Playing Hooky
It appears that quite a few CYA launch owners took the opportunity today to pay hooky & grab the last few days of Autumn. As they say, made if you don’t 🙂
RAWEA
photos ex Nathan Herbert & classicboatnz
A 50ft Bailey built for Mr R.W. Butcher of Hamilton, looks very similar to Te Rauparaha.
Can anyone add more about her & what became of her?
Whangateau Traditional Boat Yard Open Day / Regatta
If you are out & about this Sunday & looking for a nice drive, the Whangateau Traditional Boat yard is throwing the doors open for people to view the newest arrival – Laughing Lady to the boat yard and New Zealand. The American and NZ flags will be flying & the theme for the day is red, white & blue or even just something nautical e.g. a boat hat.
And as is always the way – a selection of small craft will be out for inspection & visitors are welcome (encouraged) to bring their own craft.
For the newbies that have not been to one of the regattas before , its a very casual day where you make your own fun and are responsible for yourself i.e. if you are boating, bring and wear your own life jacket.
Bring a picnic lunch or have one of our sausages or bring your own sausages for the BBQ.
There will be a donation box for the sausages and the days events and for up-keep on the small craft on offer.
A course will be set to sail, motor or paddle around, out from the bay.This is open for all to join in
The boat yard is open to view Laughing Lady till 4.00pm
Please mind your footing around the yard, this is a traditional working boat yard.!
How do you get there?
Drive past Matakana aprox 9.1 km to 397 Leigh Road, Tramcar Bay & look for the one way bridge, park on the other side of the bridge please.
Launching of boats can be done from the reserve access by the boat yard, but be early to do this.
High tide is at 11.00 am – so 9.30 for setting up the boats – then as soon as the tide allows, hit the water & we shall signal you back for the start of the race 10.30-11.30 start of race.
Confused ? it will be all clear on the day 🙂
WAIATA & HER BUILDER
details & photos (b/w) by Harold Kidd, colour photo ex Rob Uivel
Waiata is featured else where on several ww posts but Harold’s below brings every together.
Rob Uivel owns the neat little launch WAIATA which is a remarkable survivor from the pre-WW1 period, 101 years old and going strong still. WAIATA was built by David Reid at his yard in Drake Street, Freeman’s Bay and launched in November 1913 for Devonport enthusiasts Edward Percy Earle and Alfred George Lunn who were keen competitors in the highly popular NZ Power Boat Association races in the “under 9 knots” category. Her first engine was a 14hp (rated) Britt engine but that was changed in 1921 for a 14hp Westman engine, for which W.R. Twigg was the local agent.
She held the NZPBA championship pennant several times during WW1. She also took part in the search for Count von Luckner when he and several other German prisoners of war escaped from Motuihe in the launch PEARL in December 1917. Earle dropped out of ownership in late 1919. Lunn became Commodore of the NZPBA in 1920 but sold WAIATA around 1922. She pretty much drops out of sight except for being recorded as being used as mark boat for Devonport Yacht Club and other clubs’ yacht races right through the 1930s. It would be interesting if WW people could fill in the gap between then and now.
David Reid was a very good boat builder indeed and had the agency for the very fine Buffalo marine engine. He had a prodigious output of launches culminating in the very fast Cascade in early 1916. David was the son of Robert Reid whose business he had taken over in 1904, and the brother of James Reid who was equally important as a launch builder. However, David suffered from asthma so badly that he sold his business, machinery and moulds to T.M. Lane & Sons and left for Queensland in late 1916. It was a very great loss to this country.
photo below of 1st owner – Alfred Lunn
HMNZS KOURA
A clip from a chat between Russell Ward & Alan H
photo ex Basil Rutherford collection
Anywhere else in the world , these ladies would be being restored & proudly on display.
Instead another one is about to be slaughtered at Paeroa or Thames on 14 May or thereabouts.
It has reached the end of a sad trot of indifferent ownership and has been given her marching orders from the Maritime Park. It is a shame because when Paeroa were given her, she was one of the better ones the Navy had.
Tarapunga died a few weeks ago. Another whose name escapes me did some impact hydrography in Milford Sound last week.
Manga is making her last sacrifice at Helensville .
These eminently useable boats are vanishing at a rate.
Paea is going strong and may be the beneficiary of Koura’s parts.
The simply lesson here is that old boats have got to be kept working. If not they just rot away.
http://rednaz1958.blogspot.com/2016/03/composite-list-of-hdmls-still-active.html
A Modern Classic
If someone in Auckland does not nab this soon, I beat you it will be heading off to the lakes.
You rarely see the angles & proportions looking right on a sub 30′ boat. At 25′ this one is dam near spot on, but you would expect that given it was modelled on a William Garden dory design. A great picnic boat, she has explored harbours, lakes and rivers. With a double v berth forward , over-nighters are also on the agenda.
Built in 2005 from ply (I known, I’ll go & wash my mouth out) & glassed over (make that a double wash) she has a 2005 21h.p. Nanni diesel motor, done 400hrs from new & wait for it, she even has a bow thruster……….
On trademe for $30k, would be hard to find a better boat of that money.
SEAGULL
Now this boat has some provenance, built in 1953 at the Devonport Navy dockyard, was originally on the starboard side of the HMNZ Monowai Survey ship.
29.8’ in length & powered by a 53hp diesel, new in 2004, now with 1850 hrs on the clock.
Seagull is a solid, reliable, economic, ex Navy survey launch converted to pleasure use & is perfect for cruising around the Hauraki Gulf.
Recent work over the winter of 2013 includes, full hull repaint, including anti foul, new cockpit, lockers, new toilet, new stern platform with stainless steel ladder. Full engine service, oil and filters, belts etc including new batteries.
Garmin GPS chart plotter/fish finder. New VHS radio. New 2 burner gas stove. Good sized electric fridge. Solar panels for battery backup.
Owned by a fellow DYC member, Seagull is currently for sale on trademe as her owner has a desire to return to the dark side (sail)…… Hopefully he will see the light & buy a motorsailer.
Is This Cutie A Seacraft?
(click on the photos above to enlarge)
The crew at the Whangateau Traditional Boat yard would like some help ID’ing one of their boats. But before I go on, I have to say that this little motorboat has got my name all over it – perfect for Riverhead cruises, gunk-holing around Mahurangi & trailering to Lake Rotoiti.
The question for you all is :
Is the recent WTB purchase, a 12′ 6″ dinghy, a genuine Seacraft and if so, what year would she likely have been built? (there is no plaque on her).
She has a 3hp Normon marine engine, air cooled, which is believed to be her original motor.
Keith, the previous owner restored her and the motor & has her running superbly. He also has a couple more of the Normon motors running. He said she was painted green and cream and that he had striped the paint and carried out the varnishing.
Pam & George feel she has perhaps a little more sheer in her and perhaps not as broad and as flat a stern as the Seacraft boats they are familiar with & wondered if there was some variation in shape through the years?
Pam told me they had some lovely sea trials in her over the weekend & the boat is so user friendly she could manage her by herself.
They envision some tiki touring, sliping in the odd regatta along the way and shan’t be too deturbed if the pretty little thing is not a genuine Seacraft.
TAWHITI
Mill Bay photo ex Ken Rickett
Waitemata photo ex Harold Kidd
The above launch was recently sited moored in Mill Bay, Mangonui by Ken’s daughter.
Like a lot of Mill Bay boats she appears to be crying out for some TCL.
More info on her would be appreciated if anyone knows anything.
SEE HDK COMMENT BELOW – ME THINKS MR RICKETTS WILL BE OFF TO SPECSAVERS ON MONDAY MORNING 🙂 Spelling corrected in headline & categories for google searches.
HAROLD KIDD UPDATE
That’s TAWHITI not TAWHIRI as you can see clearly from Ken’s own image. Someone needs specs.
Recent owners have given me a bunch of information about her, some of which is clearly rubbish anecdote (as anecdote usually is).
The tale must however contain some truths.
It is roughly as follows;
1. TAWHITI was built by Logan Bros in 1908. Even though the bridgedeckerisation obviously occurred in the 30s at the earliest and her name may well have changed several times in her life, I put this down as a myth.
2. She was built as a passenger launch for the Kaipara. Maybe.
3. Known owners don’t go back very far but are George Twitchett, Bucklands Beach, 1955 to 1965 who sold to Stan Honeybun that year, to John Hunt to Jim Duckworth. I think another owner was Rex Norwood c2000.
Clear facts are that her dimensions are 36’x36’x9’3″x? and she was recently powered with a Ford 60hp 4 cylinder diesel. She is single skin and was a flushdecker originally of the period 1910 to 1918. A pity her name is lost.
My database contains several local TAWHITI entries but I have no way of knowing if there was only one or several TAWHITIS without corroborating evidence. There may have been several people who wanted to use the name TAWHITI which is charged with meaning in the Maori language and, with Hawaiki, equates with the spiritual homeland = TAHITI. But it is also the Maori name for Woolshed Bay at the entrance to Coromandel Harbour. She was never registered with the APYMBA.
My first TAWHITI is a launch on the Manukau in February 1919 with no further mention on that harbour. Conjecture, built by Les Coulthard and shipped across after trials?
The second (or the same) is recorded in A.H. Pickmere’s log as being in Bon Accord on 18/4/27. Then groups of people from TAWHITI visited the new LITTLE JIM on four occasions between December 1934 and February 1936. Unfortunately no owner was identified, but surnames involved were Curnow, Hoban, Keely, Barton, Sturtevant, Oborn, Wooley, Graham, Craig, Grant, Seabrook and Wilson. Some of those are well-known North Shore names of that period.
I guess it’s possible that the name was mispelt in LITTLE JIM’s log 4 times, and was in error for the Col. Wild yacht TAWHIRI, but none of the names concur with TAWHIRI’s owners.
I took some good images (see above) of her off Rocky Bay on 2/1/2002 when she was in good order. Those aboard said they had no real idea of her provenance. They kept her in the Tamaki River, just upstream from the Panmure Yacht Club. But I was interrupting their fishing and sheered off.
I saw her again several times later in the the season and the next doing some serious fishing around Rakino.
My conclusion is that she will be a known boat by a good builder whose origins have, as is so often the case, been obscured by successive alterations and (possibly) a name change.
PS My “built in Onehunga” theory may have some legs as Les Coulthard built a lot of boats for ports on the west coast as it eased transport issues mightily if they could get there on their own bottoms or, if small enough, by coastal steamer from Onehunga. For example Les built the 56ft schooner-rigged trawler HELENA for Westport in 1934 and the New Pllymouth Harbour Board’s pilot launch in 1935. So it’s entirely possible that the “passenger launch on the Kaipara” is the truth……………if a little long on assumptions!
Boat Designer – Sonny Levi
photos & details supplied by Ken Ricketts
Levi designed at least 3 launches for the NZ market (refer below)
Designer Bio (straight from his website)
Born in Karachi 85 years ago, Sonny Levi was at school in Cannes when the war broke out.
His father, an interior designer and manufacturer, and an enthusiastic motor yachtsman, moved into Government contract boatbuilding at a shipyard in Bombay. From this early age the young Renato (‘Sonny’ was bestowed by an ayah who could not manage the letter ‘r’) designed boats, inspired by the multitude of local craft in that seafront city.
He joined the RAF and trained in England, studied aircraft design and demobilisation and returned to Bombay, where by 1950 he was chief designer in his father’s busy drawing office. In 1960 he moved to Italy to work for Navaltecnica in Anzio. “I have been very fortunate to have clients who are prepared to take risks” he says today.
“I always tried to be as honest with them as I could when we discussed their projects. And occasionally something didn’t work. This is the problem with original design.”
But for every failure there were a great many ground-breaking successes, and it seems typical of the man to ascribe these to luck and pass on credit to his customers – even if they were signing the cheques.
But when you look at some of the projects he involved them in you begin to see what he means: so many of the designs were at the cutting edge of naval architecture, where success was by no means certain. Like an artist with wealthy patrons, whenever he had an idea for a new work he could usually find someone to pay for it.
Rich playboy powerboat racers would find themselves enthusiastically funding outlandish and dramatic experimental prototypes. Commercial boatyards would be talked into daring new engineering solution on the promise of more speed and efficiency. If Sonny Lei is a problem solver at heart, he is one who has never seemed inclined to solve the same problem twice.
The Levi Boats
#1 Resolute
#2 Ikikai
Little is known about Ikikai, she was circa 40 feet & originally also had twin Detroits.
Both of these first 2 boats, were designs based on boats he designed & were built in numbers, for the Indian Police, as Police Boats, in their era.
#3 Bacardi
All 3 boats were all built for Arthur Jenkinson, who was in the musical instrument business, in Auckland, by Percy Vos, & /or Shipbuilders.
Levi was very radical in his designs, for his day, virtually all his launches were designed as high speed, high performance boats, many of them having a reverse shear, & in the case of Ikikia & Resolute a slanting out tuck that v’ed to a central point in the middle.
Bacardi had a “cathedral” type bow, but she was very quick with those 2 “Interceptor” GM V8s.
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