1958

Is this the biggest woody to beach at Tram Car Bay?

Pam at the Whangateau Traditional Boat Yard sent ww this very cool photo. I could be a prat & ask you all to guess how it got there, but not today and I promise no more things with wings for a while 🙂

Seems Claude Greenwood, father of Howard, in 1958 towed the Catalina from the Waitemata Harbour, up the coast and into the Whangateau Harbour and beached it in Tram Car Bay just meters away from Claudes boat shed. Here the wings were removed and then it was taken by road to Wellsford to be parked on Jack Sellar’s, the owner, property. Jack a local garage proprietor paid 250 pounds for the flying boat and intended to convert it to a 20 berth houseboat. This did not proceed and the Catalina sat alongside his house (see photo below) for some years until scraped in the mid 1960’s.

If anyone is able to supply more details or photos of the Catalina being towed from the Waitemata Harbour up the coast email them to waitematawoodys@gmail.com as Pam would like to update her records.

You can read more (+photos) about the Catalina & what became of her at the link below to a great blog.
http://yardyyardyyardy.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/our-last-catalina.html

Mid 1960’s