MAPU
A view of St Marys Bay with the wharf (left), several boats and boatsheds, premises of Collings and Bell, boatbuilders in St Marys Bay Road (left) and residences in Ponsonby overlooking the bay. An interesting collection of photos, same area but taken at different times. The ‘aerial’ one of all the boats stowed in the valley is fun – last boat out is the first one in for the summer.
Input from Harold Kidd (to photo A)
At the end of the wharf is the Ponsonby Cruising Club’s premises before the second storey and balcony was added. Collings & Bell’s original shed is directly behind. To the left of the PCC is the small building in which various things happened like Collings had his test tank, George Murphy lived when he was fishing with ETHEL which tied up alongside the jetty, and Des Donovan did some clinker work post WW2 with Fred Steele as “20th Century Boats”. I may have conflated some of these functions.
To the right of C&B’s slipway is the shed of Peter A. Smith, the engineer who was agent for Alpha marine engines (Danish-made I think) and who commissioned many launches from people like Dick Lang and Tom Le Huquet for customers fitting Alphas. He also traded in boats. Next right is the yard of Peter Barton who did repairs and hired out small boats, later joined by his son Phil, a true gentleman. Dick Lang and later Sam Ford were here and I think used Smith’s premises. I was born in London Street, just out of frame to the left (not terribly much after this image!) by which time the PCC was fully built up and C&B had built a large half-round shed at the back.
It really was the centre of the known universe.
CURLEW
Built by Rope brothers 1913
Lots of history on the Waitemata and Kaipara Harbours…
She was W68 when used By RNZAF at Hobsonville.
Photo & details from Andrew Pollard
MAPU
Built in 1914 by Lane Motor Boat Company for TM Lane and Sons who were timber millers in Totara North, 30′ x 7′.6″ She was taken north to Whangaroa. She was a classic flat decker and I am not sure with what she was origonally powered with other than it was an air cooled motor.
My grandfather Clarence Lane (son of Thomas Major Lane) who was instrumental in setting up the Lane Motor Boat Company) went away on his honeymoon on Mapu in 1916 She was originaly built as a pleasure and workboat where her role primarily towing logs out of the local rivers and towing barges a role she filled over the next 30-40 year.
In 1939 she came back to Auckland to be repowered with a Scrips marine conversion of a Hercules truck motor producing 110hp. This made her the fastest boat on the whangaroa harbour pulling around 22-24 knots
During the war she acted as the supply boat for the local gun emplacement at the heads of the Whangaroa Harbour and also towed for them targets between the heads and Stephenson Island. My father Trevor Lane (son of Clarence) used her for crayfishing around this time as well. She was re-fastened in 1950.
By the 1960,s she was primarly a pleasure boat used by my father and his brother and their families for fishing picnicing etc. In the 1970 she was repowered with a Fordson deisel but by the mid 1980s she was largely unused and stored intially in a boatshed on the Lane and Sons property and subsequently in the tide in the “barge shed” where her seams having opened so much the tide came in and out of her.
In the late 1990,s Lane and Sons was being wound up and I brought her in an as is where is state. Thus I am the 4th generation of my family to own her….
Trevor Ford (son of Sam Ford and a retired boatbuilder from the Lane Motor Boat Company) assessed her and undertook to rebuild her. He showed me a hand-drawn picture of Mapu with a cabin and dodger and then proceeded to rebuild and repower her. The project took him over three years in a barn on his property in the Bombay hills.
She was repowered with a Nanni convesion of a Kubota deisel (50 hp)
She was relaunched in 2003. She heads north in summer to Whangaroa her “home” for then retrns to Auckland at the beginning of winter and is berthd in Pine Harbour Marina. She competed in the 2008 Rudder Cup race around sail rock and came second in her division.
Cruising speed is 8.2 knots and full speed about 9.7-10.4knots depending on the cleanliness of her hull!!!.
I suspect the owner of Raindance will acknowledge she is pretty quick for her size and power.. (edited – the owner of Raindance hopes the CYA launch handicapper reads waitematawoodys 🙂 )
RONGO (II)
The above images of this rather grand & large launch have me stumped as to its identity, I’m sure its easy but today my mind is a blank. Photo says c.1930
30/05 – appears the collective brains trust agree on Rongo – thanks team 🙂
Harold Kidd Update
I’m certain it’s RONGO (II) when owned by W. Cecil Leys in 1930. She was built as GLADYS II by Bailey & Lowe in 1919 for Chas. Court of Stanley Bay and fitted with a 150hp Sterling Model FM 6 cylinder engine. Court sold her in 1930 to Leys who had her lengthened 10 feet and renamed her RONGO. Leys owned her until 1942 when she went into NAPS as Z20. Subsequent owners included R W Butcher (1942-44), Joe Moodabe (of the Civic Theatre) (1944-47), W J Henry (1947-49), W A (Wilkie) Wilkinson (1949) W A Kenny of Picton (1964) by which time she had a 1955 Gardner 5cylinder diesel. She came back north but went to pieces at Algies Bay in July 2007.
Update 2
Update from Baden Pascoe:
(refers to colour photo in slide show)
This is how she looked when I saw her. In my files I found she was a NAPS vessel, no Z20, 1/7/42 -27/12/43.
She had a 6L2 installed the same engine Joan had fitted. Conrad Robinson still has this engine at Warkworth. One good thing about NAPS, your boat came back with a very nice engine. At this time she belonged to R.W. Butcher of Auckland. The man in the white hat is dad, he could not get over the length of her and was concerned that she was hogging while they lifted her. He supervised the blocking of her keel once she was slipped. Very nice boat, shame she got wrecked. Very Lanes looking though!!
Aumoe
The caption says ‘Deep Water Cove’.
Of interest is the special effects applied to b/w photos in the days before colour cameras.
12-07-2019 Input from Deb Green
The photo below is from Tom Wood (Deb’s uncle). Tom owned Aloha.
LADY AVIS
Built in late 1910 by James Reid Snr. b/w photo is dated 1914
Harold Kidd Update
AVIS was built in the winter of 1910 by JAMES Reid and was built on the same moulds as SEABIRD (and probably) MAVIS B so she was an advanced hull for her time and proven by SEABIRD being first on line in the Rudder Cup race around Sail Rock in December 1908 of which the CYA did a rerun in 2008 of fond memory. Her first owners were W & E Currie and B A Keyes. She had a 14hp Regal originally, the same engine as SEABIRD, for which Reid was Auckland agent, a well-made marine engine of US origin. She was re-engined with a 24hp Brennan by 1919. R Johnson joined in ownership in 1923. She was used extensively for racing with RNZYS, PCC and NSYC. She was kept in a shed at Mechanics Bay in the winters next to Lanes. In 1927 she was fitted with a new 35hp Stearns. By 1928 her owners were E Currie, R Johnson and A M Gilmour. Gilmour dropped out in 1935. Currie and Johnson still owned her in 1943 but I lose track then as they either sold her or resigned from the RNZYS.
David Collett owned her 1972-6 with a 4cyl Ford diesel, replaced with a 6 cylinder Leyland. Later she was moored at Mahurangi.
The LADY AVIS thing is pretty recent.
So her pedigree is brilliant.
PS Of course she was built as a racy raised-foredeck flushdecker in the latest vogue for 1910. The clerestory/tramtop, the funnel and the dodger aft are modern excrescences.
A photo update ex Ken Rickett, who also advises she has been renamed Matahari.
Valencia, Aumoe & Ranoni 1948
I really like this image sent to me by Andrew Pollard the current guardian of Aumoe. Its such a great photo & if you look closely you will notice that the crews are a really mixed bag of men, young boys & women, I doubt you would get that in the 2013 event. The photo is of the opening day of the 1948 Whangarei Deep Sea Anglers Club. I wonder what the catch was like.
A understand that at the time of the photo Aumoe was owned by the Wilkinson family of Whangarei.
Harold Kidd Update
VALENCIA was then owned by E S Ralls. I’m not sure who built her and where. There were several Valencias around the coast as it was the name of a very popular song of the time. It would be good to get feedback on her (I suspect a c1928 name change). RANONI is easier, she was built by Charlie Gouk at Beaumont Street in the winter of 1911 for the Rushbrook brothers. In 1948 she was owned by O. Mann. The lovely AUMOE of course was built by Tom Le Huquet for F M P Brookfield of Brookfield Engineering in February 1913 and initially fitted with an Advance 30hp 4 stroke sleeve valve engine built by Brookfield Engineering which was still in use when replaced by A J Wilkinson of Whangarei when he bought her in the late 30s.
ROMANCE
Romance is the older and smaller sister of Romance II. She was built August 1914 by Bailey & Lowe for W.C. Mils of Devonport who replaced her with Romance II in 1919. Romance was 26ft oa and fitted with an ohv 4 cyl petrol engine. W.E. Utting owned her for many years after Mills.
She then went to Napier and was bought by Sydney Hole and was the Holes family boat for many years on Lake Taupo. Pictured is Ken Hole(Sydney’s son) and Belle Hole standing beside Romance)
In 2006 she was in charter on the lake.
photo ex Alan Good, words Harold Kidd & Alan Good.
