FANTASY SOS – Sailing Sunday On Friday I received a heads up about the 30’ yacht – Fantasy, lofted by a Bill Spence, a Sheltans Islander and built in the Pattersons yard, St Aspeh Street, Christchurch c.1948. Her planked hull is Oregon and post launching her keel was moulded in the sand at Brighton Beach, try and get away with that today 🙂 Fantasy’s owners have had her for 40 years and sadly have made the decision to pass the yacht onto a new owner who will undertake the work required.Fantasy was accidentally sunk in Port of Terakoe and an exhausting legal battle followed, her owners do not have what it takes to begin the refit.
Her solid rimu interior is still in excellent condition and beautiful. As shown in the above photos, Fantasy is now in a cradle at the owners property in Golden Bay, Nelson and they would like her to go to someone who is able to restore her.
Fantasy has a great back story, having sailed in the Centennial race which resulted in New Zealand’s greatest yachting disaster, the owners have a lot of information and records relating to this, including Fantsy’s log of that race. The asking price on tme is $1 so there must be a woody out there looking for a project.
VICTORIA CLASSIC BOAT FESTIVAL – Vancouver – Dockside Tour
Last week we had a story about Peter Knowles and his travel to the Victoria Wooden Boat Festival vis his v-blog ‘Boat Life – Travels With Geordie’. Peter very briefly showed us some of the craft arriving – today we get a dock-side wander, complete with captions for the classic woodys.
I hope the people at Auckland’s maritime museum see this video – re their upcoming Auckland wooden boat festival next year. The stand out observation is the mix of yachts + launches + work boats + small craft – it is all mixed in together and thats what works all around the world – not rocket science……………..
INPUT ex Neil Chalmers – Great video , at 2 56 there is the NZ yacht ‘Two Sisters’ (was sail no. F3) . Has a Woollacott look about her. I often wondered where she got to .
A picture of her at Bon Accord Kawau appears in the ‘Cruising in NZ Waters’ by GR Paul (below). This was the go to book in the 1960’s before to the RAYC Cruising Guide was published.
REMEMBER BOAT BOAT SALE 11am SATURDAY @ MILFORD SLIPWAY – 5 OMANA ROAD, MILFORD $BRING CASH$WW MERCHANDISE FOR SALE
21-09-2023 UPDATE – Can now show what the day was all about. A fashion shoot for the new WORKING STYLE summer range – click this link to view video from the day https://www.workingstyle.co.nz/
Also below more images from the day (click to enlarge)
It’s A Tough Job But Someone Has To Do It
All week we were scanning all the weather apps looking for that ‘magic’ day to schedule a fashion photo shoot afloat. The 1947 Colin Wild built motor launch – Lady Crossley was on stand-by, all buffed up from her recent round of TLC in Opua in the far north. The model was flying in from the UK so come Tuesday the call was made for Friday, and what a call – best day of the year – blue sky, flat seas, norther boats in the bay and the prefect light for photography.
Come 6am skipper Jamie Hudson and myself were drying LC off and at 7am we were heading to West Bay at Rakino Island.
I’ll let the photos tell the story but Lady Crossley was the perfect catwalk for the shoot.
Abalone was originally built for the New Zealand Army in 1943 and named Nissan. After WW2, the Tourist and Publicity Department obtained the boat in 1949 and she was placed into service initially on Lake Tarawera and later on Lake Rotomahana and eventually renamed Manuwai.
In the late 1950’s the boat was sold to Ces Jack in Tauranga who undertook a four year rebuild. On relaunching the boat was renamed Abalone and became a deep-sea fishing launch, owned and operated by Ces Jack and later owned by Ian Clunie. She was relocated to Auckland, where during a violent Auckland storm in1983 she smashed on rocks in Hobson Bay. Repair work after the storm was undertaken by Nealy Craft – anyone know who that is or was? She was eventually repaired and placed back to work as a charter boat by Jim Insley.
Abalone was purchased by journalist Warren Berryman and his wife Helen Vause in 1987 and they used the boat for family excursions out around the Hauraki Gulf; as well as occasional fishing and dive charters. Every summer from 1987 until 2004, Abalone went north to the Bay of Islands and then often on to Whangaroa.
Abalone was sold after Berryman’s death in 2004.
Abalone is a fairly distinctive boat so hopefully someone recognises her and can help advise who purchased her in 2004 and where she is today.
Story and photos above ex Greg Philpott.
INPUT ex Mark McLaughlin – About 10 years ago Abalone was on a private pole mooring on the Tamaki River, near the Panmure Bridge. She sank on her mooring. I don’t know if she was restored or scrapped after that but she was under water for quite a while IIRC. Photo below of the location of where she sank – nearest launch to the building.
14-09-2023 UPDATE ex Ray Morey – photos below of Abalone from her re launch 1962. The view of her as original from NZTourist Corp guise is unusual. Note the black top (soot band) on the pipe exhaust.
Sick Of Getting Socks For Fathers Day
This year grab the reins and tell the family what you really want. Today is the un-offical launch of the new waitematawoodys burgee – a long time in the making but I picked the first batch up yesterday. I’ll do a longer story on them later but the quick over view is – 100% canvas, printed 2 sides with the Waitemata Woodys logo using old-school screen printing methods = long lasting. Size is 40cm x 30cm. Sorry about the bad mast photo, no wind yesterday -:) See flyer below – Burgees are $40, caps $38. P&P is $7 – Buy both and WW will pay the P&P. Email orders to waitematawoodys@gmail.com with your address and we will send them off and let you know payment details etc.
Waimana had the best possible start in life – built at the Percy Vos yard in 1943 as a 51’ seine trawler for Sanford Fisheries (AK77). At one stage post launching she was set to be requisitioned by the US Army for war use in Noumea, New Caledonia, but this cancelled.
Built from single skin 1.5” kauri planks over double hardwood frames, she weighed approx. 35 tonnes.
Powered by a Gardner 6L3B diesel (not sure if original) .
Fast forward to the 1980’s and Waimana was converted to pleasure use and these days has a very homely fit-out. But still very well spec’ed for cruising.
Originally for sale for c.$110k, its a deceased estate sale and the new tme listing (thanks Ian McDonald) is $60k – that woodys is very low entry into a 6 >10 bed apartment.
Today thanks to Dean Wright we get to wander the docks at Tutukaka marina and point the lens towards the Ngunguru River.
It was a slow day yesterday so I have done the hard work for you i.e. you will find links to previous WW stories on the boats that have appeared on WW in the past. Links found in the title section under each photo – enjoy 🙂
And if you can tell us more about the unknown boats e.g. there provenance, that would be great. If you haven’t come to grips with using the comments section – just send an email to waitematawoodys@gmail.com
2023 Thames Traditional Boat Festival + Woody Kawau Long Weekend
Following on from Sundays story on Olaf Wiig’s slipper launch – Vega, todays photos comes to us from Olaf who attended the Thames traditional boat festival in his slipper launch.
There is an awful lot of varnish on display and the attention to detail is spot on. The festival is on my bucket list. Olaf commented that this years festival didn’t have the usual sparkling weather but there was still plenty of varnish on display. He focused the camera on some of the interesting smaller boats.
There are a few woody events coming up as we enter spring > summer, but I wanted to highlight the plan for Labour weekend (October 21>23). If your anything like me this year has been a non event in terms of over nighting on the boat, so lets all try and make Labour weekend special.
As a bonus the Kawau Boating Club will be re-opening that weekend after a refurbishment, if your not a member I encourage you to join, the club needs help to continue to operate as a haven in the gulf.
Ps you don’t have to be a KBC to enjoy the weekend.
More details closer and pre-xmas event dates below.
Chatting online last week with Laurie Jury from Blair Boats and he commented that currently had at the yard a yacht named – Taioma that was built by the Lidgard Bros. in 1948, Laurie understands she was probably designed by Fred Lidgard.
Taioma ended up on the rocks in the Bay of Islands and was rescued from being scrapped.
The original plans were for Blair Boats to spline and fiberglass her (she is also carvel planked kauri) for the gent that ’saved’ her. So far the yard have removed the interior and repaired most of the broken ribs (about 20 of them) , scraped off all the paint and started to clean out the joins in the planks ready to spline. Laurie advised that unfortunately her owner now has other commitments and the boat is now looking for a new custodian to take on the project.
Recently I was sent a link to an article that appeared in the New Zealand Geographic magazine back in 2000 – in fact issue 45 , Jan-March. The article was headlined – GRACE UNDER FIRE, written by Vaughan Yarwood with supporting photos from the late Henry Winkelmann and more recent photos ex Hamish Ross and Paul Gillbert.
The stars of the article is the 42’ 1908 Logan built gaff rigged cutter – Rawene, and her then skipper Russell Brooke.
This is a brilliant insight into the early days of boating in and around Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour, I’m sure there will be some mix ups re dates, skipper/craft names but overall we get to see and read the history of these magnificent craft, a lot of which are still sailing today.
Have a read, its only 10>15 minutes, longer if if you linger over the photos 🙂 – even a die-hard motorboat owner like myself found it a fascinating read.
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