Every so often we get approach to find new custodians for woody craft, mostly it is a pile of firewood but sometimes its gold.
Woody Alistair McRae) owner of Lady Margaret (ex Lady Mary, ex Happy Wanderer) contacted me regarding a 23’ classic open day boat that has been stored under a cover in one of his sheds for a number of years.
Not a lot is known about her past but the exterior of the hull planking has been scraped and pretty much all paint has been removed. The interior and deck has been rebuilt to what appears to be a high standard. There is no motor, steering or wiring. Her beam is 6’9”. With a nice small Yanmar fitted she would be a perfect lake boat or Bay of Islands picnic boat.
All of the hard (and expensive) work has been done – I understand the owner is looking for a buy price of $5,500 – that woodys is a bargain. Buy her, pop in storage until winter, and relaunch in Spring.
I would be amazed if Cam from {the} Slipway Milford doesn’t snap her up, perfect wet day inside work for the team 🙂
Circle Saturday 24th Feb in the diary – the Te Atatu Boating Club are hosting a yard sale – full details in the poster below. Come along and grab a bargain to book a spot to sell your stuff.
At the recent Lake Rotoiti Classic & Wooden Boat weekend I was asked about the woody that has been ‘parked’ in front of a property near Kaiwaka – as long as I can remember, well as long as I have been interested in woodys boats. She has sat in that same spot slowly decomposing, Im sure her owner would tell you its a work-in progress but…………….
The craft is visible from the main road, on the right hand side heading north.
Can anyone ID her for us
INPUT FROM PREVIOUS OWNER (Terry) – She is a Harley Black Marlin design, name was Aljo (spelling could be wrong) when I owned her back in the mid 70s.I think she has had a name change .She is battern carvel construction.I brought her in Tauranga but I believe she was from Whakatane after my ownership she moved to Clevedon river for many years, them moved north to the Bay,Last time I saw her in the water was in the Mangawhai river a long time ago.
I22-02-2023 NPUT ex BARBARA BUSET –
Well, would you believe it, I think I was the previous owner of this boat, before it was left there on the side of the road, must be coming up to 20 years now!!
It was known as Alijo when my ex-husband and I bought it in the 90’s. We re-named it Bartab and spent thousands doing it up. The first thing we did was have it parked on our front lawn at One Tree Point giving it a complete repaint. All the squabs and curtains were remade and she looked a picture. The shower/toilet was rebuilt and the engine had major work done on it, much to my ex’s disgust as it was a Ford and he was a Holden nut! She was moored on the blind channel at OTP, not far from the little dairy there. Over the years we had a new bow rail, new Bimini and new automatic winch. I loved going out on her for the weekends and we even took her up to the Bay of Islands a few times. With the divorce, she was sold and I don’t know what happened to her then until I suddenly noticed her there at the side of the road at Kaiwaka. She’s been there so long now that I don’t think she can ever go back in the water. I understand she’s a Kauri Carvel. It’s so sad to see her every time I go to Auckland, rotting there on the side of the road. When I used to go out on her I kept a log book which I still have! Unfortunately I’m away from home at the moment, but as soon as I get back home, I’m going to find it and then I might have some more info for you.
Couldn’t believe it when the Woody’s web page popped up tonight as I had only driven by earlier today and always talk about her whenever I see her.
I’ll be in touch again nearer the end of the month when I’m home and can find my log book.
YESTERDAYS QUIZ WINNER – Graeme Finch , he correctly picked – cooking – I started the process of making the ‘World Famous In Devonport Tomato Sauce’ 🙂
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
Back in August 2020 we featured the classic woody launch – Poco Lento on WW. We learnt then that she started out in life back in late 1970’s as your typical Roy Parris kauri planked launch, then in 1991>92 master boat builder Geoff Bagnall undertook a major refit to make her more liveable. When launched in the 1970’s her name was – Lady Janet.
When I first boarded Poco Lento I was amazed to learn she was sub 32’ and the internal space, helped by the underfloor Ford Lees 115hp engine. I was even more taken aback with the fit-out – auto pilot, power anchor winch, bow thruster, hydraulic steering, on-board shower, fridge, freezer, pressurised hot water, stand-alone galley, electric toilet, high-end engine sound proofing, holding tank and a lot more – she really has been a rolling restoration with her then owner undertaking a major project every year. The 295L fuel tank allows her to cover a lot of distance when cruising.
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.
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
Chances are if you are reading this early today , you have missed attending the 2024 Mahurangi Regatta – so todays to give you a heads up about next weekends Lake Rotoiti Classic & Wooden Boat Parade, held every year on Lake Rotoiti in the middle of the North Island – its always an amazing gathering – details here
And here’s an ideally the above 1948 classic 15’ wooden speed boat , drop an engine in and you’ll be on the water for the 2025 parade.
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