MYSTERY LAKE TAUPO LAUNCH + WOODY EYE-CANDY
The above b/w photo comes to us from Lew Redwood’s fb.Details on the launch are un-know, can anyone help ID the boat.
Paul Drake Input – Probably RHODESIA. Photo shows her at Waihora Bay. The post sticking out of the water would be from the jetty which used to be there a long time ago. There are eight short stumps there to this day. Little is known of RHODESIA, but patrons of Domino’s pizza joint on the Lake Front in Taupo can study her, as they wait for their order, in the large format photo which is part of that establishment’s decor.
Harold Kidd Input – RHODESIA was built in Auckland in September 1912 and railed down to Rotorua. She was 30ft loa 8fft beam 2ft 9in draught. Her first owner was Marshall Ryan Shipping Co who used Bailey & Lowe for their new builds so it’s a fair bet they built her too. Roy Forrester of Helensville ran her for the company in the years immediately after WW1. When Taupo Shipping Co was liquidated and its assets sold off in August 1925 she was sold off. I am not sure she was then renamed TUWHARETOA because Sam Crowther was running a TUWHARETOA for hire in 1923.
There’ll be an answer which I suspect Paul Drake will ferret out.
Paul Drake Input / Reply to HDK – The idea that RHODESIA became TUWHARETOA is very interesting and quite possible. I remember her in the 1950’s. She had a raised cabin, to the full width of the original cabin, which was very well done. To my eye, she was a looker.
Continuing on with the Taupo thread, over the weekend Dean Wright sent in a gallery of photos from the marina at Lake Taupo, included was the stunner below of the Drake Brothers (Michael / Paul / Nigel / Roger) launch East Wind. When I shared the photo with Paul Drake he advised that it was him in the cockpit homeward bound from one of his recent weekly fishing expeditions.
In the photo Paul is seen taking soundings with the boathook. The lake is quite low and that day the bottom looked very close in that part of the channel. You can see that he has the boat hook at the ready, the minimum sounding was about four feet.
He also commented that the fishing since the lifting of lock-down seems to be rather good.
The Drake family have owned East Wind for approx. 50 years, but know little of her early provenance (<1920). She was clearly built as an open boat with motor. She still has the original foredeck and coaming under the newer raised deck. See 1932 photo below – East Wind, centre with another of the Drake boats Romance directly astern.
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The idea that RHODESIA became TUWHARETOA is very interesting and quite possible. I remember her in the 1950’s. She had a raised cabin, to the full width of the original cabin, which was very well done. To my eye, she was a looker.
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RHODESIA was built in Auckland in September 1912 and railed down to Rotorua. She was 30ft loa 8fft beam 2ft 9in draught. Her first owner was Marshall Ryan Shipping Co who used Bailey & Lowe for their new builds so it’s a fair bet they built her too. Roy Forrester of Helensville ran her for the company in the years immediately after WW1. When Taupo Shipping Co was liquidated and its assets sold off in August 1925 she was sold off. I am not sure she was then renamed TUWHARETOA because Sam Crowther was running a TUWHARETOA for hire in 1923.
There’ll be an answer which I suspect Paul Drake will ferret out.
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Probably RHODESIA. Photo shows her at Waihora Bay. The post sticking out of the water would be from the jetty which used to be there a long time ago. There are eight short stumps there to this day. Little is known of RHODESIA, but patrons of Domino’s pizza joint on the Lake Front in Taupo can study her, as they wait for their order, in the large format photo which is part of that establishment’s decor.
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