Help Wanted Finding Old Family Launch – LISA
Earlier this year I was contacted by Philip & Phillipa Goddard who were looking for details on the 28’ launch Lisa that in the mid 1960s, their family cruised around Waiheke Island in. They only owned her for a few year but they have many fond memories of her.
Philip is not 100% sure of the history below, but would like to think that maybe someone else can put some light on it.
They were told that she was built pre 1900 & initially launched in the Manukau Harbour but later moved to the Waitemata. At some stage a person called Ken Simpson owned her, Philip can remember him coming aboard at some stage & pointed out a rib that he had replaced.
Philip commented that she was a great sea boat that had a burst of speed if you opened up the throttle. One of his lasting memories is using the toilet directly next to the running uncovered petrol engine J
Philip’s father is now in his early 80s & would love to hear what became of Lisa.
30-06-2022 Input from Philip Goddard
My father (Bill Goddard) has just composed the following from what he remembers of Lisa.
We are still looking for her!
She cost five hundred pounds in 1963 and was on Salthouses slip at the upper harbour and I brought her down to little shoal Bay with the help of one of their employees.
She was pretty rough and had no engine cover and the toilet opposite was a galvanised funnel with a straight outlet to the side of the hull and needed the motion of the boat to work correctly.
Needless to say on a calm night in North Harbour Lisa could be seen occasionally rocking frantically.
On one occasion anchored in North Harbour a favourite anchorage of ours a chap rowed alongside and asked if she was the old Papete.
I recognised him as the owner of a substantial electrical business in Auckland his name now escapes me.(Ken Simpson ?)
I said as far as I knew she was named Lisa however he asked to come aboard and on lifting one of the side bunks he pointed to a rib which he said he had replaced many years ago.
He said she was originally on the Manakau and had a funnel in those days and was transported across to the Waitemata.
We had her for a few years near our home in Little shoal Bay where we pulled her up on the hard with a tractor in those days and many a time we witnessed a tractor getting bogged and then another tractor helping and on one occasion a third tractor to escape the rising tide.
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My father (Bill Goddard) has just composed the following from what he remembers of Lisa.
We are still looking for her!
She cost five hundred pounds in 1963 and was on Salthouses slip at the upper harbour and I brought her down to little shoal Bay with the help of one of their employees.
She was pretty rough and had no engine cover and the toilet opposite was a galvanised funnel with a straight outlet to the side of the hull and needed the motion of the boat to work correctly.
Needless to say on a calm night in North Harbour Lisa could be seen occasionally rocking frantically.
On one occasion anchored in North Harbour a favourite anchorage of ours a chap rowed alongside and asked if she was the old Papete.
I recognised him as the owner of a substantial electrical business in Auckland his name now escapes me.(Ken Simpson ?)
I said as far as I knew she was named Lisa however he asked to come aboard and on lifting one of the side bunks he pointed to a rib which he said he had replaced many years ago.
He said she was originally on the Manakau and had a funnel in those days and was transported across to the Waitemata.
We had her for a few years near our home in Little shoal Bay where we pulled her up on the hard with a tractor in those days and many a time we witnessed a tractor getting bogged and then another tractor helping and on one occasion a third tractor to escape the rising tide.
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Beautiful hull under that, when was the photo taken and where, 90s?
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That pic makes her look a bit like Darleen
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Well she was certainly not built “pre-1900”, more like “pre-1930”. Wrong shape entirely.
LISA is a name change, probably one of many, so that doesn’t help.
The only thread of her “history”, if true, that’s worth a damn, is the shift from the Manukau to the Waitemata, and there are multiple candidates for that.
Surely the Goddards can provide more…her dimensions, her engine, more images????
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The Ken Simpson recall could well be right, because Ken Simpson of K Simpson Electrical Wholesalers, was a keen boatie whom I knew very well, in the 1950s/60s, & who owned the LADY RAE, for a period during that era, so he could well have owned the LISA prior to that. He would at a guess, have been in his 50s 60s during this time. — KEN R
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