WANDERER
Some times classic wooden boat owners get a little precious with their boats i.e. no fishing (too messy & smelly) but the photos above of the the launch Wanderer clearly show that to the original owners they were just a means to the real challenge – catching big game fish.
We have seen lots of photos of 40’+ launches hauling in large catches but Wanderer II would have to take the prize for small boat, biggest fish 😉
I understand that Wanderer these days resides on A Pier at Milford Marina, needing some TLC but still a float. Any of the woodys able to enlighten us on her life post the above photos from the Auckland Museum’s Tudor Collins collection?
These days I would be happy to catch what they have hanging off the stern as berley 🙂
Photos below of Wanderer 2015 at Milford Marina ex Ken Ricketts
Input from Russell Ward
How lovely to see her as she was originally. Yep. A real honey. The modern alterations are a bit of a miss-match of angles but have been like that a long time. Capt John Watson owned her when my old man had Ngakiwa early -mid ’60s and we cruised together in the gulf. Had the cabin sides that she presently has. She had a petrol engine that was unreliable and I remember Len Heard (Kenya) lent John a headsail in case the engine really died. He put a Perkins in about the same time my father had Tracey Nelson put one in Ngakiwa. John sold her and bought Nohomoana (38′ Sam Ford) to keep up with the Wards when they got Naiad.
I met up with Wanderer at Lake Rotoiti a year or two back -she was a bit scruffy and heard that she came back up here.
Hope she gets that TLC s
22–05-2021 Input from Rick Rowarth – My grandfather, an Auckland surgeon Mr Frank Macky owned Wanderer for a number of years I think from the early 50’s to early 60’s and my introduction to the Hauraki Gulf was on the wanderer. What a wonderful introduction I got in my formative years. Frank just got too old to go off boating around the early to mid 60’s, and sadly had to sell her. He loved nothing more than to go down the harbour, often on his own and would usually end up at Woody Gully on Rakino or Days Bay at the bottom end of Waiheke where he had a smokehouse at his sisters house. He never came home empty handed, and back then if he caught a gurnard he would take it home for the cat. Back then Wanderer was powered by a 4 cylinder Universal petrol engine that was far from reliable, and the petrol tanks were filled by taking off the fuel tank caps “in the forward cabin”, and filling them up. How we never blew up I will never know, but we survived. The story about the missing porthole was down to a collision with (I think) a ferry, and the repairs were done I think by Percy Voss at Westhaven.
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My grandfather, an Auckland surgeon Mr Frank Macky owned Wanderer for a number of years I think from the early 50’s to early 60’s and my introduction to the Hauraki Gulf was on the wanderer. What a wonderful introduction I got in my formative years. Frank just got too old to go off boating around the early to mid 60’s, and sadly had to sell her. He loved nothing more than to go down the harbour, often on his own and would usually end up at Woody Gully on Rakino or Days Bay at the bottom end of Waiheke where he had a smokehouse at his sisters house. He never came home empty handed, and back then if he caught a gurnard he would take it home for the cat. Back then Wanderer was powered by a 4 cylinder Universal petrol engine that was far from reliable, and the petrol tanks were filled by taking off the fuel tank caps “in the forward cabin”, and filling them up. How we never blew up I will never know, but we survived. The story about the missing porthole was down to a collision with (I think) a ferry, and the repairs were done I think by Percy Voss at Westhaven.
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Did she have a WC up in the eyes or something necessitating the extra scuttle?
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We owned Wanderer in the late 90s and loved her The Perkins ticked along at a steady 6/7 knots and was our first launch We kept her up the Tamaki River at the Waipuna Boat Club Several ribs were replaced along with the annual haul out.An unusual feature was that she had 2 portholes one side and 3 on the other ,never worked that one out?? We had a large oval mirror made for her and was tempted to take it with us when we sold her but better judgement prevailed and we left it on her
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Yeah, quite a different boat from the one in the heading pictures who has no clerestory windows. Imagine in Wanderer when she was young before the shed went on; how little headroom there was up fwd. You’d have to come outside to pull your trousers up.
BTW I think John Watson’s Wanderer was around 28′.
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A “PASSENGER” FROM FlJl.—
Tucked away on the steamer Karetu, which arrived from the Islands yesterday, was the 35ft launch Wanderer 11., which had been taken by Mr. W. S. Holder, of Whangaroa, to the Fiji group for big game fishing. The angler was disappointed and considers New Zealand offers much better attractions for the fisherman. Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 240, 11 October 1933
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She was for sale on Trade Me at Rotoiti as a “1938 Lanes-built launch” that had been “a patrol boat on the Waitemata in WW2”. Quite obviously she ain’t 1938 and she wasn’t a patrol boat in WW2, that was probably WANDERER II, a much bigger launch which was also involved heavily in game-fishing from Whangaroa, owned by W.S. Holder and later Miles Anderson before being taken over for towing duties by the RNZAF as W64 and finally disposed of in Suva on 6/12/1943.
She’s not the Logan Bros WANDERER of 1908, built for Dacre of Mangonui, nor the WANDERER built at Great Barrier by G. Osborne of Tryphena in 1912. There were several other WANDERERs wandering about too. Collings & Bell is plausible. Work in progress.
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How lovely to see her as she was originally. Yep. A real honey. The modern alterations are a bit of a miss-match of angles but have been like that a long time. Capt John Watson owned her when my old man had Ngakiwa early -mid ’60s and we cruised together in the gulf. Had the cabin sides that she presently has. She had a petrol engine that was unreliable and I remember Len Heard (Kenya) lent John a headsail in case the engine really died. He put a Perkins in about the same time my father had Tracey Nelson put one in Ngakiwa. John sold her and bought Nohomoana (38′ Sam Ford) to keep up with the Wards when they got Naiad.
I met up with Wanderer at Lake Rotoiti a year or two back -she was a bit scruffy and heard that she came back up here.
Hope she gets that TLC soon. Remember Ward’s Law: Old boats are like teenage girlfriends: It all has to be done NOW! If not, you bear the possibly expensive consequences.
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Original cabin line a bit of you Jason, I believe that the fish hanging off are earlier catch not berley, no need in those days.
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WANDERER 11 would have to be a Collings and Bell. As built, she is very much the same as our C & B 22 foot SIR FRANCIS, although larger. The fish we catch at Taupo are somewhat smaller than those shown, it has to be said.
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cute boat 🙂
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