What is Waitemata Woodys all about?
We provide a meeting point for owners and devotees of classic wooden boat. We seek to capture the growing interest in old wooden boats and to encourage and bring together all those friendly people who are interested in the preservation of classic wooden vessels for whatever reason, be it their own lifestyle, passion for old boats or just their view of the world.
We encourage the exchange of knowledge about the care and restoration of these old boats, and we facilitate gatherings of classic wooden boats via working together with traditionally-minded clubs and associations.
Are you a Waitemata Woody?
The Waitemata Woodies blog provides a virtual meeting point for lovers of classic and traditional wooden boats. If you are interested in our interests and activities become a follower to this blog.
The Vessels Featured
The boats on display here (yes there are some yachts included, some are just to drop dead stunning to over look) require patrons, people devoted to their care and up keep, financially and emotionally . The owners of these boats understand the importance of owning, restoring and keeping a part of the golden age of Kiwi boating alive. The boats are true Kiwi treasure to be preserved and appreciated.
The 35’ launch Lourena was built c.1963 by Watson Brothers in Wellington to an Athol Burns design, using 1 1/8” kauri carvel planks. With a 11’6” beam she has a healthy interior for a 35’ boat, the draft is 3’6”. Forward motion is via a 70hp D series 4 cylinder Ford that gives her a 7 knot cruising speed.
Lourena is a well traveled woody having spent time in Wellington > Marlborough Sounds (15 yrs) > Opua (20 yrs),
Thanks to Ian McDonald’s heads up re the tme listing, today we get to have a peek down below.
Jason Prew is currently on a road trip tearing up the highways and backroads of the South Island. I was pleased to see he wasn’t totally engrossed in the world of 4×4, the above photos come to us from the Otago Settlers Museum. Link below
The photos above are of a speed boat named Minx built in 1958 by Les Booth, Les also built the mini-me model in front. This would have caught Jason’s eye – he has a radio controlled model of his very quick classic launch – My Girl. Video of 1st run, prior to finishing below.
The Minx speed boat was originally powered by a Hillman Minx 4 cyl engine, but not long after launch this was replaced with a V8, must have been very quick.
A slightly worrying trend that is occurring on trademe is the number of wooden craft that are being offered up in ‘as-is-where-is’ condition with a short time window before they are disposed of. Probably a sign of the times in terms of storage costs and rebuild costs.
Todays wooody was saved, sold for less than $1,000 – lets hope the new owner has plans to restore her and not harvesting for parts / fittings.
Potiki II is 28’ in length, built by JH Young – thats all her tme listing told us. Thanks to Lan McDonald for the heads up.
Just a reminder we have the 38’ Robertson built classic – Katherine at Westhaven this weekend for viewing – 100% turn-key purchase – you’ll be boating this Christmas / NY. + W/haven marina also for sale. Email below for a viewing time.
Todays woody photos come to us from Lance Lange via Nathan Herbert and show the launch that Lance’s grandfather and boatbuilder Phil Lange built – Quo Vadis.
Quo Vadis was built for the Hopper family.and the photos are from her launch day – must have been a very proper occasion – even had a man of the cloth in attendance. In the last photo above, I’m assuming the launch to the left od Quo Vadis is Nathan’s – Pacific.
The c.1950’s built launch William Steer has made a few cameo appearances on WW, but todays photos come to use from Hagan Parvin’s fb via John Dawson.
William Steer was built in Nelson by Don Calder and launch in 1961 at Motueka. At one stage her name was changed to Graham John, but has reverted back.
INPUT ex Mark McLaughlin – SABRE is now Auckland based and is well kept at the OBC Marina. GLENMORE was one of the Pelorus Sound mail boats throughout the 1980’s to mid 1990’s, operated by Ken and Dianne Gullery. She was sold to an Australian owner and is now moored at Pittwater up Sydney’s north coast. She did the Tasman Sea crossing under her own steam from Picton, which is no mean feat for that type of boat.
The photos below of Glenmore in her orange hull livery during the mail boat years are from the Old Marlborough fb group page, and the photo of Glenmore on her mooring at Pittwater is from Lew Redwood’s fb page.
11-11-2022 Input ex Eric Sanderson – I believe the vessel below is one of Bill Orchards, was on the Kaipara when photo was taken
KATHERINE 4SALE & ON DISPLAY @ WESTHAVEN MARINA – THIS WEEKEND – BY INVITATION
Considering an upgrade or a boat for summer – the 38’ Conrad Robertson designed classic – KATHERINE, has been relocated to Westhaven Marina for one weekend only – inspection by invitation.
On Sunday we held a woodys gathering ashore on Motuihe Island – trip down was commonly described as ‘lumpy’, except for the large woodys skippers who just smiled.
The bonus of a lumpy passage was almost zero trailer craft or pwc’s, so had the beach to ourselves. Very sheltered and sunny afternoon – always good to catch up with other woody owners and swap tales. Trip home was perfect with wind and tide assisting.
Nice to see both Lady Crossley and Pirate after there winter hibernation / haul outs.
My boat of the day was John Wright’s latest project the uber cool double-ender – Kiwa. That man has a wonderful eye for bringing the best out of any classic craft. Photo below when she was at Te Atatu Boating Club + links to previous WW stories on her
KATHERINE ON DISPLAY @ WESTHAVEN – THIS WEEKEND – INVITATION ONLY
Considering an upgrade or a boat for summer – the 38’ Conrad Robertson designed classic – KATHERINE, has been relocated to Westhaven Marina for one weekend only – inspection by invitation.
Regular readers of WW will be familiar with Bay of Islands photographer – Dean Wright and the stunning images he shares with us. Dean and partner Deb are the custodians of the classic woody – Arethusa, which has one of the best back stories of all the craft in your fleet. The 33’ Arethusa was built in 1917 by Bob Brown and started life as a gaff rigged cutter, 105 years later she has the features of a commercial ex work boat – but a very swish one 🙂 Link below that shows some of the transformation – and being such a looker she has made numerous WW appearance, but today we bring to light a somewhat unknown (to most of us) event in her life – I’ll let Dean do the intro to the above photo essay :- https://waitematawoodys.com/2020/09/07/arethusas-new-woody-wheelhouse/
“Deb and I were down south recently and did the Farewell Spit Bus trip. The tour operators were able to tell us approximately where Arethusa ran aground all those years ago (late December 1955).
They dragged the boat to the other side of the Spit and relaunched her, about 1.2km’s. An excerpt from book at the Spit lighthouse keepers house: “She was sailing between New Plymouth and Nelson and the crew thought they were heading between the lights of Farewell Spit and Stephen’s Island when they ran aground. Obviously they mistook the light on Cape Farewell for that on the Spit, and, as the Cape Farewell light had only gone into operation in 1951, they may have been unaware of its existence.”
The press clipping above in the Christchurch Press ran the headline – ‘The Arethusa – A Total Loss’ – well they got that wrong – well done to everyone that invested the funds and time to help Arethusa become a centenarian. If anyone knows more detail of her time in the South Island, Deb and Dean would love to hear from you.
There is some debate around the provenance of the 35’ bridge deck launch – Saga, featured above, her tme listing told us she was built by Bailey in 1946 and Harold Kidd is going for built and also probably designed by a Val Maxwell. What we do know is Saga is single board, kauri, carvel construction and powered by a Perkins 145 hp turbo diesel engine. These days she calls Kerikeri, Northland home.
Any woodys able to tell us more about her past life.
08-11-2022 INPUT ex Harold Kidd
Val Maxwell was a very experienced launch man. He was a teacher at King’s College (not my school; I went to Takapuna Grammar) and retired as Deputy Principal.
In 1936 he bought the Joe Slattery launch WAINUI which had been wrecked on Rangitoto and fitted a 1918 Studebaker car engine. Just before WW2 he started building SAGA and finished her in 1950. She was bigger than Ken R remembers (refer WW comments section) at 33’x32’x10’x2’9″ and had a Leyland Cub engine as Ken R remembers.
In 1963 Val sold SAGA to A.J. (Jimmy) Osborne of Panmure. In 1969 Osborne moved north to Mangonui and took SAGA with him.
I knew Val’s son Peter for many years. He died just recently. We were both Sunbeam car owners. He had a most magnificent 1925 25hp Sunbeam tourer which I later owned. Peter of course owned for many years the 1937 Dick Lang 34 footer RESOLUTE at Devonport.
My feeling is that because Val’s SAGA is the right size and went North, she is the SAGA above; but I wouldn’t dream of being dogmatic about it.
UPDATE Feb 2024 – Hauled out photos added.
24-05-2025 UPDATE ex Bruce Pascoe – I believe SAGA started out as a sedan . The aft section of the roof has been cut off and raised up to become a bridge-decker. The raised cockpit floor has been built over the old floor. When they fitted the turbo 6 cylinder Perkins they had to raise the wheel house floor 100mm. Unfortunately instead of raising the wheel house roof to maintain headroom they cut a section of the roof out only and built a plywood box on top.
I have stripped many layers of paint off the roof beams and uncovered the Kauri one piece beams, not laminated. All the deck and roofs are planked with Kauri. The cabin sides are plywood. She is a very sound boat, dry bilges.
WOODYS CLASSIC PICNIC AT MOTUIHE ISLAND TODAY – 1PM
When I saw Perano, a 16’clinker kauri built double ender – my immediate thought was lake boat. Built in the 1960’s by Bernie Perano (of the whale chaser family) she is a very cool little ship. The negative of being f/glass encased is off set by the positive of being able to be stored out of the water on her trailer and not needing to ‘take up’ when launched.
Perano it is powered by a super reliable 5 hp single cylinder diesel engine. Made by Yanmar the NTS 70 engine is started by hand it is a slow turning engine with a 2:1 reduction gearbox with shaft drive swinging a bronze 3 blade 13×12 prop. The hull speed of 5.4 knots is easily achieved with fuel consumption of 1 litre per hour. Fuel tank is 10 litres – plenty for a full day out and then some. Thanks to Rob Watt for the tme heads up.
AND ON THE SUBJECT OF LAKE BOATS – Put A big circle around February 5th 2023
That is the date of the uber cool Lake Rotoiti (Nth Island) Classic & Wooden Boat Parade. If you are a woody boat owner and have your craft on a trailer – consider doing the trip to Lake Rotoiti – its a blast. Details belowFull details at https://www.woodenboatparade.co.nz/wooden-boat-parade/. 5th Feb 2023 (Waitangi Weekend). There is a dinner the night before and a picnic after the parade. Normally well over 100 boats in different styles form the parade.
AND LASTLY – WOODY CLASSIC PICNIC ON TOMORROW AT MOTUIHE ISLAND 1PM – which side decided by weather on the day
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