DOLLY AK1901

A bit of a sober story today, probably brought on by its Election Day in NZ and probably the biggest one in my (voting) life time. Most of the time WW is politics free, so I’ll bite my tongue today.

The photo above of the launch – Dolly comes to us from a fb post, via Ken Ricketts. It shows the early 1900’s 33’ launch – Dolly that was lost at sea in early December 1927. On board were owner/skipper Joseph Henery Maslam and crew Thomas Hook.

I have done some research and the story goes like this –

Maslam left his home town of Whangrei on November 14 with the intention of buying a small fishing launch and returning to Whangarei, the launched purchased was Dolly.

About November 18  he engaged Hook to work for him as a fisherman, on the same day Maslam had the Customs Dept. inspect the launch and confirm the Marine Dept. fishing license number AK1901 was painted on the side of Dolly. The departed Auckland on November 22, heading to Little Barrier to fish, and the intention was to take the catch to Whangarei. The departure date was confirmed in a telegraph that Hook sent this wife on November 22.

On December 3 a fisherman named Matthew Janovich, owner of a launch named  Busy Bee, who sited Dolly that night in Nelson Bay, Kawau Island. At the time in a conversation with one of the men he was told Dolly had been fishing for Hapuka. When Busy Bee left the bay the next morning, Dolly was still there. Janovich is on record stating that there was a strong southerly gale for a couple of days after he had seen Dolly, the weather compelled Janovich to return to Auckland.

Dolly was not sighted again and a hearing in Auckland Magistrates Court found that Dolly was lost at sea on or about December 5.

(Thanks to Sun Newspaper – December 8 1927 and the Northern Advocate = 31 May 1828 for intel)

Question of the day – do we know who designed / built Dolly and when she was launch – she was 33’ x 9’ x 3’ – and possibly powered by twin engines