Today’s photo gallery of woodys comes to us from the camera’s (phones) of Jason Prew and Nathan Herbert and were taken over Easter weekend in and around Kawau Island. Boats featured are Jason’s – My Girl, Nathan’s – Pacific, Peter & Jenni Mence’s – Eileen Patricia, Jason & Yan Davies – Lucinda. Plus cameo appearance from Paul Tinghy’s yacht -Wotan and Madeline Rundle’s launch Hami (previously Wanda / Wanda II).
Lucinda was built in 1930 by LC Coulthard and has just been re-launched after undergoing some running repairs at The Slipway Milford. Work included re-powering – out went the 50hp Perkins and in went a 100hp Isuzu, giving her a top speed now of 14>15 knots.
Manaia has made several appearance on WW, link below the backgrounds her early days . She was designed by Alex Collings and built in 1965 by Percy Vos. Now thanks to a nudge from Alan Sexton and tme – we get to see the results of some of the recent work on her. She is looking very smart for an ex Harbour Board Pilot boat 🙂
Currently offered for sale but you’ll need a 25m marina. Contact waitematawoodys@gmail.com
Today’s clinker woody has been popping up in social media (tme & Facebook) for a while. If your looking for a day boat or something to get you out and about on the lakes, this could be the boat.
Almost 14’ in length, with a Stuart Turner engine that if you believe her tme listing, runs sweetly eg starts and keeps running 🙂 And when it doesn’t there is a Seagull long shaft o/board to get you home.
Not sure about the build year of the boat, but the engine is dated 1940.The rather smart trailer is part of the package.
A LOCK-DOWN TREAT – FREE ACCESS TO THE WORLDWIDE CLASSIC BOAT SHOW
Our friends over at Off Center Harbor have been orchestrating a new gig on the classic boat scene – a virtual worldwide classic boat show. Its been live now for 10 days and only available via purchasing a ticket (US$5) – now woodys to help us kiwis (and the WW overseas followers) during CV-19 lock-down – the show is now free.
See below instructions on how to visit the show.
You can use the globe / map to see an amazing collection of vessel around the world + locations of museums & trade folks – but the real gem for me is the daily video presentations from some of the worlds leading lights on the classic boating scene – sailors, teachers, photographers, event promoters and boat builders. You will be addicted so I apologise in advance for ruining your day/s – but, you’re supposed to be in lock-down 🙂
If you only watch one presentation – make it the legendary Tom Cunliffe presentation – you’ll find it on Sat Feb20th under the heading ’Seas of Northern Europe’ – do not be put off by the boring title – its a cracker, the mans one of the best storytellers around, you’ll be glued to the screen for 2 hours. ENJOY THE SHOW 🙂
2. Checkout for free, and your username and password become your ticket
3. To login, go to ClassicBoatShow.com, click login in the top right corner to get full access, and enjoy the show!
If you have trouble getting your free ticket, you can always email the show’s crew for help at crew@classicboatshow.com.
If the show turns out to be an enjoyable and valuable experience for you, they have a voluntary “tips/donations” button on the top of the screen where you can contribute.
HINERA Alan Sexton contacted me the other day concerning Hinera, the Roy Steadman designed / Shipbuilders built 38’ launch. Alan believe that she may have been the last boat built by Shipbuilders. She appeared on the cover of ‘Boating World’ October 1971 edition – copy of article below.
Alan has commented that you can see her obvious lineage from Fiesta, Romany II et al. And maybe built to a budget as the rubber mouldings securing the windows, more appropriate for caravans and fizz boats, did not exactly enhance her.
As launched power was from twin T6 – 354 Perkins that gave her a top speed of approx. 20.5 knots and cruised at 17.9 knots. Alan recalls she was berthed on I pier at Half Moon Bay when first launched, all launches moored bow-in in those days, and her heavy stem and huge flare looked very imposing to an 11 yr old.
Hinera went off Alan’s radar round the 1970’s, do we know what became of the launch?
SS DANCER During the recent Lake Rotoiti Classic and Wooden Boat show I spotted the steam boat – Dancer, her owner and builder John Olsen supplied the following details.
Dancer is a 30 foot long steam launch, designed by Peter Sewell and built by John and his wife Diana. The engine is a compound twin, designed by A.A Leak and built by John. The boiler is a 3 drum type.designed by Andre Pointon. (Colonial Iron Works) and also built by John apart from welding by a certified welder. In the top photo, the tender on the Aft deck is a folding dinghy, called Kahikitea and mostly built from that timber.
Dancer is equipped for sleeping aboard, with a head compartment and blackwater tank, a small galley with gas cooker, sink, and fridge, and solar panels on the cabin top to provide electric power. The boiler is fired with diesel. Myself I like wood/coal fired but her diesel set up must make life a lot simpler, and we like that 🙂
Tony Brewer contacted me regarding his recent purchase of – Monita a 17’ Mason Marlin which was built by Sutton Mason & Co. Ltd in Mt Roskill, Auckland sometime in the 1950’s. She is powered by a 2003 90hp 4stroke Honda, which Tony feels maybe to heavy. He is considering re-powering with a 2013 Mercury Mariner 50hp ELPTO 2stroke. Tony’s not interested in a high top speed but would like to be able to travel at between 15 to 18 knots. Fuel economy is not an issue as they do not travel far and there would usually be only 2 people on board.
So woodys – the question of the day is – would the boat be under powered with the 50hp motor?
Last Wednesday we saw the 1917 Joe Slattery classic launch – Pacific sliding back into the H2O after a 5 month refit (link to that story below). Over the weekend, owner Nathan Herbert took the 105 year old out to stretch her legs post the installations of a brand new 100hp FPT / Iveco N45A engine. The old Lister in her was a beast of an engine (1500kg v’s 450kg new engine) and mounted well forward, I would not be the only one to have commented previously that she had a certain “heading down hill” look to her – well as you can see in the top photo, she almost looks like she is about to pop up on the plane. Nathan says no, its just camera angle – but to the eye she sure looks smart.The installation project was not a simple – out with the old & bolt in the new procedure – you can see in the photos below it was a major, but the Nathan is an engineer (mouse in hand not spanner) so the attention to detail is certainly there 🙂 She always was a looker – but she is now a stunner – well done Mr Herbert, your forebears , same family ownership since new, would be very happy to see her today. I’m told that the inflatable will be replaced with her original clinker – currently being restored at The Slipway Milford yard 🙂
“If anyone is wondering- a few notes about the re-engining process:
-The new engine was barely smaller than the old one due to the Lister having had many remotely mounted parts eg. heat exchangers, oil tanks etc. -The engine beds had to be widened to accept the new motor -In stripping the bridge and for’d cabin out completely I found around 24 completely broken ribs- some in a row which were very dangerous. New red beech ribs were fitted by Jason Prew. These ribs would have written her off in a survey as is so often the case these days when you see $1 reserve classics. -The 4 cylinder engine vibrates much more at idle than the 6cyl Lister did with her large flywheel. The GPS does a dance as it shakes around. -The tanks were unexpectedly difficult to replace. after the old copper ones were stolen I had two 4mm aluminum 170L units fabricated which to install necessitated disassembly of the cockpit seating area with a new stern ‘bulkhead’ built and so on and so forth. -Steering is a little harder in a fresh/choppy seaway now but this may just be perception as I now have more power which I’m probably using where before I didn’t. -The bow no longer pushes water like a bulldozer, and in a slight chop actually has positive buoyancy to lift over waves instead of submarine through them. -Despite being beamier than other launches of her era, she is still as much of a pig when rolling at anchor. And please- enough with the comments about adding ballast- there is still a line of huge lead ‘AUSTRALIS’ ingots along each chine in the saloon which require two people to lift each ingot. The engine is not a lightweight, and there is over 100m of chain in the bow plus some pretty large anchors. -Speed: 11.5 knots in the photos, cruise has gone up from about 8 knots, to about 8.7 knots. Higher speeds get a bit noisy.”
ID THE ENGINE QUIZ – The correct answers were
MAKE & HP: Stearns MDR 125hp
AGENTS: H. O. Wiles
BOAT FITTED TO & WHEN: Romance II – 1925 No one got all the answers correct – but Jason Prew and Nathan Herbert were tied at 3 correct elements (but not the same) so its a tie – they can decide what bits of the prize pool they each want 🙂
YESTERDAY WAS A RECORD BREAKING DAY ON WW
As you can see from the graph below – Mondays story (the pink skyscraper) on Mahurangi weekend was off the charts – so many people here and around the world logging in to view. No doubt helped by it being winter in a lot of the countries and the ongoing CV-19 lock-downs – I use that old Fred Dagg line – “We Don’t Know How Lucky We Are”
The Big Woody Quiz Todays story is really a quiz, it won’t be easy, they are three parts to the answer. If anyone gets all three right I’ll be very impressed, in fact entries will be weighted by the number of questions you get right e.g. one correct question = one entry, two = two etc. Entries are ONLY via email to waitematawoodys@gmail I’ll let it run until 7pm Monday 1st Feb 2021 – lots of time to do some homework.
The winner of the draw will get – WW t-shirt, WW cap, Off Centre Harbor cap, Lake Rotoiti Classic & Wooden Boat 2021 Calendar. Now if no one gets even one answer right – all entries will go into the draw – so its worth entering 😉
THE QUESTIONS ARE: 1. Name the make of engine and hp
2. Who were the agents for the engine
3. Which boat was it fitted to and when
ID THE ENGINE QUIZ – The correct answers were
MAKE & HP: Stearns MDR 125hp
AGENTS: H. O. Wiles
BOAT FITTED TO & WHEN: Romance II – 1925 No one got all the answers correct – but Jason Prew and Nathan Herbert were tied at 3 correct elements (but not the same) so its a tie – they can decide what bits of the prize pool they each want 🙂
The 1917 Joe Slattery designed and built launch – Pacific, is a special boat – 105 years of one family ownership puts her into a very elite league.Now in the care of of Nathan Herbert, Pacific has sent the last 5 months hauled out getting a heart transplant i.e. a brand new FPT/ Iveco N45A 100hp diesel engine. The old green Lister sadly just didn’t provide the reliability and safety for a vessel that does the cruising miles that Pacific does.
Late yesterday afternoon Pacific had a ‘Claytons’ relaunch at the Milford Cruising Club’s slip. Not surprisingly after 5 months on the hard she had a big thirst, Jason Prew from The Slipway Milford was on hand with a large capacity extra bilge pump, but it wasn’t required. Fingers crossed the flow will abate when she goes back in again later today.
Whilst hauled out there was a serious dose of TLC done to Pacific, I’m looking forward to a better peek down below at the Mahurangi Regatta this weekend. Search PACIFIC in the WW Search Box to view / read more about Pacific past.
12-01-2021 Update – Pacific has been hauled out recently at The Slipway Milford, for a dose of annual maintenance + a new decks – looking very sharp. And these days do donr escape the yard without a Jason Prew paint job 🙂
16-10-2021 Ready to splash
I spotted Fleetwing, below, at The Slipway Milford yard getting prepped for Mondays Auckland Anniversary Day regatta launch race.
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