Category Archives: 28′>30′

Ocean Queen – A Peek Down Below

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OCEAN QUEEN – A Peek Down Below

Mid last month I ran a story on the Taupo based woody – Ocean Queen, most likely built by Joe Slattery in 1920. Nathan Herbert had spotted her at Lake Taupo with a 4-sale sign on her and commented on how stunning she looked.
I have since been contacted by her owner Paul Stewart and given a collection of photos of her interior. In Paul’s words – “she’s had a real spruce up, new Autex paint inside and out, anti-fouled, new varnish to the mast and boom, new duckboard, new raw water impeller, filters and oil. Polished up all the stainless fittings, removed and resealed some of the windows, new carpet, water tank clean and new hoses. new clears and covers. Last job is to make a new sail cover and then the boom can go back on”.
Paul commented that they use the sail often, it does a beautiful job of holding her steady on the wind and gives you another knot.
Paul still has the spare engine that came with the boat when he bought her.
As I mentioned previously at around $36k, if you are looking for an early 1900’s classic wooden launch – this woody has to be the buy of the year. So woodys, someone needs to buy Ocean Queen > then call Boat Haulage and arrange a pick up > then plonk her back in the Waitemata where she belongs 🙂
Read and see more of Ocean Queen at the links below.
 

Judges Bay + YC Italiano

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JUDGES BAY

This stunning photo of woodys hauled out at Judges Bay, Parnell, Auckland comes to us from Lew Redwood’s fb. While the year is unknown, given the quality of the photograph, we must be able to ID some of the woodys?
YACHT CLUB ITALIANO 
My youngest daughter is living the life in Europe at the moment and has instructions to send in boating photos, there are not a lot of woodys in this lot but OMG check out the location (Portofino)
They have just done what’s called ’Sail Croatia Week’, the photo of her on the wheel is the only one without a glass in her hand 🙂 Six females and two Aussies blokes on their yacht, how do you get odds like that?
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Three years b4 this, the middle child was in the same spot, but not staying in a hostel 🙂

Ocean Queen

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OCEAN QUEEN

The photos above of Ocean Queen were sent to me by Nathan Herbert and show her berthed on Lake Taupo.

Obliviously from the sign on her, she is for sale. From the photos and Nathans comments she is presented in mint condition and at $36k given her engine is all good, must be a steal. Someone needs to buy her and bring her to the Waitemata.
Harold Kidd has previously commented on WW that OCEAN QUEEN was most likely built by Joe Slattery in July 1920 for J.R. Blackwell of Tryphena. She was 29’x7’6″ and was finished off by Blackwell, rigged as a lug schooner and usually made passage backwards and forwards to the Barrier under sail and power. She was built very full for load carrying. HDK doesn’t know when the Blackwells sold her but thinks it was post WW2. J.R. died in 1941.
She was featured in the newspapers in July 1935 when she brought a badly injured Kauri Timber Co employee back to Auckland in a full SE gale, the worst conditions Blackwell had ever seen in 45 years’ experience of the Gulf.
You can see more photos of her here.   https://waitematawoodys.com/2015/01/14/10467/
Can anyone tell us more about the launch?
13-07-2019 Input below from Jonathon Aston
“Ocean queen was our family launch in the late 90’s, we use her almost every weekend for about 3 years going all over the gulf. We purchased her from pine harbour marina where she had been for sale for a couple of years, her long time owners had spend many years restoring her including re-fastnering the hull & fibreglassing the cabin sides & top but not long after she was relaunched the wife died & the husband couldn’t bring himself to use her due to all the memories they shared on Ocean Queen. We replace the original Fordson engine with a low hours 40hp replacement, reconditioned the injector pump & adjusted the amount of diesel so it became 60hp as the cylinder size was identical between the 40 & 60hp Fordson’s. We also replaced the cutlass bearings, installed a new s/s shaft & had the Paragon manual gearbox rebuild.
She was keep in the Tamaki river just beside the old panmure bridge marina but after a couple of incidents with kids throwing rock through a cabin window during the school holidays we moved her down to a swing mooring off the Panmure yacht & boating club. A year or so after that we sold her to Paul & his wife who moved her to Lake Taupo.
Regards the Aston Family.”
An Evening With John Street
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I went last night to the Auckland Maritime Museum to a very special evening hosted by John Street and MC’ed by Larry Paul. It was a night of conversation and Q&A set amongst the ‘One Man’s Treasures’ Fosters Collection. Brilliant evening, if you missed it you only have yourself to blame. I did however video most of it and will do a WW story/s soon.
COMING SOON – WW Caps
Product testing is underway 😉
Peek size appears about right i.e. keeping sun out of the keys.
Dark blue, 100% soft cotton, 6 panels, full adjustable sizing, WW logo triple stick embroidered.
WW JP

PIKO – A peek down below

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PIKO – A peek down below
Piko was built in 1924 by Collings & Bell and is 28’ in length, with a 6’ beam and she draws 2’.
Power is from a 2002, 18hp Volvo diesel.
Her current home is on Lake Rotoiti (Nth Is.) She has made numerous appearances on WW before as part of the annual Lake Rotoiti Classic and Wooden Boat Parade.
She has just popped up on trademe with a very realistic price of $15k, needs some TLC to the interior but nothing most of us couldn’t do.
Interested in hearing more about her past life i.e. has she always been on the lake and if not where has she been over the years.
Harold Kidd Input – PIKO was built in Parnell in September 1927, designed by and built under the supervision of H.N. Burgess, formerly boatbuilding in Judges Bay. Her first owner was J Bates. She had a Briscoe heavy duty engine. Bates kept her at Judges Bay. Not Collings & Bell.

Murray Deeble Input – She was on a mooring off Akarana prior to being transported to Tauranga/Rotoiti in the early 90’s

Istalena

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ISTALENA

Istalena

Can any one tell us about Istalena and what became of her?

Ken Rickett’s believes she may have been around 30’ in length and possibly a Carl Augustin design, possibly built in the late 1940’s > early 1950’s. And he recalls when he knew the boat it was powered by a Perkins Diesel. I know thats a lot of possibles & maybes – but thats how Ken rolls.
 
Below are Ken’s memories of Istalena from the 1950’s > !970’s  (edited a lot by AH) 
During this period, Istalena was owned by Gloria and Gordon Spencer, who lived aboard her much of the time in this period at Gt., Barrier Island.
They were very dedicated game fishing people and caught many game fish. Gloria had some record catches through the years.
Sadly Gordon passed away but she remained living on the boat. During this period she met Johnny Wray, who was living on his boat  the Waihape and they used to cruise in company in their respective boats.
The Spencer’s owned a Burmese cat that lived aboard and loved swimming and would jump into the water to try and catch sprats when a light was put over the side in the evening. They had a sugar sack hanging permanently over the stern of the boat, touching the water and the cat would simply jump in climb and out on the sack as it saw fit, and if they dared to go visiting on another boat without the cat, it would simply swim over. NOTE FOR RICK McCAY – you need this 😉
Apologises for the crappy photo – I suspect its a transfer from old movie footage.
NOTE: READ COMMENTS SECTION – LOTS OF DISCUSSION 

Mahurangi Regatta 2019 – Classic Wooden Boat Movie

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Mahurangi Regatta 2019 – Classic Wooden Boat Movie

The weather forecast is for a very average day today so I decided to share some serious eye candy with you. The video above comes to us from the very talented Roger Mills via his drone camera.
Once again Roger was out and about over the regatta weekend and captured some amazing classic woody footage.
I have to comment that it was very pleasing to see the classic woody launches featured, thank you Roger. All to often people forget there are more wooden motorboats afloat on the day than the stick and rag boys 🙂
Enjoy the video – its a goodie.
To view a high res / quality version of the movie – us the link below.

The Marine Photographer’s Eye, Benjamin Mendlowitz – OCH Video Featuring Kiwi Classic Wooden Boats

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The Marine Photographer’s Eye, Benjamin Mendlowitz – OCH Video Featuring Kiwi Classic Wooden Boats – The best photos of our fleet you will have ever seen!

Today’s story is rather special as the team at offcenterharbor.com have given waitematawoody readers access to their latest video that features woodys from this years Mahurangi Regatta. The OCH site contains over 500 videos (& 500 articles) that range from boatbuilding, to trimming sails, to a complete course on understanding every aspect of your marine diesel engine. There’s even a 42-part series on how to build a Caledonia Yawl camp cruiser. The collection of videos features mariners and craftspeople at the very top of the boating field, showing exactly how they do things, and which products they use in their work.

One of the OCH founders is Benjamin Mendlowitz who, in my eyes, is the worlds finest photographer of classic wooden boats, this January, Ben and his co-founders escaped the US winter and headed down under. Whilst in NZ their #1 mission was to attended the Mahurangi Regatta and to this end on the Saturday Jason Prew with My Girl & myself with Raindance hosted – Maynard Bray, Benjamin Mendlowitz & Steve Stone for a Regatta photo shoot.

In the 11 minute video, Ben talks us through his day on the water filming woodys. In the opening section when Ben is commenting on our classic fleet he says “I was newly inspired in my photography”. When a photographer with as much experience as Benjamin Mendlowitz says that – that is saying something about our woody fleet. Plus the video is a master class for anyone interested in marine photography.

CLICK THE LINK BELOW AND SIT BACK AND ENJOY + CHECK OUT THE COOL OCH OFFER BELOW

https://www.offcenterharbor.com/videos/marine-photographers-eye-benjamin-mendlowitz-in-new-zealand/ww190523

SPECIAL 50% OFF – LIMITED TIME OFFER

The OCH site is 100 percent membership driven, and they do not accept advertising. Not lining their pockets with advertising enables them to provide OCH members with the unvarnished truth, straight from legendary masters of their craft – without worrying whether they piss off an advertiser 🙂

In addition to allowing WW woodys to view the video at no-charge, they have also put together a one-off subscription offer for WW readers.

They are offering 50% off the annual rate – thats an amazing US$24.50 – BUT woodys be quick it will not last for long + there is a Risk Free Guarantee – try it for a few days, if your not happy they will provide you with a 100% refund. I’m a subscriber – I love the site, I have watched one story probably 10 times.

JUST CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO SUBSCRIBE  

https://www.offcenterharbor.com/join-now-2450-ww/

WHAT YOU GET:

  • FULL ACCESS to everything on the site for 1 full year (including our growing library of over 1,000 videos and articles)
  • Your membership includes three full “how-to-build” video series (80+ videos worth over $500 that you get free)
  • You can get your questions answered in the “comments” section under each video and article
  • Join our community of “off-center” boating enthusiasts around the world

 

 

Woody Mooching Around Mana Marina

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WOODY MOOCHING AROUND MANA MARINA

Dean Wright was recently reviewing his extensive photo library (he is a professional photographer) and found a file labelled ‘Mana Marina’ and sent it off to me asking if he had already sent it to me 🙂 my answer was no, so today we get to enjoy Deanand his camera mooching around Mana marina, Porirua, Wellington.

The photos we taken last year, no doubt at the start / end of one of his southern cruises.
The windy city woodys are not afraid to splash a bit of colour around when painting their boats 🙂
Enjoy
ps each to their own opinion – but I do like the lines of Ajax.

Mahino

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Mahino

MAHINO
 
In typical WW style we go from yesterdays story on Eileen Patrica with over 50 photos and the biggest viewing numbers in the last 6 weeks (strange fact – France was #1 overseas viewing country – never had that b4???) to todays story with 2 b/w photos 🙂
 

The launch above is Mahino and according to Malcolm Campbell who contacted me, she was built by Bailey & Lowe. When she was built is unknown but her specs are length – 28’6”, beam – 6’6” and draws 18”.

Malcolm’s grand father on his mothers side, Lestock Jenkins – brought the Mahino from a Bill Hamilton c.1919 at Waihi and used her on the Tauranga Harbour, Tanners Pt. & Kauri Pt. area. 
Mahino was taken by truck trailer to the Manukau Harbour in 1936, during the war years she was kept in a creek and in 1947 Lestock sold her to a new owner on the Auckland Harbour.
Mahino was powered by a Rugby engine.
Malcom is very keen to discover what became of Mahino, fingers crossed we can help him out.
Harold Kidd Input – Sounds like ORINI built by Bailey & Lowe in 1907 and sold to Matata and renamed after the NZ Hospital Ship MAHENO.

Mason B – Bay of Islands Woody Launching

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Mason B – Bay of Islands Woody Launching

 The caption on the photo / press clipping (ex Lew Redwood) reads “A new fishing launch takes the water from the builder’s shed. Mr W. Mason Bayly is the owner”

It was also tagged “Early preparations for the forthcoming dee-sea fishing season at Russell, North Auckland”
The date is August 1926.
Can we put a name to the boat, designer/builder, location?
Harold Kidd Input – She is MASON B, designed and built for W. Mason Bayly by Leon Warne and launched in August 1926 from Warne’s shed at Russell. She was30′ x 8’6″ and had a 30/40 hp Kermath. She replaced Bayly’s GISPA (ex-GLADYS).
Help Wanted
Any one have a base like the one circled below, tucked away anywhere? Or something similar. A woody friend has a spotlight but no matching base.  Any condition ok.
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