Raindance on-route to the CYA launch lunch at the Riverhead Hotel 19/05/13. Filmed by Jason Prew (iPhone)
Mothers Day
ALCESTIS
Today is all about mums, past & present + families. What better photo to remind us about family life than the one above taken during the Guthrie family 1931/2 Xmas / NY Northland cruise on their launch Alcestis.
Over the next few days I will post some stunning photos of Alcestis (now Raiona), Lady Margaret & Shenandoah cruising around the far north.
Enjoy today.
special thanks to Graham Guthrie for sharing his grandparents photos
Pretty Boats Luana
People often ask me why photos of the same boats keep appearing across all the media. The answer is simple, the more attractive to the eye a boat is, the more photos have been taken. This is particularly true in the days before digital cameras when developing & printing a photo was relatively expensive – so people only took photos of pretty boat or boats in trouble (on the rocks).
If your boat was drop dead gorgeous, people even painted it.
I was sent a photo of the painting above of Luana by Brian Worthington who in his words ‘was going thru a cupboard at the fishing club and found this broken glass print of Luana It used to be on the wall in the bar at Mayor island when the fishing club was based out there’.
Lady Margaret (Colin Wild) Story
Built in 1929, by Chas. Bailey & Son for Mr H R Jenkins, who did well making rubber products for the milking industry. She has had a few additions since then 😦
She had Cummins diesel when new.
The early pic is scanned from the book by Jenkins’s daughter. The other pic is a wartime Navy pic.
Brooke & Co
KARAMANA
She was built as KARAMANA for F.B. Cadman in 1923 by Bailey & Lowe to a design by Hacker. KARAMANA = CADMAN in pig maori.
She was later bought by Auckland Grammar School teacher P A S Stein and rebuilt as per the pic below. She was fitted with a war surplus 6 cyl Green sohc aero engine producing 120-140bhp, bore 5.5 ins, stroke 6 ins (you work out the capacity). She was pretty radical, a far cry from her current. configuration.
Waitangi
RUAMANO
Another of those very special parts of our history & heritage & part of the group that could perhaps include vessels such as LINDA, LADY GAY, WIRIHANA, RAIONA, etc., She was built for the Court family of John Courts Ltd major department store owners in Queen St Auck, in the late 1920 or early 1930s. was 46 ft long, & was sadly lost at sea, off the West Coast post 2000, by the owners of the day, who abandoned her at sea during a circumnavigation attempt around NZ, which she had previously completed once before, in her earlier days,. They left, in inappropriate conditions, struck high seas off the West Coast of the North Island, were taken off by a merchant vessel in the area, & they abandoned her with the engine running, & left her to founder ( she was seen a few days later by another merchant vessel still with the engine idling) — very sad ending for a very beautiful lady.
When built she had 2 Redwing Petrol engines which were replaced about 1947 with a single Graymarine 6-71 diesel, a 2 cycle diesel engine, — virtually a GM Detroit, marinised by Graymarine, which she had until her demise.
During the mid 40s she had her original dodger replaced with the beautiful stainless steel dodger which she has in the pic, which must have cost a fortune, but suited her very well. I only ever saw her once with her original dodger & have known her since 1946. I took the pic in Matiatia in 1949 She belonged to Jim Luke of the Claude Neon Lights Ltd family, of Glendowie whom I knew, in the later 40s & 50s.
Story & photo supplied by Ken Ricketts
NOTE: In a later posting of waitmatawoodys I will expand on the ill fated circumnavigation story. alan h
