DAUNTLESS
Built c.1927, most likely a Lanes (I can hear HDK now 🙂 “aren’t they all” )50′ in length. Owner looking for more details on her past. Dauntless most likely not the original name.
Currently berth at Milford Marina (the creek).
31-01-2019 Update – Hauled out at Milford Cruising Club yard for some TLC. Photo ex Jason Prew
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New photo added. Alan H
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My current idea is that she was built for R. Alfano of Island Bay as HARPTREE aka COOK aka VALERIE II around 1940. If so she was probably built by someone in Wellington or Picton. Baden, give that some thought?
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Honestly, there are wall to wall DAUNTLESSES, but I don’t have one on Taupo, sorry.
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There was a Dauntless on Lake Taupo in the late 70s early 80s.
Harold’s comment though might explain it.
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PS One candidate could be the 1939 Lidgard NGAPUHI which went to Fiji with the RNZAF as W70 in 1941 and was also used for towing at Hobsonville. Her dimensions are about right but I don’t have any images.
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Sadly, I have no elaborate anecdotes for you, Russell. Assumptions aplenty, however, which seem to pass for peer review on this site.
I do think she was built under another name and that shouldn’t be hard to find, so long as we rigorously suspend disbelief and pile assumption upon assumption.
I do know that she was registered with the APYMBA in 1969 as DAUNTLESS by A.D. Paterson of 5 Lichfield Road, City, fitted with a “57hp Perkins” and had dimensions of 49’3″x48’6″x12’x3’9″. Paterson told the APYMBA that she had been built in 1939 [but what did he know?]. Paterson still owned her in 1973 when he was a Squadron member. Unfortunately I have temporarily buried my copy of the Squadron membership records for that year but will find them. They may show her builder, although they may not as Paterson did not tell the APYMBA that fact in 1969 when there was space on his application form for it.
There are at least 6 more Dauntlesses around the NZ coast so it gets confusing, but no others with anything like these dimensions. I think we’ll find that she’s an important boat.
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Fantastic addition Russell, loved it. — Yes, indeed, the P6’s were known for this, as we would all remember, I recall my dad, a brilliant precision engineer, telling me they had less bearings or bearing surfaces, for the crankshaft, than normal, & thus, the result.
Must say have never seen or heard of the boat, but you are indeed a man of may parts & memory recalls — great stuff — KEN RICKETTS
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She was called “Dauntless” into the ’60s. I remember she had (I think a P6 Perkins (“ferkin perkins”) which were a wartime design and a bit stressed in the crankshaft dept. True to form, she suffered some bottom end failure when away one weekend at Ponui. These days one would get on the VHF and call up a tow. Back then, the engine was dismantled on board and parts brought down from Auckland. She was reassembled and motored forth.
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