STONE PONY
Over the xmas / ny period I dropped the anchor in Matiatia Bay, Waiheke Island for a few hours & spotted the Stone Pony getting some TLC. Its an usual name so there must be a good story there. I was impressed to see the young lady painting at anchor between ferry washes 🙂 I did point this out to the wife & suggest she could get a few tips from her, fyi its hard to duck a backhand on a launch the size of Raindance 🙂
Anyone know anymore about the boat & owner?
Update – I have been told that one of the two tools below would be redundant during the construction of this boat – the other would get a lot of use 😉
Update – A personal tale on ferro built vessels from Michael O’Dwyer
There are are a few subjects that I refuse to argue about(religion,politics,who should be in the All Blacks) because the opinions go round and round and depending on the ignorance or superior subject knowledge of the various protagonists combining that with different levels of blood pressure and room temperature the outcome can be rather quixotic.Plus no one really wins the argument anyway.
Ferro cement boats is a subject I would add to that list. Forums on the subject are filled with a plethora of opinions on the pros and cons of this now dated construction method.
I personally would not buy a ferro boat because my passion is wood but if my family circumstances had been different I would have kept the Hartley Tahitian (Quis Contra*) my father (Michael) meticulously built over a period of 37 years in our backyard.The boat was sold last year to one of the Auckland Harbour Pilots who plans to live aboard and eventually sail back to England.
If looked after and maintained this boat will last a very long time.It will always be original, no new planks,fastenings,caulking and putty there.In my adult years I helped fit the boat out to the point that no ferro can be viewed inside.People ask what it is constructed from because the hull finish is the result of my then 70 year old dad’s six month long fairing programme.
My sentimental opinion maybe somewhat biased but under some of these stoney boats lies a real gem.
Duetto built by Vince Hooker (not Bill) here in Napier is a prime example.
p.s. the cast iron heater in the saloon was the type used in the old railway workman’s cottages.The doors,roll top desk,saloon table leg and most of the trim is heart Rimu.The saloon table top was made from an old Tawa bookcase.There are 54 wire splices in the rigging, all worm,parceled and served.Just about everything you see in the above photos bar the heater,clock,oil lamp and seabird dinghy was constructed in dads garage.It’s a credit to him.
- “quis contra” is Latin meaning “who is against us? It comes from Dius pro quis contra which means “If God is for us,who is against us?”
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APYMBA records show TUSKER (maybe not this one) being owned and built in Auckland in 1963 by D. Cooper, dimensions 28’x26’x9’6″x3′ and fitted with a 30hp BMC diesel. No sign of a designer though; that entry empty so one could assume D. Cooper did the design.
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Brian’s site has a ‘Tusker’ (identical, presume same boat) stating Brin Wilson as I suggested…
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Yes a boatbuilder with a good eye put that top on her
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No sign of it in Bill’s list of designs, but if John Gladden had anything to do with it, it’ll be good, whatever material it’s made from.
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Nathan is right. These hulls were advertised in 1960’s Sea Spray magazines as built by Ferrocraft with the upperworks and interiors finished off by John Gladden. Ferrocraft also built a few Stewart Matangi hulls. I have seen these ferro launches advertised for sale previously as Couldrey designs, which is possible but not confirmed.
The cockpit dodger is an add-on, but otherwise this one appears quite original. Not sure about the dry stack though!
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Haha yes it’s quite a stack and I am not a dry exhaust fan, but compared to some of the bloody ugly cabin shapes seen on WW, that cabin is up there with the nicest of the small sedan Brin Wilson ish boats.
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Um, what about that exhaust, Nathan?
I suspect you’re winding us up.
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Is no one else capabe of seeing the very well balanced lines of Stone Pony? Unfair hull aside she has style.
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The coamings are made of kwila,a robust timber thank goodness.A long keeled 20 ton boat,with a certain amount of windage,while going astern, initially has a mind of it’s own before the rudder has any say in the matter.Even allowing for such,on the odd occassion the coaming acquainted itself with the mooring pile,well let’s just say the tanalised pine was no match.
When my father was fitting the coamings he raised each end above the designed sheer to give it a more gracious line.The Hartleys had a slight wedge shape appearance(high bow,low stern)in the water.
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Nice coamings, they look Brin Wilson
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I recall my father telling us how the boats at Morley Sutherlands, where he worked for some time, were put to the test by suspending the hulls from a great height with crane and then dropped to see how structurally strong they were. Some twenty years later George and I saw one of those hulls in the back of an industrial site in Warkworth still in reasonable form. Would have made a novel swimming pool.
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Some of the Hartley Tahitians weren’t quite so well constructed. A chap I knew was entering Port Moresby reef entrance under power in his when a trailing rope caught around his prop. The prop jammed solid but the Ford diesel commenced rotating and flailed about sufficiently to do so much damage and be so distracting that the yacht went up on the reef.
My friend and his crew left her there.
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Just to add,the cast iron heater in the saloon was the type used in the old railway workman’s cottages.The doors,roll top desk,saloon table leg and most of the trim is heart Rimu.The saloon table top was made from an old Tawa bookcase.There are 54 wire splices in the rigging, all worm,parceled and served.Just about everything you see in the above photos bar the heater,clock,oil lamp and seabird dinghy was constructed in dads garage.It’s a credit to him.
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There are are a few subjects that I refuse to argue about(religion,politics,who should be in the AllBlacks) because the opinions go round and round and depending on the ignorance or superior subject knowledge of the various protagonists combining that with different levels of blood pressure and room temperature the outcome can be rather quixotic.Plus no one really wins the argument anyway.
Ferro cement boats is a subject I would add to that list.Forums on the subject are filled with a plethora of opinions on the pros and cons of this now dated construction method.
I personally would not buy a ferro boat because my passion is wood but if my family circumstances had been different I would have kept the Hartley Tahitian my father meticulously built over a period of 37 years in our backyard.The boat was sold last year to one of the Auckland Harbour Pilots who plans to live aboard and eventually sail back to England.
If looked after and maintained this boat will last a very long time.It will always be original, no new planks,fastenings,caulking and putty there.In my adult years I helped fit the boat out to the point that no ferro can be viewed inside.People ask what it is constructed from because the hull finish is the result of my then 70 year old dad’s six month long fairing programme.
My sentimental opinion maybe somewhat biased but under some of these stoney boats lies a real gem.
Duetto built by Vince Hooker (not Bill) here in Napier is a prime example.
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HOW MEEANNN!!!
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Another term frequently used was “septic tank”.
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Yep, definitely a “Rocky Horror”, albeit not one of the worst examples.
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Photos added 🙂
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WaitemataFerros doesn’t have the same ring to it 😉
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One would imagine that name to be on a concrete Hartley. Or Ferro as they liked to be called in the seventies–or GRP as they liked to be called in the 90’s (gravel rocks and pebbles) 🙂
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The Stone Poneys were an LA folk-rock trio formed around 1966. Linda Ronstadt was harmony vocalist.
Their best known recording was Distant Drum in 1967, which broke Ronstadt as a singer and led to her solo career.
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Alllaaan ????
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