The Launching of Rorqual

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The Launching of Rorqual

Below is a tale about the launching of the whale chaser Rorqual, told by Graham Scott who rubbed up against her in her early days & whose father worked on the engine. Read on & enjoy 🙂

The Rorqual was built at Morgans Boatyard, Picton (now long gone) and launched in 1960. Gil Perano’s daughter Vivien christened the Rorqual, which proved to be a disaster, like when they lit the engine up after launching, with all the bullshit that went with it, they couldn’t get any oil pressure. This was followed by a “delaunching”, much to the embarrassment suffered by the hob knobs in attendance. The Rorqual was the first chaser to be painted light green, all the others having been painted dark green, the same as the Union Steamship boats. It was a bloody stupid colour to use, as the darker paint would blister like crazy. I suggested to Gil heaps of times, that it would pay to lighten the colour but I doubt whether a low life boatyard worker would have influenced the eventual and obvious decision. Of more concern was the reason why (supposedly) the brand new 600HP Kermath Sea Raider petrol engine proved to be faulty. There were 2 Kermaths imported at the same time, 1 a second-hand one, the other new and unfortunately Peranos’ got the wrong one. There was a hellava stink about it at the time, but seemingly nothing could be done about it. Subsequently there were extensive attempts at fixing the problem by all the so-called experts, including Cuddens in Blenheim, all to of no avail. The engine ended up on blocks down at Whenenui, destined to become a boat mooring. They pulled a motor out of one of the older boats, so the Rorqual could operate, which it did so for 4 years, until 1964 when whaling ended.
In the meantime and when Dad had some spare time, he asked Gil if he could have a go at fixing the Kermath. Gil told him it was a waste of time, as all the experts had declared it wasn’t fixable. In no time at all, Dad started the engine (with no silencing it made a hellava noise) and much to Gil’s horror up the hill, Dad didn’t shut it down as he “officially” should have done. Evidently Gil drove down the hill like a maniac, ready to give Dad a real bollicking. Dad told me he just said nothing, instead pointing to the oil pressure guage, which
showed it as normal. The Kermath was put back into the Rorqual, replacing the “temporary” one that had been installed..

Dad had an incredible talent at fixing engines, but he never told me how he fixed the Kermath. I do know however that he was deeply hurt when he was rewarded with diddily squat. After whaling finished, Gil had the Roqual modified from virtually no superstructure to a cabin etc and the installation of a diesel engine. So far as I know, Gil used it until he died in 1981, aged 72. That’s a bit scary – that’s my present age!!!!

Seems the name derives from Norwegian for Blue Whale which as an uneducated idiot from Nelson College I never knew. In fact most of the chasers were named after breeds of whales, including the Cachalot, Orca, Rorqual, Narwhal and Balaena.

Graham Scott

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5 thoughts on “The Launching of Rorqual”

  1. Pingback: The Evolution of a Whale Chaser | waitematawoodys.com #1 for classic wooden boat stories, info, advice & news

  2. Further to the colour commments Roy Lidgard built several whale chasers at Kawau Island in the mid -later 50s I think it was, all painted a similar light green powered by 1 x Scripps V12 flat head petrol engine — 1 exhasut out each side & sounded like a very slow running engine driving a boat a high speed –KEN RICKETTS

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  3. Hi Jon
    Thanks for that .. thats all really interesting. I recently(couple of years ago now) had the original engineer help me take the head off to fix an oil leak that was bugging me. He originally rebuilt her from the ground up for Tom Birdsall in 1988. He was Mr GM in town in those days(and still is!).. Phil Kooperberg.. he tells me that Tom had it modified so much that they had to derate it as it used too much fuel! It has a German Turbo on it(the GM ones weren’t up to much apparently) and specially made injectors..the same as S95’s which weren’t available then… Both Phil and Chris Seager who’s had a lot to do with the boat too reckon it is somewhere in the 380-400HP range..
    Interesting info .. thanks very much.
    Cheers
    Chris

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  4. This above article is far from the truth regarding the launching of the Rorqual and history of the Kermath engine.

    The Kermath engine was initially purchased as a replacement for the chaser “Cachalot III”s engine a 300HP Lycoming on which the cylinder heads had eaten out due to it being run on salt water.
    Upon starting the Kermath in the Cachalot III no oil pressure was attained. Because of the controversy of its second hand condition, it was decided that since the whaling season was fast approaching a gamble would be taken and a new 305 HP General Motors turbocharged diesel would be purchased and installed. The gamble being that the diesel would not have the acceleration of a petrol engine.
    The Kermath was finally admitted by the importing agents as been second hand and purchased by the Peranos for a fraction of the new price.

    Since the GM diesel proved to be most satisfactory during its first whaling season and General Motors were soon to put into production a V12 500 HP light weight diesel, the decision was made to get a new chaser built (Rorqual), and install in her the Kermath that now had the oil pressure fault fixed by the whaling engineering staff during the off whaling season. So when the 500 HP GM became available it would replace the Kermath but unfortunately this did not happen.

    With the downturn of the humpback whaling and the shift by the Perano Coy to deep sea Sperm whaling the small chasers were far from suitable.. The Cachalot III was sold without the GM diesel. That GM diesel engine was used as a replacement engine for the Kermath petrol engine once whaling ceased and is still running in the Rorqual to this day.
    The Kermath was sold to Clary Olsson of Picton. He reconditioned it with the intention of putting it in a boat. However that did not happen and it was sold to John Fell of Blenheim. From there it did a full circle and ended back in the fully restored Cachalot III which is awaiting a home in a museum.

    Jon Perano.

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