Rongotai

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Rongotai2

RONGOTAI

Back in early March 2016 we ran a mystery launch quiz on ww, the vessel was Rongotai & the photo was sent to me by Robin Elliott. The photo was from a batch ex the Whangarei Cruising Club collection, & far as Robin knows, all are from the 1940’s early 1950’s & and were  taken by Palmer Photography in Whangarei (1910-1999). Most by the late Graeme Palmer and possibly some older ones by his father.
Harold Kidd told us that she was built for Leslie Walter Waldron (1896-1963).

Over the weekend I was searching for another photo & bingo I found the above one that Robin had also sent me – she is a rather impressive vessel.
Do we know any more about her & what became of her?

Photo below taken last night by Shane Anderson of his classic launch Waimiga in NW Bay Rotoroa Island at sunset, summer is on the way 🙂

Waimiga Aug2016

 

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10 thoughts on “Rongotai”

  2. RONGOTAI – We have lots of photos of this boat, my parents brought this boat and restored it in the early 90’s as my dad was a boat builder. I think we sold it to a couple who too it to the queen Charlotte sounds which is the last known place it was.
    The reason for the replacement motors was during ww2 she was almost sunk when she couldn’t get away fast enough from the depth charges that she dropped. The history we heard when we brought it was she was the first boat too drop depth charges. My Dad Ken Taylor-Reid has alot more history on it.

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  3. Hi. As ken Ricketts said this boat was owned by my step dad Ken taylor-reid. He has told me stories of why she got new motors .Will try get him to put some history in here.

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  4. Pingback: Rongotai | waitematawoodys.com #1 for classic wooden boat stories, info, advice & news

  6. i’ve got a theory, the commodore was produced from 1930 to 1957 as a 32hp engine (32 x 2 = 64?) Also a petrol-paraffin engine (United Kingdom) or gasoline-kerosene engine (North America) is an old-fashioned type of dual-fuel internal combustion engine with spark-ignition, designed to start on petrol (gasoline) and then to switch to run on paraffin (kerosene) once the engine is warm.

    So Ken, not as far fetched as some of your previous grandiose statements?

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  7. Not quite sure how she could have had 2 kerosene engines “when built” & also had 2 Morris Commodores “which could have been original??” — KEN R

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  8. RONGOTAI was covered pretty well in the March entry in WW. Built by Cox & Filmer in Auckland in 1939 with twin “64hp kerosene engines” she went almost straight into NAPS at Whangarei as Z31 under Waldron’s command. He kept her in a shed on the road to Onerahi. I went to see her with John Gladden around 1982. She was still highly original and in her original shed. She had twin Morris Commodores (which may have been original) and was in very tidy order.

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  9. RONGOTAI has twin engines & was owned by a friend of mine at time, in the 1970s/80s, called Ken Taylor-Reid & she was moored in Auckland. — Also have a little 8mm movie footage of her, taken in Mansion House Bay c1953, looking as she does in the above photo–KEN R

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  10. Hi Alan, I’m having withdrawal symptoms…there was no Waitemata Woody waiting for me this morning. Hope nothing is wrong with you? – Colin Cockburn.

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