Mosquito Craft Dinghy

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Mosquito Craft Dinghy
details ex Geoff Brebner

OK woodys, who has one of these under the house?
Geoff found the old advertisement below & wondered how many of us remember the little 9ft Mosquito Craft moulded ply dinghy popular as a tender from the late ’40’s through to the mid ’60s. Geoff’s late brother-in-law Hector George was sent by his father Geoff to Davison’s in Vancouver to learn the method of of pressure-moulding with veneer and marine glue. This was in about 1948.The same technique was used during WW2 with the Mosquito bomber, hence the name.

The George family started building them at their home at Tamaki Drive Kohimarama before moving to a factory at Ellerslie. The design of the 9 footer was the prize winner of a RNZYS competition for a yacht tender “way back when”. Geoff was led to believe Bill Couldrey was the winning designer, but is prepared to be corrected on that. Incidently, the George and Couldrey families were related by marriage.

The boats were laminated up over a very heavy solid wooden mould out of four layers of 1/16th veneer, with the apron and kelson integral, then put in a large rubber bag which was pulled down to 30 inches of vacuum until the Aerodux glue cured. Seats, gunwhales and tuck were fitted to the finished shell. Later on a 12 ft and a 10’6″ model were also built.They were produced up until 1965 when the cheaper glass-fibre boats found favour.
Geoff can’t recall the figure, but over 900 of the 9 footers were built. Geoff worked there for eleven years & his sister sister’s family still own the first and the last of the 9ft line.
Geoff thinks the 2nd one built was the tender on Harold George’s VICTORY A8.

There must be a few out there tucked away at the back of the shed.

Harold Kidd Input

The Mosquito dinghies were built in quite a different manner from the “cold-moulded” veneer dinghies. As Geoff describes above the Mosquitos were much more elaborately manufactured than the Lidgard type. There were a lot of the latter built. All that was needed was a good sturdy mould, a supply of straight-grained veneer (often pinus radiata), some Aerodux resorcinol raspberry jam adhesive and a staple gun.
Jack Logan produced heaps of them and many backyard builders whacked them out. I used to help my mate Barry Brickell’s father, Maurice, build them at Tui Street Devonport and went on to use the same technology with John Chapple to build several racing 12 footers and that became almost the standard construction technique for one-off and volume centreboarders, especially Des Townson’s famous Zephyrs and Mistrals.
But the Mosquito craft were the pioneers and arguably the best.
The fuselage of the de Havilland Mosquito (DH98) was originally built of a birch/balsa sandwich using CASEIN glue which was all they had when it was designed in 1938. It caused problems in hot humid conditions by unpeeling. However de Havilland developed urea formaldehyde glues, later available commercially as Aerolite, which aced that issue. The Mosquito wasn’t the first plane to use that construction. I used to fly and part-own a de Havilland Moth Minor (DH94) ZK AKM, which was cold-moulded with casein. She’s still flying happily with no fuselage issues after 77 years.

21/02/2015 Photo ex Darren Arthur


Darren commented that the oil on the transom was the result of running a “Seamaster 400”. A rather odd ball outboard that used an air cooled Tecumseh lawnmower engine. Noisy, heavy, smelly and leaky were some of the more polite adjectives Darren recalls his father using to describe it 🙂

24/02/2015 – story & photos from Roger Lacey

My father bought a 12′ Mosquito craft in about 1969. It was a couple of years old and had a 7.5hp Archimedes Electrolux motor that used to eat spark plugs for breakfast. We used it for fishing in the Waitemata and also at Lake Rotoiti where I learned to row. When my parents bought a bach in Turangi we moved the boat down there but not before sanding back the outside and giving it a coat of epoxy resin, which in hindsight probably saved it. The boat caught many times its weight in trout and made both an ideal fly fishing platform and a stealthy trolling vessel over the shallow weed beds near Tokkanu and at the other smaller lakes nearby. The unreliable Electrolux was replaced by an infernal 2.5hp air-cooled Tas outboard which provided just enough power to motor up the lower reaches of the Tongariro River but was useless for trolling so we rowed it most of the time. In the late ’90s my dad sold the boat with the bach without consulting me so I tracked down the new owner and bought it off him, took it home and restored it. As I didn’t have room for yet another boat I ended up selling it to a friend who has it still. He recently found some rot in it, got it professionally repaired and fitted an new foredeck. It is currently awaiting paint.

 

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20 thoughts on “Mosquito Craft Dinghy”

  1. Don Mac, i also frequently boated Taupo in a 14 Lidgard, lovely boat. Please , help, would like to purchase one of the two , stored, you know of?
    jelliot.mojos@gmail.com

    Good luck with that John, this story was 8+ years ago……….. Alan H

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  2. Hi I have a 12ft mosquito craft in my workshop in good condition it has a 2.5hp seagull which goes well on a glav trailer could be looking to sell her what price should I ask? Thanks shane

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  3. I have a 12′ version my father bought in about 1964. It was not new then but in good order. I don’t recall it had any varnish work.I spent may happy hours in it over the years until the beach house it was stored at was sold. It has been in my garage, stored since 1980 and now my son is intent on refurbing the old girl and a Century 40 Seagull to complete the nostalgia package. We plan to do the Seagull run on the Waikato river on Easter 2017.

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  5. Great to find some info and fellow fans of these dinghies.

    I have a 12′ Mosquito, bought from friends in Raglan 30 years ago. I’ve used it to go from home here at the Mount to the great surf of Matakana Island. When I bought it I stripped the hideous paint off and returned it to original white hull/midwatch blue lower interior/varnished thwarts and trim. Thumping into chop with a 10hp Merc on the back eventually took toll on the hull so about 15 years ago I had a boatbuilder fibreglass the exterior, and with the interior of the hull showing more weak spots last year, a friend and I glassed the interior floor area with heavy double-bias glass. It’s still awaiting reinstatement/replacement of the 6 mahogany battens on the interior floor and the 6 half-round rubbing strakes on the hull bottom.

    It’s in the garage piled high with surfboards and gear but when I find the time to finish the job I’ll post some photos. It has a deeper kauri gunwale strip than Roger Lacey’s boat, and the mahogany transom is varnished, which is the original finish found under the paint II stripped off after buying it.

    I have seen two 9′ Mozzies but not a 12′ version.

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  6. Havent seen a 9′ for years, as I recall a lot of the A and K class used to cruise with them- some had sailing rigs, New Years Day regatta at Bon Accord ideal.

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  8. My father bought a 12′ Mosquito craft in about 1969. It was a couple of years old and had a 7.5hp Archimedes Electrolux motor that used to eat spark plugs for breakfast. We used it for fishing in the Waitemata and also at Lake Rotoiti where I learned to row. When my parents bought a bach in Turangi we moved the boat down there but not before sanding back the outside and giving it a coat of epoxy resin, which in hindsight probably saved it. The boat caught many times its weight in trout and made both an ideal fly fishing platform and a stealthy trolling vessel over the shallow weed beds near Tokkanu and at the other smaller lakes nearby. The unreliable Electrolux was replaced by an infernal 2.5hp air-cooled Tas outboard which provided just enough power to motor up the lower reaches of the Tongariro River but was useless for trolling so we rowed it most of the time. In the late ’90s my dad sold the boat with the bach without consulting me so I tracked down the new owner and bought it off him, took it home and restored it. As I didn’t have room for yet another boat I ended up selling it to a friend who has it still. He recently found some rot in it, got it professionally repaired and fitted an new foredeck. It is currently awaiting paint.

    Like

  14. We passed one on the road today.
    Corner Reyburn and Herekino St Whangarei. Someone had planted the little darling in the round-about. It was commingling with the shell pebbles and tussock there.
    WHY would they that !!????

    Great post!!! Thanks guys. 🙂

    Like

  15. I’ve got an old photo of a certain young bloke learning to row in what I recall was a mosquito dinghy – I’m picking a 12′ model. Not sure
    1) How to post a photo
    2) if anyone would be interested…
    🙂

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  16. A fantastic dinghy, we had two of them. I learnt to row on lake Taupo in one during the early 60’s and dad used one to ferry customers out to the various boats he had on his books in Westhaven’s pre marina day’s. Very stable and able to carry a heavy load. At one stage we had a mast and sail on one which I soon discarded in favour of a 2hp Evinrude.

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  17. Col Dennes told me that he had the first cold moulded dinghy (not sure what sort) which he had something to do with the introduction of. It was a work of art, which he donated to the Maritime Museum but has not heard about since, I wonder if it is on display or not.

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  18. The Mosquito dinghies were built in quite a different manner from the “cold-moulded” veneer dinghies. As Geoff describes above the Mosquitos were much more elaborately manufactured than the Lidgard type. There were a lot of the latter built. All that was needed was a good sturdy mould, a supply of straight-grained veneer (often pinus radiata), some Aerodux resorcinol raspberry jam adhesive and a staple gun.
    Jack Logan produced heaps of them and many backyard builders whacked them out. I used to help my mate Barry Brickell’s father, Maurice, build them at Tui Street Devonport and went on to use the same technology with John Chapple to build several racing 12 footers and that became almost the standard construction technique for one-off and volume centreboarders, especially Des Townson’s famous Zephyrs and Mistrals.
    But the Mosquito craft were the pioneers and arguably the best.
    The fuselage of the de Havilland Mosquito (DH98) was originally built of a birch/balsa sandwich using CASEIN glue which was all they had when it was designed in 1938. It caused problems in hot humid conditions by unpeeling. However de Havilland developed urea formaldehyde glues, later available commercially as Aerolite, which aced that issue. The Mosquito wasn’t the first plane to use that construction. I used to fly and part-own a de Havilland Moth Minor (DH94) ZK AKM, which was cold-moulded with casein. She’s still flying happily with no fuselage issues after 77 years.

    Like

  19. At Lake Taupo we had a ‘Lidgard” cold moulded 12 footer. Ours was wrecked in a storm, but a neighbour to our bach still has one in his shed and there is another shed stored14 foot cold moulded “Lidgard” just down the road. I know where there are two left!
    Great boats, light, easy to clean and they were very stable for trout fishing. We always knew them as Lidgard’s not mosquito craft…..so this may be a family mistake or did Lidgard’s build them to.

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  20. We have a 12′ version. Bought it for $150 as a temporary boat for my son five years ago. What a great dinghy! Stable, sea kindly, and comfortable.

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