The 1947 Colin Wild designed and built launch – Lady Crossley is currently tucked up in the ‘Nautique Boat Yard’ shed at Hobsonville Marina for some TLC.
The bottom has been taken back to bare timber, the kauri planking is a work of art. At the same time, the shafts and props have been pulled + the keel cooling tubes – for a refresh.
Lots of small maintenance jobs being ticked off + a splash of shinny new paint on the cabin tops.
The crew behind the Australian Wooden Boat Festival (Hobart) are very clever with their promotional support to promote the bi-annual festival. One of the tools / channels they use is a very cool video series (tagged Boat Folk) that showcases the festival and the people and boats connected to the area. I have posted some of their previous ones on WW.
Todays video showcases a beautiful local built vessel named – Ubique. Very few boats have the pedigree of Ubique both historically and which has spawned a thousand blue water cruising dreams. Famed yacht designer, Lyle C Hess, originally based the design for Ubique (pronounced U-bee-qway) on the legendary Bristol Pilot Cutter – the epitome of yacht design in the mid 1800s to early 1900s.
Ubique is a sister ship to Taleisin, being commissioned by Brad Hampton via the Shipwrights Point School of Wooden Boat Building at Franklin, in Tasmania. Now, owned by David and Michelle Shering, the boat hosts many quiet family sailing voyages in the Channel. Click play and enjoy – I did 🙂
The dreaded covid was the kiss of death to the last festival so next years event – 10>13th February 2023 will be huge. Hope to be there myself.
Nothing Changes Much in 110 Years Most significant transport vehicles in our lives e.g. automobiles, airplanes, trains have evolved significantly in the last 100 years – except for water-craft. Sure we have foiling catamarans contesting the America’s Cup but the above launch designed and built in 1910 still has the wow factor and would turn heads in any bay in 2022. The propulsion has advanced but in terms of drop dead looks – La Paloma is still a 10/10.
I was sent the photo by one of the overseas WW readers who commented that in the Frank Hellsten ‘colourised’ photo we see the boat building team posing at the launching of Josef Jonsson´s motor yacht – ‘La Paloma’ at the Engelbrektsson yard in Örebro in 1910. The owner is on the right with a rope. His sweater is marked with the name of the boat and the letter KAK (Kungliga Automobil Klubben – The Royal Automobile Club). At that time the KAK activities also included motor boats. The original b/w photo was taken by Samuel Lindskog´s and is on display in the Swedish Digital Museum.
Post launching the vessel must have be transported to a port as Örebro, which is conveniently located between Stockholm and Gothenburg, is land locked, (there is a lake). The city has always been a hub for transport and trade and attracted craftspeople and small business. Now days Orebro is Sweden’s sixth largest city.
Little is known of what became of La Paloma other than she in use at least until WW2.
We Lost A Woody Ex Workboat Yesterday
Dave Stanaway dropped me a note to advise that the ex Marine Department Fisheries and Radar launch – Tio was demolished at Pine Harbour yesterday. Dave’s cousin Hamish Stanaway took the photos below. She had been under water for a while. Dave commented that he did his advanced radar course on her in 1982 in Auckland. Neil Lineham was engineer on her. She made an appearance on WW back in Jan 2020. https://waitematawoodys.com/2020/01/31/tio/ Always sad to see a back hoe anywhere near a wooden boat 😦
ENA Australia’s Finest Steam Yacht The other day I stumbled across a photo of an amazing classic woodys named – End, I assumed that it was of US / Europe origins but a quick search online and there she is next door eg Australia. Some background
Ena is a 116′ steam yacht that was designed by Sydney naval architect Walter Reeks and built by WM Ford Boatbuilders, Sydney, in 1900 for Thomas Dibbs, the commodore of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. It was used as his private vessel for entertaining guests on Sydney Harbour and Pittwater until the beginning of World War I. In 1917 the yacht was purchased by the Royal Australian Navy and used as the auxiliary patrol vessel HMAS Sleuth in the waters around the Torres Strait and Thursday Island, before later being used as a training ship tender based in Sydney. In early 1920, the navy disposed of the yacht and it returned to private use until later in the early 1930s when it was sold to Tasmania.
Based in Hobart and under different owners SY Ena was used for a number of purposes including transportation of produce and fishing. It was converted to diesel power in the mid-1940s and renamed Aurore. After sinking in the early 1980s, the yacht was re-floated and eventually restored as a steam yacht close to its original configuration.
Ena subsequently circumnavigated Australia, as part of a visit to Western Australia during the 1987 America’s Cup and then served as a private charter vessel. Ena is now owned by the Turner family, one of Australia’s leading maritime families ( they founded the Sydney Maritime Museum) and she is based in Sydney at the Australian National Maritime Museum where it is part of the National Maritime Collection, and is also listed on the Australian Register of Historic Vessels.
Ena considered to be one of the finest examples of an Edwardian period steam yacht in the world.
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