100th Birthday Party – Ngaio

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100th Birthday Party – Ngaio

At the weekend I attended a celebration to mark the 1921 Arch Logan built launch – Ngaio reaching the grand age of 100 years.

In the last decade Ngaio has been blessed with very good owners, starting with Ian and Lancia Kohler who commissioned the 2013 refurbishment of Ngaio and then passed ownership onto Jan Barraclough, the host of the birthday party. The launch is a stunner but you expect that from the Logan stable.


I was dockside admiring the finish on the hull and I was advised by an old boy that she had been splined and fibre-glassed (I had forgotten), obviously in his eyes not what you should do to a Logan. In the interests of not wasting any more time getting to the bar, I wasn’t going to let him know that 1/2 the Logan A-Division yacht fleet were glassed 😉


You can see/read more on Ngaio including the restoration that the WW links below.
https://waitematawoodys.com/2013/07/23/ngaio-2/
https://waitematawoodys.com/2013/12/11/ngaio-3/

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3 thoughts on “100th Birthday Party – Ngaio”

  1. Hi there,

    I knew NGAIO well as both Hub and Len Gee were my uncles. My dad Les was the older brother. We had many fishing excursions in the outer harbour, inner Hauraki Gulf and many an overnight stay in Islington Bay. Really fond memories seeing her now and the magnificent condition NGAIO is in. You have a lovely classical old time launch Jan Barraclough.

    I also remember the brothers SCUBA diving. When Hub passed in 1998 there was still a full tank of air under his house.

    Over the years they also owned L7 Komuri, 22Foot mullet boat. Corona H36? 26Foot mullet boat. Hub had a traditional old launch Pirate and there were two or three other launches over the years.

    The family boating tradition continued as I built 7 boats over the years from and 11foot sailing dinghy to the last a 40foot cruising yacht. My youngest son Cameron did his boatbuilding apprenticeship at Alloy Yachts in the late 1990s and then went to the Mediterranean to work for the rich and famous. Our family lived and grew up in Birkenhead/Northcote and Cameron and family live n Northcote now.

    Murray Gee. Kerikeri

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  2. Pingback: Ngaio Gets A Heart Transplant | waitematawoodys.com #1 for classic wooden boat stories, info, advice & news – updated daily

  3. Hi Alan. Not sure if you want to publish these ramblings as I am casting my memory back to the 1950s when Ngaio was owned by the brothers from Northcote, Hub and Len Gee, who had lost an arm during WW2. They had previously been mullet boat boys and Len was famous for holding the tiller in one hand and the main sheet in his teeth. Ngaio used to haul out at Sulphur Beach, Northcote, along with many other boats, my father’s included. When the Harbour Bridge was built the beach access was cut off and the local boating community got together and built the slipway and yard which you can see under the bridge. It was amazing to see Len Gee wheeling a barrow load of rocks over rough ground with one arm. They were also early adopters of SCUBA diving.
    Great to see Ngaio looking so spic and span. What is the power plant?
    Cheers!
    Denis O’Callahan

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