

we had Jane aboard Hawk for a sail the last time we were in NZ - lovely memories with them both.

[Lightwave99]

We did not know Shelley and Jane, but they sound like they were a wonderful couple who were creative and adventurous. Thank you for taking the time to give us all a picture of this wonderful couple. Let more young people today discover such freedom--physically and mentall--and live fully meeting people the world over and experiencing sailing the deep.

Loving thoughts go out to them.
Carllie & Garett
Light Wave
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

[robazurus]

Thank you for the news of this couple. How wonderful there was only one day apart at the end, after a life time of togetherness, love and adventure.
I would be interested to know did either of them write an autobiography?
and do any of you have photos of their vessel? it sounds interesting.

[gruffa]

Lovely photos of them here:
https://dardens.smugmug.com/Year-201...elly-DeRidder/

[joshkemp]

Introducing...the new Magic Dragons!

We, Fiona and me, bought MD from Michel and Jane seven years ago. It was two years after Jane's fall in the post-office carpark, the fall that saw them take a rental apartment after 47 years aboard. They were 84 and 82 when we met them. We spent a total of three weeks cruising aboard with them during the year-long buying process, showing us the ropes. Our daughters, Lucy and Sylvie, were 5 and 3. In the week before our settlement date, Michel and Jane took her out for a last fling by themselves. When they tied up back home on the piles a week later, it was with a sigh of relief, convinced that they were definitely beyond two-handed management of their baby.

For seven years i've been on the phone to Michel for advice about the boat, and general advice about life. They've always been there, large in our minds, as we sailed her about from her new port of Nelson, at the top of NZ's South Island. MD has never once let us down, she is always ready to get up and go. We try to look after her as well as she looks after us. The mast has had a birthday ashore, new lights, wiring and rigging, but the Morris 8 headlight at the masthead has a new home in the storage shed! New sails, repainted decks, repainted topsides, some new windows, many years of antifoul removed, dripless stern gland, new depth sounder, new anchor & chain - those are the main things we've done. New dodger and clears coming later this year. We think carefully before changing anything, and usually decide not to. We thought the fridge would go, but we love it now. In fact, we have swapped it for a brand new one. The self-steering works amazingly well - we are on the helm only for anchoring, fish-on, or MOB practise.

Fiona and I bought a 26 foot Trekka 'Esperanto' for our first keeler, seventeen years ago. She too sports reverse sheer and tumblehome sides, so MD's lines caught our eye. Turned out that Trekka was an influence on MDs design - John Guzzwell was mates with the de Ridders. Two old old life-jackety ball thingamabobos were aboard MD, purportedly inherited from the Trekka after circumnavigating with her!

MD provides ample space for our family of four to be aboard for extended periods. We carry several windsurfers, paddleboard, dinghys without it all getting in the way. The Honda CT 90 (not 50!) is in storage awaiting restoration.

MD took us happily to New Caledonia in 2017. Since then we've been trying to get to Fiji, but are now on our third postponement. May it happen in 2022.

We've seen ourselves as 'the people with the de Ridder's boat', and i guess we will always be that. Though now it feels different somehow.

I have really appreciated Michel's honest answer's when asked 'how are you'. Octogenarian life wasn't pretty for them, save the view from their Rangiputa perch. Michel was a major role-model for me and i miss him. But we're very glad it's over for them, and we're very glad for the great run they made of it. An example for us all.

Josh Kemp & Fiona McLeod, daughters Lucy and Sylvie, Nelson NZ

[chris14679]

Originally Posted by joshkemp

Introducing...the new Magic Dragons!

We, Fiona and me, bought MD from Michel and Jane seven years ago. It was two years after Jane's fall in the post-office carpark, the fall that saw them take a rental apartment after 47 years aboard. They were 84 and 82 when we met them. We spent a total of three weeks cruising aboard with them during the year-long buying process, showing us the ropes. Our daughters, Lucy and Sylvie, were 5 and 3. In the week before our settlement date, Michel and Jane took her out for a last fling by themselves. When they tied up back home on the piles a week later, it was with a sigh of relief, convinced that they were definitely beyond two-handed management of their baby.

For seven years i've been on the phone to Michel for advice about the boat, and general advice about life. They've always been there, large in our minds, as we sailed her about from her new port of Nelson, at the top of NZ's South Island. MD has never once let us down, she is always ready to get up and go. We try to look after her as well as she looks after us. The mast has had a birthday ashore, new lights, wiring and rigging, but the Morris 8 headlight at the masthead has a new home in the storage shed! New sails, repainted decks, repainted topsides, some new windows, many years of antifoul removed, dripless stern gland, new depth sounder, new anchor & chain - those are the main things we've done. New dodger and clears coming later this year. We think carefully before changing anything, and usually decide not to. We thought the fridge would go, but we love it now. In fact, we have swapped it for a brand new one. The self-steering works amazingly well - we are on the helm only for anchoring, fish-on, or MOB practise.

Fiona and I bought a 26 foot Trekka 'Esperanto' for our first keeler, seventeen years ago. She too sports reverse sheer and tumblehome sides, so MD's lines caught our eye. Turned out that Trekka was an influence on MDs design - John Guzzwell was mates with the de Ridders. Two old old life-jackety ball thingamabobos were aboard MD, purportedly inherited from the Trekka after circumnavigating with her!

MD provides ample space for our family of four to be aboard for extended periods. We carry several windsurfers, paddleboard, dinghys without it all getting in the way. The Honda CT 90 (not 50!) is in storage awaiting restoration.

MD took us happily to New Caledonia in 2017. Since then we've been trying to get to Fiji, but are now on our third postponement. May it happen in 2022.

We've seen ourselves as 'the people with the de Ridder's boat', and i guess we will always be that. Though now it feels different somehow.

I have really appreciated Michel's honest answer's when asked 'how are you'. Octogenarian life wasn't pretty for them, save the view from their Rangiputa perch. Michel was a major role-model for me and i miss him. But we're very glad it's over for them, and we're very glad for the great run they made of it. An example for us all.

Josh Kemp & Fiona McLeod, daughters Lucy and Sylvie, Nelson NZ

Great to hear that Magic Dragon has a new lease of life. I'm sure it made Shelley and Jane very happy to see her in good hands and hear stories of your adventures. They must have loved staying in touch and sharing advice with you.

We have the same feeling that we are custodians of something they passed on to us, our unique jetty for liveaboards will always be somehow theirs. ...Or did they see themselves as temporary custodians too? Probably they did. That's how it is with such things - they outlive us all, we care for them as best we can and we pass them to a new custodian.

If you are ever in the Bay of Islands then do come and visit us, it would be fun to meet you and reunite MD with her old home base.

I found their old blog and photos from 2012 still online here:
2012 update: April 2012

[JPA Cate]

@joshkemp:

Welcome aboard CF, Josh.

Thank you so much for sharing about Shelly and Jane and taking over Magic Dragon for them.

One year, their Christmas letter had pictures of them in shorty wetsuits--at the time of their latter 70's. Just very good folks, eh?

Ann

[Salpal]

Hi Mike and Sylvia,
Good to see you are still in NZ, Sally Hart here from yacht EOS. I hope you remember the many fun times we had across the pacific.

Nick and I ended up in Sydney after cruising up through the solomons, PNG and the Phillapeans. We left Eos in Brunei for 12 months and settled in Sydney.

Eos was sold a year later as we started our family in Sydney. By 2000 we had 4 kids and had bought a Bavaria 38 to cruise and race around locally.

Unfortunatelly things didn’t work out and we divorced in 2001. Nick moved to Asia and I stayed in sydney.

22 years on and the kids are all grown up, I have my first grandchild due this year and I’m now planning my next trip around the oceans with my new partner Tony. In 3-5 years.

Would love to catchup with you guys and here more of your life post 87

Best regards
Sally.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Sally.

[Salpal]

Thankyou

[Drhive]

I don't know why I decided to Google Jane and Shelly today, but I'm so glad I did. This thread has been wonderful to read, and brings back so many memories of days gone by.

We weren't big sailors then (or now), but I well recall meeting J & S in 1988 when we pulled into Urupukapuka Bay in the very used 20ft trailor-sailer we had only recently purchased from the roadside in Kerikeri.

I knew nothing about boat design, but even I was intrigued by the reverse sheer on Magic Dragon. So my wife and I put on masks and snorkels and proceeded to have a quiet look from the water line. It didn’t take long for Jane to spot us, though, and we were immediately invited on board.

As it turned out, their pole mooring on the Kerikeri River was right below where friends of ours lived, and we visited J & S on a number of occasions. Magic Dragon really was magic, as some of you have commented, and I can still remember how roomy it was inside. I recall Shelly telling me he wanted a boat that was similar inside to the canal boats he saw as a child in Belgium.

And I also remember his story of stumbling on the pallet load of cedar clears that became MD, hiding under an old tarpaulin in a timber yard in North Vancouver. The manager had dressed the timber for a job, but no one had ever come by to collect it, so he sold it to Shelly for almost nothing at all.

Magic Dragon was certainly big, but also light, just as Shelly wanted. We once saw them out sailing, and they offered to take us for a ride. He threw us a line, we came along side and hopped on board, and we then proceeded to tow our trailer-sailer behind. I was amazed by the acceleration of MD as he tightened the sheets, and it wasn’t very long before our wee boat was surfing behind just like a little dinghy. I don’t think we slowed MD down at all.

It is of course very sad to hear of their passing, but all of us who met them over the years also know that they had a great partnership, and lived the most wonderful, free-spirited of lives. I know that for my wife and I, they will always live on in our thoughts, and the sailing stories we tell.

Cheers,

Cliff Van Eaton

[JPA Cate]

Thanks, Cliff.

Jane and Shelley were super inspirations for us, too.

Ann