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.
Todays woody is tad different in that Black Swan was designed in Australia but built in NZ by Colin Harman’s father in the 1950’s.
In the above photos she is at Riwaka, Nelson. Colin commented that these days she is a ‘house boat’ and Nelson is still her home port.
Thanks to John Dawson for sending thru the photos and details.
Do we know anymore about the boat?
The Riwaka Inlet is home to some very fine woodys – I last visited there in March 2019 – see link below and also links to photo essays from friends John Burland and Pauline & Tim Evill – enjoy 🙂
The 40’ launch Norana was designed by Joseph Gillanders and built in 1913 by Miller Bros at Port Chalmers for Charles William Sundstrum. She had a beam of 9’ and draw 3’6″.
Sundstrum was a Dunedin dentist who was a key figure in Dunedin yachting circles for many years. His first launch was the 31’ clinker double-ender Valmai of 1910 which had a Dunedin-built 5hp Viking engine. He raced her with the Otago Yacht Club including one of their Ocean races to Timaru.
He replaced Valmai in 1913 with Norana, which had a 16-18hp Jersey Standard marine engine, that gave Norma a cruising speed of 8 3/4 knots. He sold her to Arthur Brett of Auckland in 1927. During WWII she was taken over by the RNZAF and sent to Fiji for towing work.
In the top photo that appeared in a supplement to The NZ Yachtsman, June 5th, 1915, ex Lew Redwood fb, Sundstrum was the then Rear Commodore of the Otago Yacht & Motor Boat Club.
In the bottom photo which appeared on WW back in Sept 2015 as part of a story on the launch Thetis. Sundstrum sold Norana and had J McPherson, Dunedin, build Thetis for him. Thetis measured 35’1” x 8’1” x 2’9” and was launched in 1929. A serious speed machine – as launched she was good for 18 knots. During the war years with a bigger engine, that speed increased to 26+ knots – read / see more at this link https://waitematawoodys.com/2015/09/07/thetis/
MYSTERY LAKE TE ANAU LAUNCH I was recently contacted by Richard Hockey who resides in Brisbane in regard to the above launch. Richard is very keen to find out anything about the launch.The top photo (must be by a professional – stunning quality) is dated 1947 and the location is Brods Bay, on Lake Te Anau (see info on the area below). The photo is ex Archives NZ, a Tourist and Publicity image, photographer unknown.
The second photo is dated c.1950, again Lake Te Anau and was by a VC Browne uncovered in a collection of photos put up for sale by Webb’s the auction house.
Can anyone tell us more about this rather fine launch? Side note – she appears quite bow down in both photos.
Info for readers outside of NZ – Lake Te Anau is in the southwestern corner of the South Island of New Zealand. The lake covers an area of 344 km 2 (133 sq mi), making it the second-largest lake by surface area in New Zealand (after LakeTaupō, North Island) and the largest in the South Island. It is the largest lake in Australasia by fresh water volume.
SOMETIMES YOU’RE ALLOWED TO SKITE
WW readers will be familiar with the name Benjamin Mendlowitz, one of the worlds top marine photo journalists. For the last 40 years Benjamin and his buddy Maynard Bray have been publishing the mega selling calendar – ‘Calendar Of Wooden Boats’. If you have a copy, when you flip the page today for September, bang – there you’ll see the interior of my pride & joy – Raindance. Needless to say I bought a few copies 🙂
Benjamin and Maynard are also co-founders of the wonderful video-blog – Off Center Harbor that we plug often on WW. And to even further confirm Benjamin’s woody credentials – the man co-owns one of the fastest and prettiest woodys on the Waitemata – the 1919 Bailey & Lowe built launch – Romance II – we like that 🙂
Todays woody might not be a woody, there has been speculation it could be a swimming pool i.e. built from ferro cement , but if you enlarge the photo there appears to be planking visible. I’m sure a northern woody came advise on this. There is an ‘interesting’ mix of styles on show, might be the camera angle but the pilot house appears a tad out of proportion (in my humble opinion)
The photo was taken by Jimmy Ginger and comes to us via Lew Redwood. Its dated June 2022, so recent, sadly looking very neglected.
Can we ID the boat and dig out any more on her history?
01-09-2022 INPUT ex Cameron Pollard – Cameron advised that the vessel is named Kiaora or Kia Ora – which then jogged my brain – WW did a story on her back in Nov 2016, link below – sadly in the last 6 years she has gone backwards. Quite a salty looking woody back then. In the WW article Harold Kidd commented that she had sunk and been salvaged 3 times in her life, so a very lucky boat. Cameron Pollard supplied the b/w photos below from one of the sinkings. https://waitematawoodys.com/2016/11/19/kiaroa/
I was recently contacted by Neil Mosley regarding the two photos above of launches built by Neville Robinson – top photo is Harmony and bottom is Largo. Neil commented that he didn’t know much about the man but he was quite well known at some stage. The bigger boat – Harmony is owned by John Gow and spends most of summer moored at the bottom end of Waiheke. The smaller boat is – Largo and owned by Neil and kept at Havelock.
Anyone able to tell us more about the builder – Neville Robinson and what other craft he built.
INPUT FROM PAUL DRAKE – “Neville Robinson was foreman mechanic (or similar) with the old Wellington Harbour Board for a very long time. May have served his time there I think. He built at least one other boat apart from LARGO and MELODY. Can’t recall her name but she became a crayfish boat out of Ngawi. He was a meticulous boat builder and his boats were very well engineered. He had a hand in re engineing TUNA (of WW fame) when she was in service with the Wellington Harbour Board (later CentrePort Wellington). He was a quietly spoken, gentlemanly sort of guy. His brother was a tug master on Wellington Harbour for many years, having previously been master of the police launch LADY ELIZABETH 2.”
01-10-2022 INPUT FROM MARIE BREDEN“Hi, I’m Neville Robinson’s daughter, Marie. A friend of Dad’s shared this post with me and so I’ve been searching my memory banks trying to remember all of Dad’s launches. Paul is correct, Dad worked for Wellington Harbour Board all his working life, he was a motor mechanic but his passion was wood work. My first memory of Dad’s boat building was when he built a speedboat in our garage. He named it Cee Bee II and was very successful in his racing days. He built/altered 6 launches that I can recall. The first boat he built was “Marco Polo”, built in our backyard for some local fishermen. Next was Music, built from scratch, as a family we spent many hours in the boat shed building her. Unfortunately she caught fire and burnt to the waterline. Dad managed to get his hands on some of the burnt timber and made a scale model incorporating the timber into the finished piece. After Music, and I think I’ve got the order correct, was Harmony, Souza, Largo and finally Coda. Jim Carey, previously from Picton, built the hull for Harmony and it was sailed across and finished in Wellington by Dad, and possibly another but I can’t remember sorry. Coda was purchased in Picton, the wheelhouse was removed and rebuilt by Dad, giving it his look and practicality. Dad passed away in 2018 but he’d be chuffed to think he was still getting the odd mention for his boats.”
YESTERDAYS WOODY QUIZ WINNER – the winner is K Ricketts.
The correct answers were #A Rehutai #B Movaire – as to the identity of #C , that folks remains a mystery 🙂 Had a great number of entries but most unfortunately were way off the mark.
As always I’m indebted to the mind of Nathan Herbert for helping confirm the launch names.
Gil Littler emailed in the observations and photo below
“I believe the photo is 1980, or maybe late-1970s. I say this because the wooden dividing fence between Shipbuilders (from where the photo was taken) and Baileys has already been demolished to make way for what became Orams hardstand. See the photo below taken c.1981 with the old ferries (Toroa and Peregrine) about to be buried in the Z Pier reclamation. The fishing boat Baileys converted to a pleasure boat is in both photos.”
Haven’t offered up a prize in a while so today is a goodie. Thanks to a Mitchell Hutchings fb post we get to share the two brilliant photos above of the St Mary’s Bay area. Mitchell commented that the photos were dated 1980 but he was not sure of the date. Neil Gillard also commented that the date was more like the 1960’s, as at that time he was serving his time at Chas Bailey’s yard and he recalls the boats (probably the ferries) being moored there then.
This how the quiz will work – each launch you correctly ID, gives you one point – get all there right and you have 3 chances in the draw. ID only 1 = 1 chance. Launch (c) will be a challenge.
THE PRIZE: A copy of the Jenni Mence’s superb tome – ‘K-Class – The Hauraki Gulf’s Iconic Racer-Cruiser’ – 360 pages of photographs, illustrations and tales from the skippers and crew that sailed these stunning classic yachts.
Mistral was designed and built in 1940 by Joe Wheeler, kauri carvel built – her specs are 32’ x 9’6” x 4’7”. She is powered by a 56hp Perkins 4108 that gets her along nicely when she isn’t sailing. Appears to be a well maintained and presented woody. (photos ex tme)
The photos above come to us via Brett Tomkies fb and show Brett’s great granddad and grandads Queenstown based charter launches – Kelvin and Muratal II.
Now I might be losing my marbles, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t run this story before.
Back in early 2019 an old friend – Greg Fenwick, sent me the above photo of the motor boat – Heather, participating in the Westshore Regatta in Napier on Jan 31st 1931.
In the photo Greg’s dad John, is on the helm, aged 12 years at the time.
Four days later the Napier Earthquake hit and the waterway in the photo was no more. The location is now close to the site of the current Napier Airport. The houses still exist and are next to the main highway north in to Napier.
Any info on what became of Heather would be most welcome.
Job Opportunity At Auckland Boat Yard
Todays a shout out to anyone that is this person or knows someone that is – looking for a work-life change. If you have a CV you’re probably not who we are looking for 🙂
In no particular order does this sound like you –
• Good practical hands on general skills
• Not afraid to roll your sleeves up and just get the job done
• Sense of humour
• Looking for full time / part time / flexible hours
• Age open – young > old, its all about attitude
We offer –
• Small passionate team
• Central Auckland location
• Working railway slip – one of few left in Auckland
