Almost A Woody
Today’s story features a Mason Clipper24 that has very good provenance – she was Tony’s own boat and he called it M. Y. Clipper. The later years of production Tony Mason used a fiberglass mould for the hull but all the internals are beautiful timber.
It has been fully restored to a very high quality by a David Smith in Auckland and Dennis Catchpole, who sent me the photos, purchased the boat three years ago. Dennis commented that he always remembered the Clippers as a young man as being the Rolls Royce of power boats when they were built, and the family did have, for many years a Pelin, which were also beautiful boats, and of course Pelin, worked for Tony at one point.
This boat has an interesting history as it was used to take Prince Charles across Lake Taupo fishing in 1980 (photo above of both of Tony with the Prince)
The Catchpole family love the boat and have had a great deal of pleasure from it. They keep her in the marina at Kinloch, and it is powered by a GMC V8 and can do a very impressive 55k at full speed. Most of the time she cruises around at 35k.
The link below will take you to other ww stories on Mason Clippers. Enjoy
https://waitematawoodys.com/?s=Mason+Clipper+24&submit=Search
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Just doing some research for a photo we hold in the Taupo Council Archive and it features HRH Prince of Wales entering Taupo harbour, waving to the crowd from the back of this boat.
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Agree. They arent known for their economy! The hull shape needs a lot of power to get up.
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The quoted speed sounds a bit optimistic, Clipper 24’s with a 350 Chev based stern drive (which I believe My Clipper has) are typically good for 35-40kts, with associated ferocious fuel consumption, and cruising at 20-25 kts
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There was a suggestion in an earlier post on the 24 footers, that there had only been one 24 ft. Clipper with 2 engines, & that was KALEWA, but in fact, there was at least 2, because my wife & her late husband Eric Skill, owned AVANDA in the 1980s, & she had 2 x 4 cyl Mercruiser, (Chev Blocks), petrol engines, which proved not to be terribly reliable, as they often came home on 1 engine, notwithstanding that Eric, was a brilliant mechanic. — KEN R
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Anybody looking for a Clipper a timber 23” has just appeared. Listing1227067092
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