Category Archives: 1950’s

Ngaro Gets A Trip To The Beauty Parlour

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Ngaro Gets A Trip To The Beauty Parlour

Woody Olaf Wiig resides off shore these days but as the owner of the rather imposing 1953,Lidgard built 48′ woody – Ngaro as often as he can he hops on the big silver bird and returns home. Then slips the lines and heads out to enjoy the Hauraki Gulf and beyond.

Over winter Ngaro spent a couple of months in the shed at Robertsons yard having her cabin tops and varnish redone. It wasn’t all lipstick – a new water tank was installed + a major engine service and a full new suit of canvas.As I have commented before Bgaio is one of th few woodys that no matter what angel you approach her from, she looks perfect. Well done Olaf and Emma for the custodianship of Ngaro.

See / read more on Ngaro here https://waitematawoodys.com/2021/06/25/ngaro-a-sneak-peek-before-she-sells/

Waitematawoodys Burgee Poll Results

Short, clear message here – 92% Say Yes I need to get production underway. More details soon 😉

Classic Woody Summer Cruising – A Game Of Two Halves

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WOODYS AFLOAT

Classic Woody Summer Cruising – A Game Of Two Halves

Happy New Year Woodys – WW is back ‘live’ so no more oops boating photos 🙂

On Saturday when I was reviewing and editing the above photos I struggled to believe that we had a xmas/ny cruise, but as they say the truth is in the photos 🙂

I decided to break todays story into two parts:

1. Raindance related

2. Woodys Out & About 

Mostly from my camera but assisted by Barbara Cooke (Bay of Islands), Mark Edmonds (Waiheke), Russell Ward, Jason Prew (upper harbour) and Alan Gilder (Woody Bay Rakino)

Raindance’s cruise / tiki tour mainly consisted of bouncing between Rakino Island and Waiheke Island. Left on 27 Dec and the weather was just stunning with crystal clear, warm water. On 01 Jan the forecast was starting to look very average and most concerning was all 3 weather platforms that I follow were saying the same thing. So early morning on 02 Jan we made the call to up anchor and head home. Turns out that was a good call because for the next 5+ days if it wasn’t raining it was drizzling non-stop + ugly seas and high winds.

So woodys the second half of our planned cruise was sent at home enjoying good food, wine, movies and watching almost every wooden / classic boating video on YouTube.

Very grateful we had 6 days of great weather before we pulled the pin. As an old salt told me once – when it comes to happy family boating – better to have a handful of fabulous days than an abundance of average days – very sage advise.

Enjoy the gallery.

UPCOMING ON-THE-WATER WOODY EVENTS

Circle the calendar:

28 January – Mahurangi Regatta launch parade – more details closer to the day

25 February – Stillwater Picnic + Dockside Raft-Up – more details closer to the day

Classic Wooden Boats At Waikawa Marina

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Classic Wooden Boats At Waikawa Marina

Following on from last Mondays story where we shared Dean Wright’s recent Southern trip and a gallery of photos from the Havelock marina todays photo gallery comes to us from the Waikawa marina. Some stunning woodys and remember – click on photos to enlarge 😉

A lot of woodys that are new to WW and they will morph into WW stories in their own right.

Enjoy 🙂

13-12-2022 INPUT EX MARK MCLAUGHLIN

The big bridgedecker with 4 ports is RAHEMO (launched as Strathmore), built by Dick Lang.

Others I can positively identify are (from the top):

VECA (Arthur Sang)

VAGABOND (Joe Jukes)

?

?

?

RAHEMO/STRATHMORE (Dick Lang)

HUNTRESS (possibly McManaway designed/built?)

VARUA (Bob Swanson)

OSPREY (Harold Saunders)

PALOMINO (Bob Swanson)

TOANUI (Roger Carey)

Yacht ANNA JANE (?)

NUKUMEA (American “Bartender” design by George Calkins)

YVONNE (Bob Swanson)

PEARL (?)

Unknown fishing boat

KATOOMBA (Dorman Engineering, Nelson – not wood, built in Corten Steel!!)

Unknown (possibly Bruce Askew?)

CORYLUS (Bruce Askew)

TAREPO (launched TAREPA)

ARCTURUS (McGeady)

? (looks like a McManaway or Morgan fishing boat design?)

? (under the covers)

CRISTINA (Athol Burns)

PURUATANGA (launched as MARIANJO)

Most of these have featured previously on WW, so a quick look in the search bar will glean more details if interested.

Mystery Lake Okataina Launch – Can We Now Confirm Her ID

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Mystery Lake Okataina Launch – Can We Now Confirm Her ID

Back in February 2022 we ran a story, link below, on an unknown launch (2nd photo above) at an unknown location. At the time the location was ID’ed as Lake Okataina, Rotorua. The was a couple of potential ID’d on the launch from the two of the WW wise men 🙂

Harold Kidd suggested it may have been the bridgedecker – Merlin, owned by Beamish-White, that later went to Kawhia

Paul Drake was keen on her being the launch – Karina, that was in commercial service at Taupo in the 1960’s, owned by Jim Story.

Today thanks to Greg Philpott uncovering the top photo from the Archive NZ collection – taken by JG Duncan, we get a much better view of the launch, which was tagged 1951, Lake Okataina – so hopefully we can confirm her name and builder etc

Link to previous WW story https://waitematawoodys.com/2022/02/24/mystery-lake-launch-24-02-22/

Classic Wooden Boats At Havelock Marina

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Classic Wooden Boats At Havelock Marina

Back in late October 2022 Dean Wright was in Blenheim attending John Gander’s significant birthday, all birthdays are significant but the ones with ‘0’s’ in them are more significant.

While down south Dean did some marina mooching and todays photo gallery comes to us from the Havelock marina. Nice to see a couple of our bigger northern woodys now safely tucked way down south – Turongo and Durville. Sad to lose them from the Waitemata but if we were keeping score I think we win more than we lose 🙂

A lot of craft unknown to WW and will probably morph into WW stories in their own right. As always click on photos to enlarge.

Southern Woodys at Riwaka

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Southern Woodys at Riwaka

One of my southern woody spies – John Burland, has just has returned to NZ after summering over in Germany (he lives there, well at least in the northern summer).

Not long after unpacking the bags he was heading down to the Riwaka riverside marina, close to Motueka, Tasman. As the photos show the area is seriously tidal and John’s visit was at low water. 

While John commented that the photos were of the usual suspects, it always good to see what’s normally hidden.

In the photos we see Varlene getting some TLC, as an aside looking at the finish on Varlene’s rail and the tin – it looks like at last Cetol is an ok finish – used to be a horrendous orange/yellow colour, similar to what actor George Hamilton used to use as fake tan (photo below)

13-12-2022 UPDATE – ex John Burland – more photos below, and yes the tides still out 🙂

Southern Woody Speed Boat

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Southern Woody Speed Boat

Jason Prew is currently on a road trip tearing up the highways and backroads of the South Island. I was pleased to see he wasn’t totally engrossed in the world of 4×4, the above photos come to us from the Otago Settlers Museum. Link below

https://www.toituosm.com/#!home

The photos above are of a speed boat named Minx built in 1958 by Les Booth, Les also built the mini-me model in front. This would have caught Jason’s eye – he has a radio controlled model of his very quick classic launch – My Girl. Video of 1st run, prior to finishing below.

The Minx speed boat was originally powered by a Hillman Minx 4 cyl engine, but not long after launch this was replaced with a V8, must have been very quick.

Also another My Girl model – they are popular builds https://waitematawoodys.com/2020/02/27/my-girl-mini-me/

HOWS THE SHED CLEAN OUT GOING FOR THE WOODYS BOOT SALE ON NOV 26TH?

William Steer > Graham John > William Steer

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William Steer > Graham John > William Steer

The c.1950’s built launch William Steer has made a few cameo appearances on WW, but todays photos come to use from Hagan Parvin’s fb via John Dawson.

William Steer was built in Nelson by Don Calder and launch in 1961 at Motueka. At one stage her name was changed to Graham John, but has reverted back.

Believed to these days call Napier home.

Anyone able to enlighten us more her past.

Arethusa Aground on Farewell Spit

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Arethusa Aground on Farewell Spit

Regular readers of WW will be familiar with Bay of Islands photographer – Dean Wright and the stunning images he shares with us. Dean and partner Deb are the custodians of the classic woody – Arethusa, which has one of the best back stories of all the craft in your fleet. The 33’ Arethusa was built in 1917 by Bob Brown and started life as a gaff rigged cutter, 105 years later she has the features of a commercial ex work boat – but a very swish one 🙂 Link below that shows some of the transformation – and being such a looker she has made numerous WW appearance, but today we bring to light a somewhat unknown (to most of us) event in her life – I’ll let Dean do the intro to the above photo essay :- https://waitematawoodys.com/2020/09/07/arethusas-new-woody-wheelhouse/

“Deb and I were down south recently and did the Farewell Spit Bus trip. The tour operators were able to tell us approximately where Arethusa ran aground all those years ago (late December 1955). 

They dragged the boat to the other side of the Spit and relaunched her, about 1.2km’s. An excerpt from book at the Spit lighthouse keepers house: “She was sailing between New Plymouth and Nelson and the crew thought they were heading between the lights of Farewell Spit and Stephen’s Island when they ran aground. Obviously they mistook the light on Cape Farewell for that on the Spit, and, as the Cape Farewell light had only gone into operation in 1951, they may have been unaware of its existence.”

The press clipping above in the Christchurch Press ran the headline – ‘The Arethusa – A Total Loss’ – well they got that wrong – well done to everyone that invested the funds and time to help Arethusa become a centenarian. If anyone knows more detail of her time in the South Island, Deb and Dean would love to hear from you.

Rata Revisted

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RATA REVISITED

Last month (Oct 16th) we dd a story on the launch – Rata based around a Lew Redwood fb photo, then Ray Morey came on and embellished the story with lots more details  – link below to that story.

Next up Mark McLaughlin drops a note advising he had found the above photos in his late father’s collection, which Marks thinks would be from the 1950’s. He wondered if it could be the same boat? and commented that whether or not the boat is Rata, he was 99% certain it will be one of the Johnson’s mail boat fleet of which Rata also belonged to, operating from Havelock. Mark had heard his Dad mention Rata many times. I’ll let Mark tell the rest of the story – 

“The forward bulwark and twin masts are obviously missing here but the hull is a good match and the end of the aft lower belting lines up with the aft cabin porthole in the same location. The forward cabin appears shorter though in the Rata photos in the original post. 

Regardless, the photo underway is a great look back in time at how the commercial boys used to roll. The safety police would be having heart attacks if they saw that now. As per most of the Johnson’s mail boats of the time though, she looks like she has a good turn of speed (and nobody fell off).

Most of the clinker dinghies in Havelock at the time (like the one in the photo) where built there by Tom Hutchison out of Kahikatea. They were large and heavy but could take a good beating in day to day use.”

Mark also did a google search and uncovered the photo below of Rata from the ‘Johnson’s Barge Service’ website, showing her well laden with logs. This is an earlier photo of Rata but appears to support her being the same boat in Marks photos. The photo is tagged ‘1930’s – Rata was built by Eric and his brother Frank in Havelock. White pine for the construction was cut in the Nydia Bay by the Wells family’ 

LINK to Johnson Barge Service websitehttps://www.johnsonsbargeservice.co.nz/about-us/

So the question today that would be nice to confirm – is boat above the same boat that appeared in the Oct. 16th WW story https://waitematawoodys.com/2022/10/16/rata-3/