The 45’ (49’ overall) bridge-decker – Thetis was built in 1955 by Lanes on the Tamaki River, Auckland. Built from single skin/fore and aft kauri planking, her beam is 13’ and she draws 4’.
Twin Greymarine 6 cyl. (1960) 120hp diesel engines give Thetis a comfortable cruising speed of 8+ knots.
Thetis is an exceptionally well built launch and is presented in near original fit-out, which is always a good sign that the designer / builder got it first time. Her subsequent owners have chosen to maintain her as intended and with some modern upgrades, followed by routine maintenance she will continue to be one of the most admired woodys in our classic fleet.
I say this about very few classic boats – but Thetis is one of those boats that attracts admirers both at anchor and as you can see from the above photos – even when she’s hauled out.
INPUT FROM OWNER – The print below of Thetis in turbulant water was the work of a retired Hollywood artist, rather effective Most wives would say they were glad not to be aboard that day!
Book author and publisher – Jenni Mence (she will hate me using that intro, but its true) whose last book was the uber cool – ‘K CLASS – The Hauraki Gulf’s Iconic Racer Cruiser’, has committed to another mammoth publication. This time focusing on the Arnold Francis (Bill) Couldrey design and boat building bloodline.
Currently in the final research phase, Jenni has called out to WW readers for help identifying the boats and discovering / confirming things like – the boats built and when, the current owner and/or anyone (owner or otherwise) who has a story to tell about the boat. Jenni would also love to talk to anyone who has memories of Bill himself.One has to assume many of the boats won’t have lasted the distance, however there may still be stories or family photos hanging around of them. To help keep things semi organised we have broken it into loose categories
# Pirimanu # Kereru # Cleone # Manunui # Reremoana # Tirimoana # Lisa Ann
# Rag Doll # Natalie # Cabaletta (may have previously been called Latitude) # Deborah Ann
Any further information anyone has on any of these boats – or other Couldrey boats we may not yet have identified would be really appreciated.
As a reward for your input, everyone that helps out will go into the draw for a copy of Jenni’s K CLASS book + the best photograph submitted (judged by Alan H) also goes into a draw for a another copy of the book. Thats 2 Copies To Be Won. Draw Close off date is August 1st – just in time for Father’s Day
Yesterday the 30’ 1978 Roy Parris built launch – Waikaro, slipped back into the creek at the Slipway, Milford, looking very smart post a lot of work both in and outside. A Jason Prew paint job and 15+ coats of uroxsys were just the icing on the cake + lots of work on her systems and ‘lets keep the water on the outside’ eg new windows etc.
No sooner had Waikaro vacated the cradle, the 38’ 1937 Sam Ford built launch – Menai (below) was climbing into a warm bed. After a lot of deferred maintenance work, Menai had been ’settling down’ eg taking up on one of the Milford marina berths before getting her final top coats. The new bow-thruster certainly made manoeuvring in the creek easy.
UPDATE 12-07-2022 back in the water after the JPPJ at The Slipway Milford.
We followed the refit of the 26′ Colin Wild 1925 built launch – Little Tasman extensively on WW, links below will give you a great insight into the project undertaken by Colin Brown and Josh Hawke at the Omaha Yard.
The other day I uncovered a very cool video put together by Kauri Classics that gives us an overview of the project.
Post re-launching Little Tasman was relocated to her new home in Wellington.
WAIMANA – AK77 You have to love the upfront honesty of someone trying to sell their boat when they open with this line – “Waimana is not a gin palace but a public bar, so a bit rough around the edges, so she needs a bit of TLC”. That line gets them a plug on WW 🙂
She was built by the Percy Vos yard out of 1.5” kauri planks over double hardwood frames for Sandfords in the 1940’s and converted to a live aboard pleasure vessel in the1980’s. Length is 55’ and her weight is roughly 35 ton. She has two forward cabins and a side berth sleeping 6 in comfort with a further 4 berths in the saloon. Powered by a 6L3B Gardner diesel using 5-8 litres per hour and 7 knots @ 700rpm on a 3/1 reduction box with a 40+” prop.
A quick search in Baden Pascoe’s excellent book – ‘Launching Dreams – Percy Vos, The Boats & His Boys’, tells us she was 51’ and built in the 1941>43 period for Waitemata Fisheries. Built of single skin on sawn frames and while under construction the US Army requisitioned her in Oct 1942 but later cancelled the requisition. Waimana was completed in 1943 and fished out of Auckland and Onehunga into the 1970’s.
Any of the work-boat crew able to tell us more about the boat?
Looking For Some Woody Boat Parts
One of the WW readers is having a tidy up and the items below are excess to needs – xxx would prefer one clean sale, but who knows……. Contact Al on 027 200 0057
The build of the 30’ launch – Pearl Diver was started in 1960 by Ken Rickett’s friend Lloyd Burnand. She was built in an old corrugated iron shed, at his parent’s home, in Ngapipi Rd Orakei. Lloyd bought the boat as a kit set off Shipbuilders, who supplied a good number of kit sets, all between about 28′ to 34′, during the years 1960-66. Over nearly 6 years Lloyd assembled / built the boat. At the time he was in his early 20’s (photo above of Lloyd outside the shed). Being somewhat of a perfectionist Lloyd put only the best of everything into the build and the launch was his pride & joy between 1965 to1982.
She was built of 3 skins of kauri, on opposite diagonals, held together by ‘Epiglue’, a very strong adhesive, this combined with through fastened copper nails, made her like a proverbial brick outhouse. The coamings were fibre-glassed over marine ply, with a very distinctive, futuristic for the day, window styling, which was partly created by Lloyd purchasing and having professionally cut up, a windscreen from a 1950’s Chev Impala car, and using the 90 degree rounded corner sections of the windscreen glass of this, for her front screen corners. The rest of the boat was finished with a product called ‘International Poly 707’.
Original power came from a 6 cyl. 100 h.p. intermittent and 86 h.p. continuous rating Ford diesel, which drove through a 2 to 1 Borg Warner gearbox & reduction gear, to a 20 x 22 Henley propeller. This engine was replaced c.1994 with a 180 h.p. inter-cooled artificially aspirated Ford diesel, which she still has today.
Lloyd was a keen aqualung diver from way back in the very early days of the sport i.e. the mid1950’s. He even fitted a portable 3000 p.s.i. petrol driven, aqualung compressor on Pearl Diver. The boat was named after his passion for diving and his wife named Pearl – a habit of many ’smart’ boat owners back in those days 🙂 The launch was kept at several locations during Lloyd’s tenure – Westhaven, Bayswater and the Tamaki River, but her best home was at the bottom of Llyod and Pearl’s waters edge home in Birkdale. There she would sit on a wooden cradle for winter maintenance. Note: click on photos to enlarge
Ownership Timeline
• Lloyd owned her until c.1982, when she passed to Pearl & her second husband Steve Lomax, kept on a swing mooring at the Sandspit, Warkworth. • Sold in c.1987/8, to a Mr C Bradshaw. For how long unknown – anyone able to confirm timings. • Late 1980’s or early 1990’s appeared for sale with a Titirangi phone number – price $50k • Mid 1999 she appeared for sale again with a Northland phone number. Price $75k, (new 180HP engine fitted). The ad photo shows a fly bridge added. The owner was Graham Eastgate of Tutukaka. • Eastgate sold her to Doug and Raewyn Marsh in July 1999 and they relocated the boat to McLeods Bay, Whangarei Heads. • July 2004 the Marshs sold the launch to Barry and Julie Spencer. The Spencers relocated the launch to Doves Bay, Kerikeri in August 2004. • Present owner, Reb Aplin, inherited Pearl Diver off the estate of Barry Spencer, Barry was in his 70’s, when they bought her and for a number of his later years Reb mostly cared for her, on his behalf, as age prevented Barry from doing much of her maintenance. When Barry passed away, late last year (2021), at age 89, he bequeathed Pearl Diver to Reb, who took the boat over a couple of months ago, and is going through her, and bringing her right up to the minute, in every respect. Hopefully considering removing the block of penthouse. She is still moored at Doves Bay, Kerikeri.
Special thanks to – Ken Ricketts for pulling the bones of this story together and the following people for their time, knowledge and sharing of photos – Pearl Burnand-Lomax, Warren Burnand ( Lloyd’s son), Val Schmidt (nee Burnand, Lloyd’s sister) and present owner Reb Aplin. Story edited a lot by Alan H
Back in Feb 2020 I wrote on WW that launches like Katherine would be the future of classic / spirit of tradition boating – in a nutshell – stunning looks, voluminous interior and low maintenance. Katherine was built is 2013 by Robertson Boats, her design lead by Conrad Robertson. But her roots go back much longer than that – back to the Hokianga Harbour where a workboat played its trade, the hull of which ended up in a farm shed. The hull was moved to Robertson’s yard in Warkworth, where a mould was taken off the old hull, as an aside – the old hull was refurbished and repurposed as a charter steamboat.
When you view Katherine, her lower hull is glass and from the green section up she is wood – the best of both worlds in terms of water ingress and maintenance. Katherine was purchased in Jan 2018 by accomplished professional boat builder Allan Hooper who immediately started reviewing and enhancing the launch, this included designing and adding the rig and a lot more mods. I challenge anyone to show me a sub 40’ launch with more internal volume, with the same standard of fit out, there is even sound proofing built in 🙂
Some specs – 38’ in length, 9’6” beam and draws just 3’. Forward motion is via a Lombardini 60hp diesel engine, new in 2013, this gives Katherine a comfortable cruising speed of 8 knots. A consideration in these days of raising fuel prices, Katherine only sips 3.5L an hour. Fuel capacity is 330L and water 750L. An added bonus is the 6’6” headroom. WW has good readership amongst the serious woodys on the USA WoodenBoat Forum, one of the WBF guru’s once commented on Katherine – ‘Like that, vertical stem, raised deck, spoon stern. What else would you want’.
The Wooden Boat Bureau is looking for a new owner for Katherine, interested parties seeking more information – contact waitematawoodys@waitematawoodys
Woody Dean Wright sent in the above photo of the launch – Otehei. Dean ‘found’ the photo when having a clean out – its tagged on the back ‘Ian Spedding, Otehei, 1926 vintage’.
Dean’s thoughts are that it may have been taken by Ian Spedding and maybe lated from the late 1970’s. The location of the photos is probably off the old Fullers slipway at Russell.
Back in a 2013 WW story on Otehai – Harold Kidd wrote – OTEHEI was a sister-ship to the Collings & Bell-built hard chine launches built for various operators in the Bay of Islands in 1926-7 to service the game-fishing sport which had grown rapidly after an exploratory trip north by Colonel W.H. Hazard in his VIRGINIA in 1918. The other 3 launches to the same pattern were LORNA DOONE, ZANE GREY (later ALMA G II) and MANAAKI. These launches were all equipped with Redwing engines and were capable of 16 knots. OTEHEI was built for Frank Elliott who painted her red. Like the others, and the later AVALON, she was based at Zane Grey’s camp at Otehei on Urupukapuka Island.
She spent some time on Lake Taupo as GRACE DARLING but is now in Russell/Opua restored for the last 20 years or so as OTEHEI. View that story here https://waitematawoodys.com/2013/08/28/otehei/
The photo below is from Gavin’s collection of Otehei and shows her being relaunched at Fuller’s in 1977 post her first big restoration after returning to BOI after 40 odd years on Lake Taupo. Gavin believes it was taken on the same day as the photo above.
Regular WW readers will be familiar with the USA website – Off Center Harbor, Benjamin Mendlowitz who aside from being one of the world’s top marine photo journalists, is a co-founder of OCH – dropped me a note the other day re a video he shot for OCH last week. Its one of those feel good insights into what this classic woody boating gig is all about – Click the photo above to view – Enjoy 🙂
If you not a subscriber to OCH, you should be, neat stories and the back library is one of the best woody boating reference tool out there. In the link above there is a wee bonus – you can view 10 of the best OCH videos at no charge.
Whangaroa Harbour is a spot I spend a bit of time in/around – when waiting for pickup I mooch around the marina and there is one launch – Athena, that always catches my eye – its hard not too its just so perfect. Most designers were challenged when it came to getting the lines right on a sub 30’ boat, Athena is spot on.
Her measurements are 25’ x 8’ x 1’6” and her hull is 3/4” kauri carvel planked and the decks, coamings, cabin top and bridge have all been f/glassed for weather proofing and low maintenance. Both fuel and water tanks are s/s. Sleeps 4 in a double and 2 single berths.
Powered by a Perkins 40hp 4107 engine (new in 1972, rebuilt 1991) she cruises comfortably at 7 knots. Some history – originally designed and built by Cauldrey in c.1950’s, she was rebuilt (hull up, photos below) in 1991 by her owner as a family launch with game fishing characteristics. Based in the Bay of Islands the owners lost count of the game fish landed over the last 30 years. Athena is still fully game rigged.Owned by a seriously devoted boaty, Athena is fully equipped with all the safety gear for coastal cruising.
We have been tasked with finding a new owner for this very salty looking classic woody – for more details on Athena – contact the Wooden Boat Bureau c/o waitematawoodys@gmail.com
