1926
SHOWBOAT
photo ex Gillian Williamson
Today’s post is of the launch Showboat & is from 1926 when she was owned by Gillian’s father Tom Hollows who was 18 at the time. Must have been something back then for a teenager to own his own motor boat.
What more details can we uncover on her?
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PS Tom Hollows was racing centreboarders in Whangarei right up to 1926. I take it that this pic is in Whangarei?
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Edna Ferber’s novel “Showboat” came out in 1926 and was a blockbuster and later a stage play and film. No doubt Tom Hollows renamed this little launch SHOWBOAT after the novel which told the story of COTTON BLOSSOM, a floating Mississippi theatre. In 1935 the American 4 masted schooner COLUMBIA, used as a coal hulk on the Waitemata, was converted to a floating cabaret called SHOWBOAT, sabotaged, and eventually burnt at Rangitoto in 1938.
I don’t think Tom Hollows’ launch carried the name SHOWBOAT for long.
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