Peter Lynn Disposing of 37-Year Trove
40 Tons of Kite Gear as a Giveway
After 37 years manufacturing kites, Peter Lynn has retired. Well, sort of.
Although the New Zealander has moved from direct involvement in manufacturing and distribution, he has retained ownership of the Peter Lynn brand name and remains actively involved in designing and continues to circle the globe flying his creations at kite festivals, where they are customarily the star attraction because of their large size and attractive appearance. Meanwhile, the inventor and showman works on a project that has intrigued him for two decades now----perfecting the sport of kite sailing. He hopes this kind of boating will become the next major extreme sport and feels this is reasonably close to happening.
As a result of re-organisation at his main licensee, Vlieger Op (Fly Up!) in The Hague, Holland, with which he was long associated, Peter acquired masses of kite residue sitting in two warehouses in that Dutch city. The holding constitutes an awesome 40 or more tons of material, estimates Lynn. Included are two tons of fiberglass tubing, 700 rolls of ripstop nylon, fittings, string, kite boards, kite buggies, and thousands of unsold kites, most in their original packaging. Also, harnesses, helmets, wet suits and lots more. All told, three container loads. Most of the materials are new while the used items are of archival value, says Lynn.
What to do with this vast, disparate trove? For a start, Lynn decided to give it away.
But because he felt he couldn’t turn loose this mass of material on the Western world where it would skew the retail kite market, he looked to the developing nations in Asia, with their deep cultural involvement in kites. Bali came to mind. Having participated in kite flies on that beautiful Indonesian island, Lynn had long been struck by the deep relationship the locals have to kiting. “Kite flying is not recreational or a hobby to the Balinese,” says Lynn, “but at the heart of their culture. I saw one kite with a tail 636 feet long, being flown by 18 people. This was a village project, financed by the Balinese themselves. The kite cost a reported $12,000 in material to make. These were people earning $12 a week. In this instance, though, the locals obviously received corporate and government support. The villagers are so poor, in fact, they often have to use dress fabric instead of prohibitively expensive ripstop. Yet they show phenomenal creativity.”
In addition to the three famous traditional kites to be seen in the skies, Balinese make modern day kites in any design they care to----ships with a full rig of sails, gaudy jungle birds, some really crazy things. “Any one of a dozen or more of these ‘creative’ kites blows away any Western kite,” he says.
So it was to Indonesia that he looked. Trouble right away. “National customs would give me no commitment on what duty it would levy,” he says. “At one point I heard 300 percent of assessed value might be charged----a ripoff. Also, risk of customs seizure removed any assurance the materials would eventually go to valid recipients”.
Lynn looked elsewhere for entry into Asia. He immediately thought of the ASEAN Kite Council. ASEAN stands for Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a trade and cultural alliance with 11 members-and they have a committee to promote kiteflying. Their deputy chairman is Hussin Haron (well known power behind the Pasir Gudang Kite Festival in Malaysia), ably assisted by Orlando Ongkingco, of Manila and a committee comprising other national representitives.
The ASEAN Kite Council agreed to handle the matter and set up a committee which includes as members donor Lynn and kite expert Scott Skinner, president of the Drachen Foundation, of Seattle. Initially it was hoped that distribution to the ASEAN region could be through Johore, in Malaysia, where there is a local royal family enthusiastically supporting the sport, a massive yearly kite festival, and an outstanding kite museum. Unfortunately duty free entry for the donation could not be arranged within probable time limits so the entry point then had to be shifted again- to Singapore. Import plans there are now proceeding, with the Drachen Foundation agreeing to pay reasonable customs levies.
Says Lynn, “Our plan is that distribution will be quick; it should occur within a year after arrival of the materials in Singapore. A list of deserving kitemakers, well known from festivals and exhibitions, is being compiled, with some proportion of everything going directly to them. Applications from regional kite associations will also be considered and some more historic items will probably settle in museums and collections. We want to keep things as simple as possible.”
About the possible press response this gift may provoke, he responds by rolling his eyes. He does say, “Giving things away is much more difficult than I thought it would be.”
In an interview, Lynn reflects on his business career going back to the l960s. He was working for his father in his booming joinery business at that point. “He had contracts all over New Zealand,” recalls Lynn, “and in particular was doing the fittings paneling and doors for the new Parliament building in Wellington, a prestigious matter. He had a staff of more than 80 at that time.”
“Ending the post-World War II boom, New Zealand was entering a recession in the l970s, at the same time the joinery business was changing. Solid wood gave way to processed board and aluminum windows and neither my father nor I were pleased with this development. We were too purist. My father, recognizing that my interests lay in different directions, we decided to taper-off and eventually cease joinery manufacturing. This process was completed by the middle ‘80s- and taught me a LOT about management!”.
“My father, Bob, was in his middle 50’s as he disengaged after a 40 year career (having started work as an apprentice joiner at 15) Now in his mid 90’s, he has had as many years of ‘retirement’ as he had of work. Always interested in the history and practice of woodworking he has became a world authority and writer in this specialty. His collection of historic woodworking tools, equipment, and archives, including the world’s largest collection of (originally fabulously expensive) ornamental turning lathes, is on view at a museum he has founded at a colonial era museum park in Ashburton (near Christchurch). It’s the finest collection of its kind in the world.”
Peter Lynn notes that his father for a long time has been almost totally deaf. “It was hard for me to communicate well with him. There have been so many things that we would have really enjoyed discussing, but this just hasn’t been possible except in stilted exchanges. But of course, it has been even more difficult for him. Bob’s deafness is congenital. I’ve got it too as have some of my children. In fact Bob has two kinds of deafness----physical, he can’t hear a sound. And neurological. It might have been an advantage to him in a way, permitting him to concentrate without distractionl- though much less affected than he is, I certainly value this aspect!”
From the early ‘70’s Peter had started small businesses in woodturning, wooden games and puzzles, wooden toys, and kite making. He also set up a small engineering business, which amongst other things, developed a new style of portable sawmill system for cutting logs. The former system used two blades, his used one. His “tipping blade” system used a single circular sawblade which rotated 90 degrees at the end of each pass through a log, to enable the production of sawn timber in one operation. “I patented it, built seven, sold them all,” says Peter. “I allowed the patent to lapse after a raiding company entered the field. Later the concept became the world standard portable sawmill system.”
A great storyteller, Peter can’t resist adding a denouement. “One company turned out 3,000 of the devices,” he says, “another firm 900. They were just two of the companies using the principle. I was called in a court case 20 years after I had given up the patent. Two companies were claiming the invention was their own.”
An enduring Peter Lynn business has been a holding company for industrial properties. It has been very successful, supporting his kite making when times were tight, a place to invest during the good times. At some point he bought out his father, sister and brother-in-law. He and his wife Elwyn own several rental properties in Ashburton, now have some dozen tenants. “Rentals,” he says,” are an unfailing way to make money. But they’re boring. Kites are definitely NOT boring.”
Photo by Ben Ruhe