Roiaata is a 32-foot wooden cutter built in 1935 in Ponsonby, Auckland, by the Tercel brothers, known for producing fast, capable cruising yachts during the interwar period. Launched for A. and G. Grimson, she was among the last commissioned boats built by Lou Tercel and his brothers, preceding their later and more widely known yacht Ranger.

Her design closely follows John Alden’s “Bantam” type. Built in kauri, her hull is double-skinned with a diagonal inner layer and fore-and-aft outer planking, supported by substantial stringers, a hallmark of strong New Zealand construction of the time. At 32.1 ft overall, with a 2.9-ton lead keel, she was rigged as a masthead cutter with bowsprit and bumpkin, built for both racing and offshore work.

Roiaata proved herself early, racing in the Auckland Anniversary Regatta and going on to win multiple cups through the 1940s and 1950s, including the Alby Braund Cup, Savory Cup, and later the Bloomfield and Herald Cups at Devonport Yacht Club. In the late 1960s she set out on an ocean passage through the South Pacific, where she was rolled completely twice south of the Cook Islands and survived.

Now approaching a century since her launch, Roiaata remains a rare and proven example of New Zealand wooden boatbuilding, with her structure, performance, and history still clearly tied to her origins.