Ranui

Ranui

RANUI,

Photo taken c.1950 by Ken Ricketts, before she had the 6 or 8 ft added to the back end, & when she still had her 2 original Ford V8 petrol engines, & was owned by Hec Goodfellow. She was built by R Lidgard circa 1947 was approx 38 ft long, at that time. She is a Chris Craft design, that Goodfellow had seen in the Pacific Islands, when he was a naval officer stationed there in WWII.

He was so impressed with the design, after the war he acquired a set of geinuine plans, & commisioned Lidgards to build RANUI for him. The family owned the boat for a great many years, & she was moored in Whakatakataka Bay, had an adjoining boatshed on the banks of the Bay in Ngapipi Rd, where she spent much of her time in earlier days, & was only seen on her moorings occasionally. In her later life, she lived much of the time at Christian Bay Takatu Peninsula during his ownedship, as he had a property there.

She was lengthened as above, in the later 50s or early 60s & the Ford V8s were initally replaced with 2 x 4 cyl Ford Diesels, when she was lengthened & these have later still been replaced with 2 x 6 cyl Ford Diesels. The last heard of about a year ago, she was living in the Sounds at the top of the South Island looking lovely.


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2 thoughts on “Ranui

  1. Hec Goodfellow claimed he designed her, and there’s more than a trace of contemporary US design in her. Maybe there were some ChrisCraft plans involved, maybe not. Certainly there were plenty of such basic plans in the RUDDER etc magazines of the time. The RNZYS records say she had 90hp Flagship engines, again another brand of marinised Ford V8/Mercury engines.
    There’s a suggestion that Major George Bailey’s FLORAE was built off her moulds by Lidgards a little later. Percy Coutts owned FLORAE subsequently.

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