A Postscript to the TEDDY Story - The VEGA
Many thanks to Mary Gallagher for alerting us to a fascinating addition to the article on the TEDDY, the story of whose demise we republished last week. Mary writes…
It is precious to read this story of TEDDY for me. There is a sequel to the story, as at some time later, the wreck of the TEDDY did wash ashore. The vessel lines were appreciated and taken by a young kiwi boatbuilder Alan Orams. He subsequently built a boat after WW2, and launched her in 1949. She is the VEGA. VEGA has sailed many International voyages, involved in environmental campaigns when she was known as Greenpeace 111. VEGA is now owned and maintained by a group of friends, as Vega Pacific Ltd. She is moored in the Maritime Museum in Auckland, New Zealand as an acknowledgement of her history as the vessel which protested atmospheric nuclear testing at Mururoa atoll in the Pacific, and many other global campaign voyages.
A little googling reveals this great article written by Alex at Boating NZ and published in 2022.
Keep up the fight
She started off as one giant log of kauri, the superlative boat-building timber that made New Zealand famous and the British navy invincible.
That was in 1949. In her lifetime – now 73 years – Vega has been at the middle of many high seas and human dramas. She’s been an actor on the world’s political and environmental stages.
But the story of Vega goes back way further than that. In 1890, Colin Archer, the son of Scottish immigrants in Norway, built a 40ft pilot boat named Teddy. She was a gaff-rigged cutter, and forged a reputation for seaworthiness and speed.
Read on HERE