Another photo sent in by John Dawson – to some of the WW workboat group the answer to ’Name the boat’ is probably very easy. Not for me however – things that help –
• 1st three letters of the name are – MAN
• home port is shown as Whangarei
• lack of varnish suggests a workboat
• style suggests pilot boat• funnel may have the letters WHB on it > Whangarei Harbour Board
I had cause to spend sometime last week/end in Queenstown and made the effort to take a ‘cruise’ across Lake Whakatipu on the 1912 built coal fired steamer – TSS Earnslaw. I have visited Queenstown a lot in the past but mainly for business related events and was always running to a tight agenda – not so this trip.
A wedding invitation was the excuse for a visit, so while the rest of the family went for a long walk I boarded the ship, at nearly 160’ in length she is a ship.
Trip included a brief stop at the Walter Peak farm – a very impressive looking complex.
The conditions were perfect and woodys I would encourage you to do it if you are down that way. Enjoy the photo gallery.
And the wedding was a stunner – the best of everything – people, venue, food, wine and music. I think I danced more in one night than in the last 20 years, hopefully no one was filming 🙂
Todays woody is the launch – Linora, built in Fairle, Canterbury, in the South Island by Guard & Cuthill. She was built for a R W Butcher of Auckland. In the above photo we see her being transported down Stafford St in Timaru, no doubt on route to launching.
The inland town of Faire may seem an odd place for a boatbuilding yard but in 1970 Dick Guard and Graham Cuthill commenced business there in an old ammunition factory. Initially building small row boats, at 60’ The Linora was the largest they built. In total the yard built 10 launches and over 130 row boats.
Thanks to Peter Grant for sending in the press clipping / photo of the story that was penned by Dick Guard.
Do we know what became of the Linora – rather a large woody to ‘disappear’
INPUT ex NATHAN HERBERT – photo below from NH show that Linora sent time as a fishing charter boat out of Auckland, named Florence Kennedy II (images are from archives nz and akl libraries)
10-03-2024 UPDATE: I suspect that we have ‘merged’ two boats into one. Greg Philpott has advised that Florence Kennedy was built for Len Sowerty and named after his wife.
The Lenora was built for a Mr. R W Butcher as mentioned in the article below.
ONE WEEK TO THE CLASSIC WOODY LUNCH CRUISE TO THE RIVERHEAD WATERFRONT TAVERN – RSVP TODAY
Slight change of format today. Normally we do one big gallery of event photos, but the 2024 Auckland Wooden Boat Festival deserves two stories – why? Well in the eyes os of the woodys I spoke to, the off-the-water (in the shed) exhibition was on equal footing to the exhibition afloat. So woodys come back tomorrow to see the off-the-water gallery, you won’t be disappointed.
From my mooching the #1 feedback I got was ‘where do they all come from’ i.e. people have never seen this number of classic wooden boats together #2 (from owners) was ‘it is so great to meet all the owners / caretakers’. I think a lot of people were quietly hoping their partners were thinking “there are other zany people out there, my partner isn’t the only eccentric old boat nut in town”.
For a three day outdoor event in Auckland we were gifted to have two (Fri/Sat) days of amazing weather, Sunday was a on/off rain day but it didn’t seem to slow down the people. I believe over 8,000 people were counted thru the dock-gate (it was free entry).
The photos tell the story today – its takes a lot of people to pull something like this off, so well done to all those that rubbed up against the show and well done Tony and team for pulling it all together.
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
CLASSIC WOODYS CRUISING THE HAURAKI GULF – SUMMER 2023/24
Now todays post is the one you have been waiting on – the classic wooden (mostly) craft that I spotted around the Hauraki Gulf over the Dec 27 > Jan 5th period.
Probably the best turn out of woodys that I have seen – seems it just wasn’t me suffering from cabin fever 🙂
As always some photos are good, some not so good – direction of sun and distance dictates that. Mostly I’m taking photos as a visual account.
Enjoy the gallery – broken into locations – I have endeavoured to list the craft in the tagged section.
Todays woody is rather a large craft , built in 2005 for coastal and off-shore cruising – the log book includes Alaska, Marianas and Port Ross (NZ Sub-Antartic). Built via cold moulded timber and f/glassed and kitted out with all the gear for extended cruising.
Power is from a 240hp Volvo Penta 70 series diesel that sips 8L an hour, combine that with a 5,000L fuel take thats an impressive range.
Unfortunately we do not have a name – her tme (thanks Ian McDonald) didn’t mention that 😦 Its named Maia and she was built in Tauranga by Aquatic Solutions
Todays 51’ woody – Smoke & Mirrors, made a cameo appearance on WW back in Oct 2017 (link below) – then she was named – Christopher Grey and both Nathan Herbert and Russell Ward supplied photos. Thanks to a tme listing (ex Ian McDonald) we get to have a peek below decks.
Designed and built by Millar & Tunnage in 1964 she started life as a commercial fishing boat based in the bottom half of NZ and after 20 odd years as a trawler and crawfishing workboat was converted to pleasure use. In her ’new’ configuration she went north and was available for charter out of Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour. She then returned south to her home town of Port Chalmers.
A 175hp Gardner engine provides her forward propulsion.
A very salty woody that make a very comfortable live-aboard, particularly with that large galley stove 🙂
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