Built in 1914 by Lane Motor Boat Company for TM Lane and Sons who were timber millers in Totara North, 30′ x 7′.6″  She was taken north to Whangaroa.  She was a classic flat decker and I am not sure with what she was origonally powered with other than it was an air cooled motor.

My grandfather Clarence Lane (son of Thomas Major Lane) who was instrumental in setting up the Lane Motor Boat Company) went away on his honeymoon on Mapu in 1916   She was originaly built as a pleasure and workboat where her role primarily towing logs out of the local rivers and towing barges a role she filled over the next 30-40 year.

In 1939 she came back to Auckland to be repowered with a Scrips marine conversion of a Hercules truck motor producing 110hp.  This made her the fastest boat on the whangaroa harbour pulling around 22-24 knots

During the war she acted as the supply boat for the local gun emplacement at the heads of the Whangaroa Harbour and also towed for them targets between the heads and Stephenson Island.  My father Trevor Lane (son of Clarence) used her for crayfishing around this time as well. She was re-fastened in 1950.

By the 1960,s she was primarly a pleasure boat used by my father and his brother and their families for fishing picnicing etc.   In the 1970 she was repowered with a Fordson deisel  but by the mid 1980s she was largely unused and stored intially in a boatshed on the Lane and Sons property and subsequently in the tide in the “barge shed” where her seams having opened so much the tide came in and out of her.

In the late 1990,s Lane and Sons was being wound up and I brought her in an as is where is state.  Thus I am the 4th generation of my family to own her….

Trevor Ford (son of Sam Ford and a retired boatbuilder from the Lane Motor Boat Company) assessed her and undertook to rebuild her.  He showed me a hand-drawn picture of Mapu with a cabin and dodger and then proceeded to rebuild and repower her.  The project took him over three years in a barn on his property in the Bombay hills.

She was repowered with a Nanni convesion of a Kubota deisel (50 hp)

She was relaunched in 2003.  She heads north  in summer to Whangaroa her “home” for then retrns to Auckland at the beginning of winter and is berthd in Pine Harbour Marina.  She competed in the 2008 Rudder Cup race around sail rock and came second in her division.

Cruising speed  is 8.2 knots and full speed about 9.7-10.4knots depending on the cleanliness of her hull!!!.

I suspect the owner of Raindance will acknowledge she is pretty quick for her size and power.. (edited – the owner of Raindance hopes the CYA launch handicapper reads waitematawoodys 🙂  )