8 thoughts on “Wai Lani”

1. I owned Wai Lani from around 1984 until approx 1988. I gave her a full repaint and added a small Rinnai gas stove, changed to cabin door to swing inwards, added a Furuno sounder, VHF radio, and sealed the cockpit bilge adding an electric bilge pump to prevent water getting into the bilge proper. When I had her, she had a 40hp Fordson diesel motor, and the sliding side doors had been replace with vinyl covers. At the time I was told she had a 6cyl Royal engine in her for launch races in the mid 1920’s. I sold her through a broker at Half Moon Bay (Auckland’s Beach) and believe she went to a longline fisherman for a while, when I saw her a couple of years later, she was for sale, but was looking fairly untidy (oil dropped in the bilge etc.)

   She was fairly well known in the Auckland’s Beach area as the “War canoe” Certainly plenty of great memories of trips around the gulf and to Gt Barrier Is.

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2. Bob Carey a master boatbuilder from the Navy Dockyard brought this boat as a sunken wreck in the 1960s. He restored it over many years. I worked on the restoration as young boy. He relaunched it in the early 70s I think. Had a two cyl diesel engine. The boat was restores. Ribs replaced new planks and working. Thenan was a true craftsman. (Bob was elitterate)

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3. I traded/bought her early/mid 80’s, sanded the hull and topsides back and gave her a full paint job – she looked great. Changed the cabin door to open internally to the left, sealed off the cockpit underfloor to keep the rest of the hull dry, installed a Rinnai gas stove & grill to the cockpit port side, fitted a VHF and Furuno sounder. Kept her til late 80’s when needed to sell to build a house. Back then the engine was a 4cyl Fordson diesel with keel cooling. The “engine room” was painted ‘engine room green’ with a simply head on port side. I converted the front two single berths into a double. She was probably the nicest vessel i ever owned, with the steady jib we could head out from Bucklands Beach river and make Fitzroy at Gt Barrier in around 6-7 hrs. Often I would be anchored in a bay and she seemed to be a magnet for friends in larger launches who would raft up sandwiching us in the middle. Very enjoyable memories cruising the gulf in her. Saw her a few years after I sold her and was disappointed to see that she had fallen into disrepair and the previously spotless bilge was awash in oil and water, unfortunately wasn’t in a position to buy her back. Great to see from the photos that someone has lovingly restored her.

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4. New photos added. Alan H

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5. We owned Wailani in the late 70s at that time she had 40hp ford diesel we owned her for till the mid 80s and kept her in thames and enjoyed many trips to coromandel and the barrier. We have seen a photo of wailani winning the royal akarana launch race in 1924

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6. We had a friend – Bob Carey who worked at the Naval Dockyard, who did up an old launch called Wai Lani. He kept her at Stanley Bay and from memory she had a Ford diesel in her.
   Graham

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7. Looks like she might be going down the Warkworth River – KEN RICKETTS

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8. Aren’t they all?
   But, seriously, WAI LANI was built for James Thomas Dart Lloyd, a Herne Bay builder and architect in 1916. The newspapers were fairly quiet on trivia like launches being built in 1916 (and it was possibly considered vaguely unpatriotic anyway). He kept her for an enormous period, finally selling her in the early 1960s. He died in 1965.

   I can find no certain reference to her builder (without a time machine). However a subsequent owner told me she was built by Dick Lang in St Mary’s Bay which figures because Lloyd lived in Ring Terrace only metres from Lang’s shed. However, she did have a Scripps 2 cylinder engine, for which Lanes were the agents, until 1930, when it was replaced with a 25hp Canadian-built St. Lawrence which engines were briefly popular at the time because of the lower duty attracted by “Empire Preference” tariffs, just as most of our Ford V8s were built in Toronto. So maybe she was Lanes. Lanes/Laing/Lang often get mixed up in these mythological whakapapa for launches.

   There are some 1930s race entries in the name of Sam Leyland, the timber mogul. It’s clear that Leyland and Lloyd were buddies and neighbours and that Leyland must have been between launches (he changed them like the wind, often renaming them, bless his cotton socks)
   So I can’t convincingly shoot down the “Lanes” but I can shoot down the “1922”.

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