LANAI
photos & details from trademe
LANAI was built by Lanes for Frank Pidgeon of the Ace Tyre Company in 1949. Frank was shifted from Christchurch to run their Auckland operation in the late 1920s and had a succession of great launches. Frank owned her until 1953 when Vic Bedford bought her. In 1965 R E Thomas and J S Menzies owned her. She was first registered with the APYMBA with a single 106hp Graymarine and with dimensions 32’6″x 31’6″x10’6″x2’9″.
She originally had 2 x 6 cyl. Graymarine petrol engines, but is now re-powered with 2 x 4 cyl. Leyland diesels.
She is presently berthed in Tauranga, owned by a Mr Neil, previous owners include Owen Johnson, who had her for many years & kept her at Coromandel & sometimes at Ngatea, where he was a panel beater. Owen Johnson sold her to Rotorua owner, who sold her to Mr Neil.
In her original form, there was no fly bridge & the coamings were a fairly light coloured varnish. Another great example of the Lane craftsmanship
12-09-2016 – Updated photos
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Hi we bought Lanai over a year ago and she now resides at Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands and used regularly with my young family
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I am relieved you are not advocating inaccuracy. It certainly did appear that way. Alan has made the point well; the blog is almost too popular and allows all sorts of material to arrive, purporting loftily to be accurate, when in fact it is often the product of selective memory, assumption, unsupported anecdote and wild guesswork dolled up in gush.
I shall continue, unrepentant, to “deride, criticise and scorn” until some standards of verisimilitude are achieved.
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One of the few downsides of the success (400,000+ views) of the waitematawoodys blog is that the site & its content rate / score very high with the google search engine – in fact almost instantaneously. What this means is that the posted content (in the cyber world) becomes ‘fact’ instantly. Google is clever but not clever enough to be able to determine fact from fallacy, at not least in the wooden boating world 🙂
I should point out that people can not post content directly onto the ww blog, they submit it & it is posted at the discretion & timing of the myself, in some cases it is edited, sometimes savagely 🙂 This is one of the success factors with ww, means posts do not get hijacked. What I try to do is deliver a mix of editorial content that appeals to the wide base of ww viewers. Some submissions are just too niche & some are just people as they say in the publishing game – ‘interviewing their own typewriter’.
At the end of the day it tends to work out & I’m helped by the fact that the back end of the ww blog is pretty wow so I can see what content appeals & what doesn’t.
The best posts are those that ‘self populate’ e.g. someone has a photo & a few facts & then other ww viewers chip in(Comments Section) & then the past starts to unfold with more & more input from others.
Speculation is fine but it needs to be identified as such so others do not go off in the wrong direction.
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I’m certainly not advocating inaccuracy, but merely a greater acceptance of the journey to the truth as being part of the adventure. That said, it is fair enough to expect the more experienced members of WW to take reasonable care with accuracy and sourcing, but perhaps admonitions to hold that line should not be played out in public where newer members, with limited understanding of the background, may perceive same to be more general than intended.
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I concur absolutely with you Garth — I personally regard all input by all parties as intensely interesting & enjoyable & believe it should be actively encouraged, & not be the subject of derision, criticism, or scorn, irrespective of whether or not it eventually proves to be fact or just interesting, entertaining, or otherwise, & I think all people who believe they can make a contribution of any type should be actively encouraged to do so, from every perspective. — That in itself may well help to establish the ultimate facts — perhaps TAUFALE could be an example where many of us have learned, by input from a number of others — KEN R
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I agree completely that the odd blunder in the interests of establishing the truth about a particular launch is totally forgivable and understandable, but the constant stream of subjective misinformation is bringing discredit to the blog. You are probably unaware of the underlying problem here. The body of knowledge of our classic yachts is immense, that of our classic launches is a web of myth and bs. Many of us had hoped that WW would be the tool for change.
Jolly hockey sticks is all very well, but any opportunity lost to blow the myths away and make the history of our launches credible and respectable can only be to the benefit of all.
I guarantee that he truth is far more interesting in most cases than the tall stories.
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I find myself respectfully disagreeing. Clearly this site is a wonderful and valuable record that will continue to grow and should, I agree, be kept accurate to the greatest extent. However, one wonders if the deeper purpose is in fact to develop a community whose passion for these wonderful vessels ultimately extends to ensuring their physical preservation? In fact, we have seen this role perfectly demonstrated by the recent salvation from the chainsaw of NANA. With that in mind this community should be as broad and inclusive as possible and not tend towards purity too greatly. I don’t think the site will be the richer if people feel apprehensive about posting something when they are not (and in many cases cannot) be sure of their facts. The world of nautical tales is packed to the gunwales of bluff, blarney & blather, but this surely is one of the things that makes it so interesting to so very many. In my own case I grew up boating on the Hauraki gulf, but have not lived in New Zealand since leaving University and as such am disconnected from relevant resources. I am aware of many boats I knew as a kid that aren’t on here, but possibly should be. Many of their then owners are deceased, or with whom I have lost contact. In these cases all I have is anecdote and limited time for research. Should I and those like me not then post photos and anecdote about these vessels for fear of opprobrium, especially if such criticism may tend towards the ad hominem as recently seen? I don’t believe that WW will be as inclusive and broad as desirable if that proves to be the case and, in extremis, this may perhaps result in more woodies being lost to us forever through a tendency towards elitism on this site. In the recent posting of LANAI I ask myself if, even accounting for the errors, the value of WW has been added to and I come down on the side of “yes”. I can well understand the frustration when the best resourced and most knowledgeable amongst us, who devote so much valuable time to WW, are confronted with schoolboy errors, but I would ask for a general spirit of forbearance to be applied in the interests of the greater good.
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There’s a lot of anecdote floating around. Most of it is wrong for a number of different reasons. If you are going have the slightest credence on this blog, Ken, get a cross check on your “information” from an authoritative contemporary source, otherwise it is misinformation, as here. It was indeed highly naive to blunder into print based on such a dodgy source. Dodgy makes dodgy, and we just don’t need it on WW as the standards have become too high to put up with dodgy any more. Take a look at the NANA material, No dodgy anecdote there.
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I have proved that even the most trusted sources of info on boats can be wrong. My Grandmother was a friend of Victor Bedford, through one of her friends & neighbours. She was a very gracious genteel English lady, with the utmost of integrity, & she told me categorically, in my youth, that V.B. had had LANAI built by Lane Motor Boat, & whilst there is no doubt that her “history” of LANAI was erroneous, equally she had conceived it to be absolute fact, with sincerity & honesty. As a result of this background I also accepted it, & all my life, until now, I naturally believed this to be LANAI’S “real history.” — Proves how easy it is, with the best of intentions, to be naïvely wrong. — KEN RICKETTS
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Thanks for the correction Harold – I have updated the main post.There was some editing done prior to posting 😉
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You are right; 51 Temple St., Meadowbank.
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Understood, just the same I can detect Frank Pidgeon (a rattling good bloke) snorting in derision from the grave over the rest of that malarkey. Isn’t there some way of filtering out crap like that before it gets on the site and gets some (temporary) degree of authority? At least we didn’t get Ken’s usual tedious homilies on painted coamings this time (or did we?).
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Harold
The length I understand came from a brokers trademe listing so I would not bet my life savings on that being correct 🙂
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The Thomas’ lived in Meadowbank, he was an accountant I gather. The video I posted of her will be mid 60’s
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Some corrections, again in the interests of neutralising myth and shut-eyed anecdote.
LANAI was built by Lanes for Frank Pidgeon of the Ace Tyre Company in 1949. Frank was shifted from Christchurch to run their Auckland operation in the late 1920s and had a succession of great launches. Frank owned her until 1953 when Vic Bedford bought her. In 1965 R E Thomas and J S Menzies owned her. She was first registered with the APYMBA with a single 106hp Graymarine and with dimensions 32’6″x 31’6″x10’6″x2’9″. If she’s now 36′ loa, she’s been lengthened. There is no mention of her being designed by McInnis which would normally be the case.
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Lanai is 32ft. She was advertised in the early 90’s as being designed by Walter J. McInnis, of U.S design firm Eldredge-McInnis Inc. This being the case, she is quite possibly the sistership (different builder) to Tainui, which I used to own and is featured elsewhere on WW. I bought a copy of the building plans which are still available in the US through the Wooden Boat Store.
I saw Lanai out of the water some years ago and the hulls do appear to be very similar.
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Cruised with Pacific, I’d have to ask my grandmother whose she was. I feel the stripe was dark green in later photos we have of her.
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