The Minerva
Talking with woody – John Wright the other day and he mentioned that he spotted an old framed photo in the dump bin at the Te Atatu Boat Club, a quick bit of bin diving reduced the photo, which John sent me a copy of and asked for more intel on the vessel – The Minerva, the photo is captioned – ?.N. Jones Family 1986.The rear of the family has a lot of detail, but sadly very hard to read – it says she was built by Chas Bailey, most of the other detail is just too hard to read.
Well jackpot – Minerva featured extensively on WW back in March 2015 and we uncovered a lot about her provenance.Snapshot – built in 1910 as a Auckland harbour ferry, she had a very shallow draft for negotiating creeks and estuaries. Her original power was steam via a coal fired boiler, that fuelled two 14hp George Fraser & Son engines. Around 1922 she moved over to the Kaipara Harbour and worked there until the late 1940’s. Around this time she was converted to diesel power and remained a work boat until c.1945. Around then she came back over to the east coast and was rallied and rolled into 1964 when she dropped out of site. There was a reported sighting of her back in 2015 under a cover in Kerikeri.
Read / see more here https://waitematawoodys.com/2015/03/04/the-minerva/
Does anyone know her current status / condition?
Photo below dated July 2019 ex google + link to TVNZ story on the restoration project. Both ex K Ricketts
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I was part of the gang that started the clean up of The Minerva as seen in this photo. She will be a joy to see on the water.
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Minerva is currently in Opua under going a complete restore
The restorers would love a copy of the photo.
My contact details are
Kelvin Petrie 027 494 1896
kwpetrie52@gmail.com
Cheers Kelvin
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Was parked by the waipuna bridge for years. Tied up next to the fairmile Motanui.
Her engine at that time was a 671 screaming gm
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The Minerva is under going restoration in a shed on the Opua commercial area. See Kerikeri Steam Trust
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Saw her a good number of times tied up to the little mini marina area just as you are entering Hellensville, from Auck., on the LHS., up to the mid/later 1950s.
Could see a massive looking grey painted diesel through the aft round portholes — painted in a similar colour, to the ex factory grey, of a Gardner. — KEN R
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She is at Opua marina, half way through her Restoration as per the original Steam Boat. look up Minerva restoration. it has/is been a long voluntary resto, still going.
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Davey Jones from Buzzy Bee blasters lived on her at Te atatu in the late 80s early 90s
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Join her facebook group and find out 🙂
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