Every Story Has a Beginning…

Leda when she was still a tree!

Leda’s story starts out in the Northland of New Zealand in the distant past in the kauri forest.  The purpose here is not to educate about the evolution of the island or the forest, but you can’t have a full understanding of Leda without having some information about kauri as a timber.  These are amazing trees that produce great timber for boats.  

The trees grow much like any evergreen tree for the first hundred years or so, but then drop all the lower limbs and form a broccoli top.  They then grow to tremendous girth, providing a boatload of clear, rot resistant timber. 

Leda’s double-planked construction primarily of kauri timber is most likely why she is still sailing near the end of her seventh decade.

Next:  Ragna R, Uffa Fox and Leda