Viaduct Harbour

This guide to Viaduct Harbour in Auckland begins with David Gouk, a diver who spent over four decades from 1863 pulling more than sixty wrecked ships out of the mud of what was then a working fishing basin. It traces the failed Edwardian scheme that gave the basin its name, and the fishing boats, timber mills, foundries and wartime minesweeper builders that filled it instead. The guide turns on 1995, when Team New Zealand's yacht Black Magic beat the Americans in San Diego and brought the America's Cup home, giving this scruffy waterfront five years to remake itself before the world arrived.