Lady Joyce (Lady Jane)
photos & details ex Ray Morey

Now last week I did a post on Lady Jane, hauled out at Gulf Harbour, via ww we discovered that Lady Jane was originally named Lady Joyce. Ray sent in a wonderful photo of her being transported on launch day.
As Lady Jane she has been significantly altered (photo below). Ray sent me the two photos above that show Lady Joyce on a picnic cruise, the location is up the Whangamarino river at the junction with the Maramarua river. The people are, from stern – Willy’s sister Mrs. Thelma Nolan, Willie himself, wife Jessie in cabin door, the head behind belongs to Ted Stedger, farm manager, one of the ‘girls’ in the wheelhouse/saloon and on the bow is Barry Logan and his wife-to-be.

Ray asked the question as to how could anyone destroy those beautiful sweeping curves and plant ugly boxes atop that hull. In retrospect ww would have to agree with him, but boats are like houses, they get modified primarily for two reasons (1) to suit the current owners requirements (2) to remain stylish or current i.e. matching the latest design trends. There is no doubt that as launched she was a very smart motorboat & today I’m sure she is a very practical wooden boat, the dilemma people face is ‘do I want a classic wooden boat or an well maintained old wooden boat – from ww’s viewpoint its fantastic that so many people are now restoring some of our old wooden boat fleet back to classic looks.
But as they say – beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, so as long as people are looking after these old girls, ww is happy. One day they might closer match their former beauty.

Now I could have added these photos to the existing ww post but they are just to good to be ‘add-ons’, they show off the beautiful lines of the vessel & lifestyle her owner enjoyed.

Click link to view & read the first ww post on the ‘two’ Lady J’s

Lady Jane (Lady Joyce)

Note: we have already learned that the owner of Lady Jane is considering reverting back to the Lady Joyce name & overtime undertaking some sympathetic restorations 🙂

Update from Ray
Ray sent in the photo below (ex Brian Worthington) that shows Willy’s two eldest daughters, Margaret  and Betty with the tender he built for Lady Joyce. These exquisite little dinghys were built using only two shadow molds. He would knock up one boat inside of a week. It is not in the above cruise photos because Thelma’s husband Thomas would have been in it with the camera.

Recent Photos – Oct2019