CLASSIC STEEL LAUNCH – MIRANDA
Back in November 2020 WW ran a story on the motor launch – MIRANDA – link here https://waitematawoodys.com/2020/11/05/mystery-launch-05-11-20/
At the time we learnt from Harold Kidd that MIRANDA was a 55ft twin-engined steel launch built by E.D. (Bill) Edmundson at Thorndon Quay and launched in June 1953 after 7 years of work. She became the unofficial flagship for the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club and did a trip to Sydney and back in 1960-1.
Fast forward to December 2025 and while Ken Ricketts was trolling thru a collection of back issues of Sea Spray magazine he uncovered todays photo. The caption recoded that MIRANDA was returning to Wellington from the double Tasman crossing (1960>61). The photo appeared in the March 1961 edition of Sea Spray.
Do we know where MIRANDA is these days.
LAST REMINDER FOR SATURDAYS LAKE ROTOITI CLASSIC & WOODEN BOAT PARADE – 11am Parade start – details here https://waitematawoodys.com/2016/07/28/tokatea/
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We used to pass her in our Figlass Viscount when I was a kid, on a mooring off Opito Bay Kerikeri. She was a mess and we jokingly named her the ‘Russian Intelligence’
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Thank you, thank you, thank you! Miranda! Of course! At last!
I last saw her afloat at anchor in Schoolhouse Bay in the early ’60s – very briefly, before the big wharf went in for the final lhacking and ogging. We were in Ngakiwa and not many boats around. I admired her style although her plating was a little irregular in places -a few bulges hither and yon which could have been sorted I guess. Maybe it was the battering of the years. A real steamer. The bigger boats allow the crew to be out of view or I would have rowed across. She had no boats tied on so I missed my chance.
Go on quite a few years and I m sure I last saw her on the banks of the Puhoi off to the right as you head north -before the tunnels went through. Early ’70s? She was not easy to see -in amongst a few tall pines and a house etc. A tad overgrown. You really had to slow and look because it was a bendy road and the War Dept was usually nagging to keep the eyes on the road and not the boat. We were usually going north or south and no time to go and chat.
That area all went house when the tunnels went through and they recontoured the land for the Wenderholm road to be remodelled.
I imagine one of the old Puhoi dependables would know.
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