Tauranga boating identity Murray Crapp died suddenly on Saturday while working on his boat Dovetail at the Sulphur Point Marina. He was aged 73.

Murray continued a strong family interest in boating with his brother Allan operating the former family-owned slipway at Omokoroa for years.

Murray Crapp regularly dressed as Santa during Christmas celebrations at the Mercury Islands.

Murray started out as a house builder, but slipped into boat building, fitting out a Raven 26 in the shed on his 13th Avenue property.

David Peet, who knew Murray for more than 40 years, says the Crapp house at 13th Ave was well-known to yachties, who used to take their sails to Murray for minor patches and repairs.

'He had a house there and a big shed. It was a seven year project I think for him. In those days he worked for builder Dave Mytton, and from there he moved into boat building.

'When I first came to Tauranga he had a little keelboat, he sold that and was building one of the early Ravens,” says David.

Murray spent a lot of time working at Donald Boat Builders when the business was based out in the countryside.

The early Raven boat he built, named Rhumb Runner, was a nicely finished boat, says David.

'Murray made a good job of her and one of the features was the Rolls Royce symbol, the ‘RR' on the bow, just as a little badge where the arrow goes round.”

Fellow yachtie and former Tauranga City Councillor Bill Faulkner remembers the boat well, for the size of the spinnaker. They could always see the boat's mast swaying back and forth like the pendulum on a grandfather clock.

'He raced that with the yacht club, quite a few people can say they got their early grounding with Murray on that,” says David.

Murray owned about three boats when he died. The catamaran he was working on that he bought from Whitianga last year, an old sounds boat known as a bridge decker that's on the market, and a multi-chine Yachting World keelboat named Gem.

Gem began as an open boat and Murray did it up, adding a deck and cabin with the aim of making it available to teach people sailing.

'He operated as a one-man-band as a boat builder for many years, and doing jobbing repair work, and I think he was restoring a runabout at his place,” says David.

'He was always a very active chap, known by heaps. He was also a yacht inspector.”

Yacht inspectors are authorised to undertake safety inspections on yachts to the different categories of racing, such as Cat 1 for offshore, and the other categories for coastal and local racing.

Murray's funeral is at the Omokoroa Boat Club on Thursday at 2pm.