Renuhou

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RENUHOU details ex Ken Ricketts, John O’Meara Jnr., John Bennett, Bob Roach & Dave Stephens. edited by Alan H Now this is a great tale, its believed that she was built c.1904 as a single skin double-ender, with single mast. In the b/w photo above, Renuhou was moored in Mansion House Bay, Kawau Island. Now like so many of these old girls there are big holes in her past but this old girl has lived an ‘interesting’ life. She had been in Tauranga & was sailed by her owner, Pat O’Malley, back to Auckland in the early 1970s, who refurbished her & later sold her to John O’Meara. We understand that O’Mera owned her approx. 43 years ago  (from the mid 1970’s). When he bought her she had a 40hp Ford diesel & bilge keels. She also had had a fire aboard & was badly burnt prior to O’Meara owning her. O’Meara sold her to a Michael Kirkwood, who had her moored in Okahu Bay, for quite some time. During his ownership Kirkwood fitted a permanent wheel house hatch and another mast, to her cabin top. This new aluminum mast was fitted along with a replacement for the original by a John Bennett (secretary treasurer of the PYBC). O’Meara later bought her back off Kirkwood while she was moored in the Tamaki river for 8 > 10years. O’Meara sold her to an out-of-town owner who lived in the Raglan area. They did not look after her & during his ownership she was hauled out on the Panmure Yacht Club  hardstand and stayed there for quite some time. John Bennett has advised that she was more or less abandoned & as the hard stand fees were not paid she was eventually sold by the P.Y.B.C. (under the terms of their haulage agreements, to defray costs). The club sold her to Dave Stephens on 2.2.2011. Now this is where the story of Renuhou makes a big U-turn. Ken Rickets had heard that she might now be a child’s plaything in a kindergarten, so Ken did a bit of detective work & jackpot – turns out Dave Stephens had transported her (permanently) to his lifestyle property at Albany & spent the last 4+ years restoring, refurbishing & altering her to suit his needs i.e. a permanent sleep-out / accommodation that is part of his lifestyle property that features all sorts of artifacts & bits & pieces. Whilst the Ford diesel engine has been removed & sold, the well made bronze strut, shoe, rudder, & stainless steel shaft, are all intact. Whilst she is presently not seaworthy it would only require a small amount of time & money to do the essentials to get her back in the water. The photos below show Renuhou during her relocation / restoration – its a better option than what Colin Pawson calls a Beehive* restoration *for the overseas readers Beehive is a brand of matches/fire lighters 😦

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15 thoughts on “Renuhou”

  1. My father ‘Bob’ Haine operated her out of Tauranga for many years big game fishing and may have been the next owner after the sinking

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  2. My father ‘Bob’ Haine operated this for big game fishing out of Tauranga and may have been the next owner after the sinking

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  3. Pingback: What Became Of Raruhoa RENUHOU | waitematawoodys.com #1 for classic wooden boat stories, info, advice & news – updated daily

  4. Someone has posted a pic of two launches at White Island, presumably to infer that the right hand one was RENAHOU. In fact the two launches are UENUKU (T. Le Huquet 1912) left and MATAREKA II (Logan Bros 1907) which did a Bay of Plenty cruise together at Christmas 1913 when Henry Winkelmann took this image. That was many years before RENAHOU got to the Bay of Plenty. MATAREKA II was and is a much more substantial craft than RENAHOU.
    Robin Elliott and I used this particular image in our book “Vintage NZ Launches” using Winkelmanns glass plates, so I can vouch for the veracity of this statement.

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  6. My Granddad was John O’Meara Snr, and we spent many a summer on this beautiful old lady as she ‘rolled’ around the bays.
    I remember that he sold her and bought a boat called ‘Deronda’ (large, fast and with a flying deck). But after awhile he sold Deronda to buy Renuhou back. He definitely loved this boat and spent a lot of time keeping her in amazing condition. He owned her, the second time, when my daughter was born in 1989 because we have photo’s of her at 3 months old on Renuhou and again when she was a year old (not sure what year he bought her back). And then he sold her again around her 5th birthday, so 1994 or so.
    Last time I was in NZ, he still had a photo of Renuhou hanging in his lounge room.
    Renuhou was his pride and he treated her as such.

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  7. I was the main contractor on this boat when she was on the hard stand at Panmure. The owners at the time had run out of cash for the rebuild. Most of the ribs needed to be replaced as they were all soft. Some had been done before. But for the most part all the top sides were shot. I see the new pictures of her as a sleep out. This may last for a few years but the boat is unsound and will never float again. It looks like it has mostly been bogged up as the stem was rotten. Along with most of the boat. NEW owner..Keep your eye on it as your kids will fall threw the floor at some point.

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  8. So we can now see with these images put up – she has had three different cabin configurations over the years plus the raised deck. It seemed as nothing in the early days to whip a boat back into a yard and have the boat builders readily make dramatic changes. The yards must have been vibrant places of work and activity.
    Pa,

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  10. RENUHOU UPDATE;(edited by Alan H) As a result of a discussion with John Bennett who has known RENUHOU for many years and the receipt of copies of newspaper articles, thanks to the present owner Dave Stephens, I can update as below.
    RENUHOU; was bought by Aucklander Pat O’Malley in Tauranga, & sailed back to Auckland in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Refurbed by O’Malley and later sold to O’Meara Snr. about 44 years ago. O’Meara sold her to Eric Pedersen of Mt Wellington in c1982. Pedersen had John Bennett fit 2 aluminum masts, replacing her single wooden mast. He later sold her to back to O’Meara in the late 1980s who sold her to Michael Kirkwood in the early 1990s, who sold her to an out of town owner post 2000. In 2011 she passed to Dave Stephens via P.Y.B.C. via a forced sale.

    We now also know that she was owned by Forbes Finlay Gilmour in Sept 1928, when she was the subject of thieves steeling off her (ref Auck Star Volume LIX Issue 211 6th Sept 1928 page 9

    She also sunk alongside the Tauranga Yacht Club’s clubhouse on 26th August 1940 when she belonged to a Mr J Barney — _ Ref Bay Of Plenty Beacon Volume 3 issue 204 on 26.8.1940 page 1.

    Also a world record catch for a Mako shark was recorded for her caught by Leading Aircraftman D Ross of Hamilton when RENUHOU was owned By Mr J Barney & was recorded in the Auck. Star Volume LXXIV Issue 62 of 15th March 1943 during the ownership of Mr J Barney – so Mr Barney owned her at least between the period of 1940 to 1943.

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  11. PPS as RENUHAU (everyone’s always had trouble with that name) in early 1930 J. Woodham of Auckland bought her and fitted her with a new 25-35hp Canadian-built St. Lawrence marine engine.

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  12. That sounds a bit like HAZEL, one of the many of that name, allegedly built by T.M. Lane & Sons c1910.

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  13. At first glance I thought she was a boat I grew up passing at Waipapa Landing in kerikeri, which was similar length, double ended sedan with very raised foredeck. Painted in parts blue and purple iirc

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  14. PS Brian Worthington’s cracking site has a great mid 1930’s pic of RENUHOU.

    Looking at that pic, I wonder if she wasn’t in fact built with that raised foredeck….and maybe by Harvey & Lang, or by Tyler & Harvey before that. That would put her at around 1908 at the earliest. Interestingly, that would make her a stablemate of VIRGINIA, also built by Tyler & Harvey around that time and which was also used for game fishing from Tauranga in the 1930s (and which had her foredeck raised by Charlie Millett, to add confusion).

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  15. Haven’t we been here before? I advised RENUHOU’s present general whereabouts and function on this site a while back but didn’t disclose the precise details to preserve the owner’s privacy. I had been in correspondence with her owner.
    RENUHOU is certainly pretty old but I can’t be certain of her builder except to say that it would have been one of the better Auckland builders of the 1904-06 period. I don’t think she was launched as RENUHOU but got that name around 1914. The raised foredeck is certainly not original and I am pretty sure it was added by Charlie Millett in Tauranga during the 1930s when she was gamefishing in the Bay of Plenty.
    She was in Auckland in July 1914 (as RENAHOU) when she had a complete overhaul at Harvey & Lang. She was still in Auckland in 1928, owned by Forbes Finlay Gilmour. In 1930 she was hauled out at Devonport near the yacht club. In 1935 she was sold to R.H. Patterson of Tauranga and used by Curly Steedman amongst others as a gamefishing hire boat. Charlie Millett converted a lot of early boats to a raised foredeck during this period to fit them better for the conditions off Mayor Island. By 1940 she was owned by J. Barney of Tauranga and in March 1943 caught what was then the world record mako shark (1000lbs).
    She came back to Auckland subsequently as related above.

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