HAPPY DAYS (Te Toa)
The photo above ex Baden Pascoe shows the launch Happy Days, moored on the Manukau Harbour. At the time she was owned by Ward House, who bought her off Merv Young. Before that she was used as a log tug pulling a barge from Matakana Island to the Tauranga Town Wharf.
Ward these days owns – La Rosa, the 1923 Ernie Harvey built launch. Photo below taken last week moored in the Brian (‘cockney’ slang for the Tamaki River) You can see and read more on La Rosa at this WW link https://waitematawoodys.com/2021/01/04/la-rosa-flashback/
At some stage Happy Days was renamed Te Toa, keen to uncover more about her and what became of her.
13-05-2021 Update date ex Ray Morey – I drove “Happy Days” when she was owned by “Leonard & Seon of Mt Maunganui , when they were logging on Matakana Island and supplying Tuck & Watkins mill on Sulphur Point. Previous to this she had been a net fisher up towards Kati Kati and owned by a maori family. The “D” front of the cabin is original but Eddie Fitzgerald at the old Alf Walling slipway, built the more modern cabin over the large open cockpit, and closed the after deck in. My F.i.L. Alan Harris and Gary Leonard installed a 130 hp. A.E.C. tank engine with a gearbox from one of Charlie Faulkner’s spare “Hercules” engines (ex Aotearoa spares) I seldom towed barges, the logs were rafted from up Tuckers Creek on Matakana on one tide, anchored off Otemoetai then picked up on the next tide and taken around to Sulphur Point Mill. She was a good little tug for the job and was sold off when the logging cut out. I did see her in later years moored up the Tamaki river. I have often wondered about her fate. I believe she was one of five 26 ft motor mullet boats built in Auckland and they mostly had names with “light” in them. (moonlight-starlight etc.) H.D.K. where are you please??
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David Reid built some 28ft fishing mullet boats with names ending in ….LIGHT around 1910. They had auxiliaries. I saw one in Tauranga in a shed many years ago and couldn’t figure out which one she was.
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For Tuckers creek read “Hunters creek” and her name was “Happy Daze” but the surveyor would not enter that name. another error I made is in the “engine room” the box was not round fronted, it was square, another workboat they, Leonard & Seon, owned, name “Makino” had the original “D” front cabin
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I drove “Happy Days” when she was owned by “Leonard & Seon of Mt Maunganui , when they were logging on Matakana Island and supplying Tuck & Watkins mill on Sulphur Point. Previous to this she had been a net fisher up towards Kati Kati and owned by a maori family. The “D” front of the cabin is original but Eddie Fitzgerald at the old Alf Walling slipway, built the more modern cabin over the large open cockpit, and closed the after deck in. My F.i.L. Alan Harris and Gary Leonard installed a 130 hp. A.E.C. tank engine with a gearbox from one of Charlie Faulkner’s spare “Hercules” engines (ex Aotearoa spares) I seldom towed barges, the logs were rafted from up Tuckers Creek on Matakana on one tide, anchored off Otemoetai then picked up on the next tide and taken around to Sulphur Point Mill. She was a good little tug for the job and was sold off when the logging cut out. I did see her in later years moored up the Tamaki river. I have often wondered about her fate. I believe she was one of five 26 ft motor mullet boats built in Auckland and they mostly had names with “light” in them. (moonlight-starlight etc.) H.D.K. where are you please??
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HAPPY DAYS was sold in Tauranga in 1936 by F Wilkins to Watson Bros at Sulphur Point. Same boat?
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