Faith is a well travelled old girl, originally built by Phil as his own boat for commercial fishing out of Whangaparoa, Auckland. She later went to Northland then to Dunedin, South Island (Port Chamlers & Carey Bay). Then up to the Marlborough Sounds. These days she resides in Picton.
Forward propulsion is via a 38hp Nanni diesel engine that gives her a cruise speed of 6.5 knots.
OPANUI – A Peek Down Below + Woody Lunch Cruise Details
Todays woody sedan launch – Opanui, was designed and built in 1964 by Phil Lang for Robert Chamberlain of Chamberlain Island (now Ponui } , Built to tow barges up to 70′ long around the Hauraki gulf she is an incredibly strong boat, made from 1 1/4 inch strip planked kauri.She is approx 38′ long with a 10’6″ beam & 3’6” draft. Her original 6 cylinder 130 HP Perkins diesel 6354 still powers her and cruises at a comfortable 6>7 knots. Thanks to Ian McDonald spotting a tme listing we get to have good look at Opanui. From the listing she appears to be well maintained and well fitted out for cruising.Current home is the Bay of Islands.
CLASSIC WOODY LAUNCH CRUISE & CATCH UP AT RIVERHEAD HOTEL After the brilliant (but long over due) summer we have had so far this season it will be great to get together to a catch up and swap cruising tales. So its time for a lunch cruise to the Riverhead Tavern – Saturday 16th March. Details below –
RSVP to waitematawoodys@gmail.com with boat name and approx. crew numbers. DATE: Saturday 16th March TIME: Meeting at Lucas Creek area at 11am. Arriving hotel at 11.30am TIDE: HW @ 1pm – 3.3m Looking forward to catching up 🙂
During the week I was sent the above photos of the 49’ launch – Jocelyn by Robert Ross. The photos date back to c.early1970’s and are from when Jocelyn was owned by Sir Willian Stevenson.
Robert commented that he went fishing a number of times with Sir William out of Whitianga. Robert thought then the boat was ahead of its time and she always attracted a lot of attention.
Jocelyn was reputedly a Hacker USA design, built / launched in 1967/68 by the boatbuilder Brin Wilson. In the photos below – the ist three photos sees her at the 2016 Mahurangi Regatta. The last photo is more recent and was taken in August 2023 when she was hauled out at Half Moon Bay marina for some TLC. Link here to a 2017 WW story where Hamish Moore (great grandson of Sir William) provided a wonderful insight into the history of Jocelyn. https://waitematawoodys.com/2017/01/28/the-history-of-mv-jocelyn/
The annual Lake Rotoiti Classic & Wooden Boat Parade always attracts a good turn out of the Albatross speed boats, but at last weekends parade we had the biggest turnout in one spot in the Southern Hemisphere. Read below for the local (Lake Rotoiti) on the craft – as told by Richard Stevens.
“Campbell Motors (Queen St Auckland) were the NZ agents. The Beamish-White family at Okataina Lodge had a fleet as “Drive U-Self” hire boats, including a 4-seater with Coventry Climax version of the engine and one of the two seaters had a factory alloy-framed full height 4-pane glass windscreen. They also had a set of hull jigs and did all their own maintenance on site including re- skinning. These boats took a hammering and were eventually replaced by outboard-powered craft. Les Warner ran a small hire fleet from his home at Hinehopu. (I recall as a kid seeing one as a crumpled mess after crashing into the jetty at speed.) There was also a hire fleet on the Rotorua lakefront. These were painted red. One allegedly sank and was never recovered. There was also a fleet at Queenstown. These may have been the remnants of the Rotorua hire fleet. The boat in these fleets may be double-ups. I do not know how many boats there actually were in total. In addition to the Stevensons and ours there were two more on the Lake during the ’60s. One was the Annabel family, the other the McDonalds. (I saw their boat in Auckland a few years ago, complete and painted black)
These boats are the MG Midget of the water. They don’t have excessive power in their standard format, but they are fast, nimble, well designed and beautifully built with excellent handling. They are simple, cheap to run, easy to maintain and, above all, great fun.
These boats have held classic status worldwide for many years now and are highly collectible. It is pleasing to see that they are acknowledged on Rotoiti as part of our boating history.
Addition: Alan Clark owned one here at Lake Rotoiti in the 1950’s.
Addition: Don Wykes and his brother purchased the Rotorua Lakefront business from Judd & Jean Davies in the 70’s. It had the launch Ngaroto (the Davies had this built in England) that took people out to Mokoia Island and had 3 Albatross hire boats: 2x 2 seaters and 1x 4 seater. They were painted Red.
He is able to confirm that one of the 2 seaters sank just short of Mokoia Island, when his worker was heading over to mow the grass. They put a buoy over the oil slick, but when they went back to retrieve it someone had moved the buoy. They sent down 2 divers but were never able to locate it, the water was too murky. He doesn’t recall who he sold the others to, but remembers one of their workers bought one and put a bigger motor in it, a 105 he thinks. “
Below is a gallery of the Albatross craft that participated in the parade – as always click on photos to enlarge. Also scroll down to view yesterdays WW story – 200+ classic and wooden boat photos from the 2024 Lake Rotoiti Classic & Wooden Boat Parade.
Wow what a weekend , stunning weather, so many classic woody boats and as always at Lake Rotoiti – nice people.
Left Auckland at 5.30am to drive down – have to say the new Waikato expressway is so fast BUT so boring as a drive.
Arrived at my hosts Dave and Glenys Wilson lake front residence and collected the on-the-water transport for the day. Had a nice surprise in that the boat came with a skipper – local boatbuilder Alan Craig (Craig Marine) who over the last 10 years has rubbed up against most of the craft floating on the lake. This made my boat buddy – cabin boy, Grant Gibbs redundant but he accepted the demotion to #1 lackey.
After recent parade weekends have been effected by CV19 and weather bombs everyone was hanging out for a special day afloat and we got it in spades.
Todays photo gallery is loosely broken into 3 sections – Mooching About / Parade / Picnic.
Enjoy – if I missed your boat – sorry, next year. Tomorrow I will do a story on the Albatross runabouts that were a major part of the parade – I believe the biggest turnout in the Southern Hemisphere.
A couple of videos below.
REMEMBER – CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE
09-02-2024 UPDATE – Video of the fleet at the Picnic
On Monday of Auckland’s Anniversary Weekend I joined a very small club – boaties that have legally exceeded 20 knots in Auckland’s inner harbour. Probably only Deodar (police launch), Coastguard and the Harbour Master would be in the club. As part of the anniversary day regatta Jason Prew organises an around the buoys race for classic launches. The event has the most entrants of any event on the day. The Harbour Master waves the normal 12 knot speed limit and even provides an escort around the course.
This year I was invited aboard Jason Prew’s xxxx launch – MY GIRL for the race. The conditions were very average SW18>23 knots , gusting 28 knots, bad enough to keep most of the classic yacht fleet tucked up in her berths for the day.
At the bang of the start gun My Girl took the lead and we never looked back – at the 1st mark we were 58 sec ahead of the next boat (Paikea) and just kept pulling away. Crossed the finish line doing 22.9 knots, that woodys is very fast. The foiling kite surfer that miscalculated our speed probably needed a change of wet suit pants 🙂
My Girl is powered by a Volvo 150hp 4cyl. turbo diesel engine that in another life powered a Queenstown jet boat . Mr Prew has tweaked it ‘a little’ – video of engine at idle and proof of speed 🙂 Note – there is no engine box /cover 🙂
Results
Across the line – 1. My Girl, 2. Paikea, 3. Lucinda
Handicap – 1.Waikaro, 2. Lucinda, 3. St Clair
Entrants – My Girl, Paikea, Lucinda, Rehia, Ngaio, Waikaro, St Clair, Juanita, Meola, Marihi, Vanessa, Jeunesse
TUG/WORK BOAT RACING
The 2nd biggest event in terms of numbers is the highly popular tug/work boat race. Photos below.
As regular readers of the waitematawoodys site know the last weekend of January is always a biggie on the wooden boating calendar. The Mahurangi Cruising Club year-on-year pull off the biggest wooden boating event in New Zealand – {the} Mahurangi Regatta. If you type that into the WW search box your day will be ruined – hundreds of classic wooden boating photos.
I’ll apologise upfront for the lack of sailing photos – these days there are a lot of other happy-snappers recording the racing – when and if I get photos or links, I’ll add them to the story.
It was a sub 24hr up and back trip to Mahurangi – I had an important family event that I have been dodging for years, and this year the message was – “be here” 🙂
I came away from Mahurangi feeling very upbeat for the health of the classic wooden motor boat movement – there was in excess of 50 classic woodys in the Mahurangi Harbour and from that fleet 32 skippers participated in the classic woody launch parade. A record turnout, so I say thank you those that took part and specially those that dressed their craft.
I was particularly heartened to see the return of several craft that had drifted away from the scene due to relocations, long tern refits and frustration with the community. Of note was Florance Dawn, Kumi and Raiona.
People linked to the supposedly organisation of the the parade (I’m not talking about the MCC) need to wake up to the contribution that the classic launches make to the event – 50+ craft is a mighty powerful visual vista. So fingers crossed the housekeeping improves to ensure the loyalist keep turning up.
After the speed bumps at the start, the parade got underway and a good time was had by the skippers, crews and spectators afloat and ashore at Sullivans Bay.
Enjoy the gallery of photos – some (most) boats appear twice, some I’m sure missed the camera, can’t be everywhere:-) Thanks to Steve Horsley for the photo of Raindance and Murray Deeble for the race start photo.
As always click on photos to enlarge 😉
A reward – first woody to tell me which boat in the above photos has the largest WW flag – wins a normal size WW burgee – enter at waitematawoodys@gmail.com
The 57’ ex Bay of Islands ferry – Bay Belle recently topped up on tme (thanks Ian McDonald) – had to tell without viewing but a little pricey but 10 young woodys could have a lot of fun with this semi permanently moored some where. Its got party boat tattooed all over it.
Built in 1960, kauri construction, by the Deeming Bros, she has seen a lot of water pass under her as she has serviced the B.O.I.’s
There is a 150hp 6cyl. Gardner diesel tucked away on her, so that must enhance the value
SUZI Q > EMILY M – Could Be A Perfect Lake Day Boat
The 27’ 1960 built launch – Emily M recently popped up on tme (thanks Ian McDonald).
Her owner believes she was built by Lanes of Totara North, but we all know how frequently that name is attached to wooden craft 🙂
Forward motion is via a 80hp Ford diesel. Looks like she needs some TLC to the interior but a very salty looking craft that could easily be returned to looking smart again.
In a previous life she was named Suzi Q and worked as a commercial snapper long-liner out of Whangamata in the 1970’s.
I talk often on WW about some classic woodys being lucky in terms of their owners over the years – the 1963 Claude Smith 30′, E-Class yacht – Elusive (E75) is one such craft, enjoying 33 years of continuous ownership.
Elusive was designed and built by Allen Smith at his boatyard on Riverside Drive in Whangarei , Northland as his own yacht She was a very successful yacht in her first season winning many races, in fact probably every race entered.
• OYC 100 and 150 mile races • The White Island race • Balokovic Cup • 4th in The Noumea race
Her builder once told her owner, Alan Turner, that she was built with the “surplus” timber in their yard and is mostly full length kauri and has three bilge stringers instead of the usual one. As a result she is very strong and has had 2 pot paint to the topsides for the last 25 years and was repainted circa 5 years ago.
Her keel was dropped and bolts checked at the same time. The stern tube was replaced with fiber-glass c.10 years ago and a new Blue Water seal is about to be fitted
When required forward motion is via a Ford 15hp diesel engine. She sports an extensive wardrobe of North Sails in good condition – main, No1, No2, Storm jib and spinnaker plus a cockpit tent and sunshade (cockpit is 6′ long). Toilet is near new and holding tank fitted. Electric windlass and chain.
Talking with Alan he commented that with her mainly paint finish she is very economical to maintain.
Elusive is for sale and when I asked Alan what her strong points were he said – very easy to sail and strong as and doesn’t have any vices. She did the Noumea race in the 1960’s and is great at sea. She is a great little ship for a mature couple wanting an easy ship to manage and maintain. Her marina berth at Half Moon Bay will be available to rent and with a first right of refusal when up for sale.
Alan is happy to answer any questions, in the first instance contact via email. xpdxrd@gmail.com
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