AUMOE & VIVEEN
Thankful some of our classics have survived almost un touched. Two good examples are Aumoe (L) & Viveen (R). I have included recent photos to demonstrate their wonderful condition. The main photo is dated c.1930’s. Type Viveen in the search box to read more on her.
Aumoe in the 1930’s & ’40’s
Seems in the ‘old’ days the opening of a jetty was an event to celebrate. Here we see Aumoe anchored off the new Waldron jetty in Parua Bay on the northern side of Whangarei Harbour in 1948. Other boats – RONGOTAI along side the jetty MOERANGI in the middle, and i think BLUE FIN. Probably RANONI outside AUMOE (info ex Ian Mason)
Valencia, Aumoe & Ranoni 1948
I really like this image sent to me by Andrew Pollard the current guardian of Aumoe. Its such a great photo & if you look closely you will notice that the crews are a really mixed bag of men, young boys & women, I doubt you would get that in the 2013 event. The photo is of the opening day of the 1948 Whangarei Deep Sea Anglers Club. I wonder what the catch was like.
A understand that at the time of the photo Aumoe was owned by the Wilkinson family of Whangarei.
Harold Kidd Update
VALENCIA was then owned by E S Ralls. I’m not sure who built her and where. There were several Valencias around the coast as it was the name of a very popular song of the time. It would be good to get feedback on her (I suspect a c1928 name change). RANONI is easier, she was built by Charlie Gouk at Beaumont Street in the winter of 1911 for the Rushbrook brothers. In 1948 she was owned by O. Mann. The lovely AUMOE of course was built by Tom Le Huquet for F M P Brookfield of Brookfield Engineering in February 1913 and initially fitted with an Advance 30hp 4 stroke sleeve valve engine built by Brookfield Engineering which was still in use when replaced by A J Wilkinson of Whangarei when he bought her in the late 30s.
Mothers Day
ALCESTIS
Today is all about mums, past & present + families. What better photo to remind us about family life than the one above taken during the Guthrie family 1931/2 Xmas / NY Northland cruise on their launch Alcestis.
Over the next few days I will post some stunning photos of Alcestis (now Raiona), Lady Margaret & Shenandoah cruising around the far north.
Enjoy today.
special thanks to Graham Guthrie for sharing his grandparents photos
MAHANUI
Mahanui was built by Keith Atkinson in 1977 for Trevor Lindsay who owned Linbide Precision Tools. She was originally launched as Jacinta II. Keith had built a 44 ft boat to a “Bertram” design (Raymond C Hunt) launched as ‘Shango’ which Trevor admired but it was too big for his marina at Half Moon Bay so he said if Keith could build a scaled down Shango he would buy it. That was Jacinta II Photo attached as originally launched. She’s hard chine Kauri Plywood glassed over hull and topsides. Trevor owned her for 25 years and sold her to someone in Doves Bay Kerikeri who used her for game fishing then became ill and sold her about 8 years ago to Brett Haeger who changed the name to Mahanui, and converted the portofino stern topsides to conventional topsides and added a new duckboard. There was no extension of the hull. He also shortened the flying bridge coamings.
Jenny and Angus Rogers purchased Mahanui in February 2012 and set about fixing the defects the survey revealed starting in May 2012 at Lees Boatyard in Sandspit. On the way to Sandspit one of the original motors (BMC 98’s) blew its fuel pump and closer examination of the motors indicated we either had to spend a lot of money on reconditioning very old motors or bite the bullet and replace them. We replaced them with twin Perkins Sabre M135’s with Newage PRM gearrboxes. She was in the shed at Sandspit for almost 9 months and during that time the hull was dried out, treated inside and then white gel coated, new exhausts fitted, new fuel and water hoses and filters, completely rewired, new BEP switchboard, LED lights throughout, faulty instruments replaced, complete overhaul of refrigeration, new batteries,resplining and strengthening coamings, all chromed brass removed and redone, bowsprit and anchoring system upgraded, all deckrails removed and refastened, new controls and cables, new skin fittings, other wood work, most of the internal panellng replaced, flybridge interior completely refurbished,coamings back to bare wood and Uroxis varnished, topsides and flybridge repainted, hull taken back to glass re-epoxied and new antifoul, new electronics and autopilot. Now ready for its next 30 years.
13-01-2017 Update from Angus Rogers
Piecing together an accurate history on Mahanui is interesting. The original owners (Lindsays) have provided ‘as launched’ and ‘run until 1996’ photos (below). Then in 1996 they extended the hull to its present length and Portofino sterned her and upgraded the foredeck hatches, put in solar panels etc. The next owner must have extended the side panels of the flybridge as shown on the photo that appeared in WW as “as launched”. The Lindsays corrected me about that photo showing her “as launched” and then the 3rd owner added the topsides and new duckboard and removed the added sidepanels to its present profile which I have just changed by extending the coaming roof.
Read details & view photos of the work undertaken in 2016 at the Greg Lees yard at this link https://waitematawoodys.com/2016/10/25/23212/
Lady Gay – as always looking like the lady she is.
LADY RAE
Designed by Chas Bailey Jnr. 1948. Looking for more details on her past, comment on the blog or email to waitematawoodys@gmail.com
Pretty Boats Luana
People often ask me why photos of the same boats keep appearing across all the media. The answer is simple, the more attractive to the eye a boat is, the more photos have been taken. This is particularly true in the days before digital cameras when developing & printing a photo was relatively expensive – so people only took photos of pretty boat or boats in trouble (on the rocks).
If your boat was drop dead gorgeous, people even painted it.
I was sent a photo of the painting above of Luana by Brian Worthington who in his words ‘was going thru a cupboard at the fishing club and found this broken glass print of Luana It used to be on the wall in the bar at Mayor island when the fishing club was based out there’.
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