Todays 89’ woody motor sailer – Galerna, started life in Denmark where she was built in 1973, so falls into the ’spirit-of-tradition’ woody family.
In the top photo sent to me back in Jan 2022 by Richard Amery we see her berthed at the Viaduct in Auckland. How Galerna come to be in NZ I do not know but Ken Ricketts reports that she had a major refit by Titan Marine in Auckland in 2015.
Built to take a pounding, oak planks and frames, her hull measures nearly 14” and has a stainless steel ice skirt, all that plus a 5 cyl. B&W 550 hp diesel see her hitting the scales at 190 tonne. Galerna’s cruising range is 4000 miles at 8 knots.
From the photos sent in by KR we can see that she is equipped for expended cruising in grandeur. Can anyone tell us how she came to call NZ home?
Tony Marr sent in the above photo, dated c.1942 of Motukaraka, on the Hokianga Harbour showing the Launch – Omakura that his grandfather, George Harding, owned.
Tony commented that George operated the boat between 1920 > 1950, mainly fishing for mullet. In a previous life, Omakura was a creamery boat.
In the caption it states that the houses on the hill are Wi Gundrys, and the factory managers. The factory is behind the mangroves on the right, with the pump house and water tank above it. At the road there is Gundry’s building and General Store. Omakura is moored in front of the net stand.
Tony is keen to learn more about Omakura and what became of her.
Help Support A Great Boating Club
Next weekend is the Classic Woodys woodyCruise up the Wairau River to the Clevedon Cruising Club, thanks to the woody skippers that have RSVP’ed, fyi we have closed off accepting ‘entries’ but if any woody readers are feeling warm hearted, how about supporting the club in its fundraising for a new fuel jetty – read below the CCC flyer and buy a raffle ticket/s on $5. Lots of cool prizes. The contact for the tickets is Carol Parkes cparkes@outlook.co.nz
I’ll be emailing skippers tomorrow with full details on the weekend.
I was contacted during the week by Bob Phillips about the 1948 launch – Koanui. One of Bob’s customers in Orewa has a photo of Koanui on his garage wall and enquired if Bob knew what happened to Koanui. His Grandfather was Noel Meldrum and he built Koanui, with the help of a boat builder (name forgotten) in the paddock behind their current home in Puriri Ave, Orewa beside the old hall.
Bob found a recent photo ( see below) of Koanui in WW’s photo archives and emailed it to him. Bob commented that they, Pat and Terry Houghton, were very pleased to receive the photos and kindly sent back the above photos.
Koanui, to Bob’s eye, has a very Royal Falcon (original) look about her superstructure windows in the original photos. She is and was a good-looking bridge-decker.
Interestingly, she was launched (29th August 1948) in the Orewa estuary, which you would think today was barely possible. Terry told Bob they blasted the reef at the entrance just after WW2.
When I was coming onto the Slipway at Milford the other day, this very smart launch – Kotuku had just vacated the cradle I was heading for. Kotuku is a 26’ Pelin Mascot and has just had some serious TLC (9 weeks out).
Powered by a 25hp Isuzu 2ab1, she would be very frugal on the fuel.
She wasn’t going far – she’s a river rat e.g. calls Milford Creek home.
Message For The Skippers That Did The Woody Trip Last Easter To Paeroa
Check your prop/s – seems there was a few solid items hiding in all that mud – Raindance’s prop was in need of some love from Dr. Cam at the Slipway Milford workshop. All 3 blades were similar to the one below 😦
In the past I have spent a lot of time on Gt Barrier Island, and thought I had mooched around the shoreline of most of the bays / harbours – then bang up pops an old woody – Lady Isla, on Len Redwood’s fb. The photo is dated 2019 and is ex Caleb Bird.
If my life depended on it, my pick for the location would be Okupu Bay.
Can we learn more about Lady Isla and how she ended up on the island.
Short and quick story today – hauled Raindance out yesterday, so a tad busy 🙂 15 months later the Jason Prew Paint Job ex the Slipway Milford – still rocks.
Todays woody is the Bailey & Lowe 1915 built launch – Lapwing. Her specs are 26’ x 6’6” and in the above b/w photo she was powered by a 17-25hp Sterling engine that gave her a very impressive speed of 12 knots. Her original owner was Capt. J Davies and the photo comes to us from a supplement to The NZ Yachtsman – May 22, 1915 via Lew Redwood’s fb.
Lapwood is my marina ’neibour’ and I took the bottom photo on Sunday, sadly she very rarely leaves her berth.
Below is a link to a WW story on her from March 2013.
INPUT EX PAUL DRAKE –LAPWING was a Taupo ‘hire’ boat for a number of years from1929. She was brought to the lake from Rotorua by Englishman Donald Hunt, who had arrived in Taupo in the early 1920’s. He was a mechanic who also had dinghies for hire, and who became the agent for Johnson outboards – he supplied a Johnson Sea Horse to our grandfather in 1928, an outboard which we still have and which is still operational. Later he was also the agent for Gray Marine and supplied the engines for PIRI PONO when she was returned to Taupo with a damaged engine after WW2, when she saw service with the RNZAF at Hobsonville, Auckland. LAPWING was renamed PANDORA after an incident which left her reputation a little tarnished. With bow pushed up on a beach in typical Taupo style, a number of passengers proceeded to move towards the bow on the same side, whereupon LAPWING took a severe list and deposited said passengers overboard. Reputation being everything, LAPWING was no more, but PANDORA went on to be a popular hire boat! Donald Hunt eventually progressed to SUNBEAM (now in Tauranga as SEA BREEZE). PANDORA continued at Taupo for some years as a private boat, before disappearing from view.
Todays story is a photo essay from the recent Canadian CYA – Fleet Rendezvous at Ganges, Salt Spring Island and comes to us from the camera of Cecila Viktoria Rosell.
Enjoy – oh to have a marina like that. As always, click on photos to enlarge 😉
Sad and happy to see that Mike O’Brian has found a new custodian for Euphemia II, I had the pleasure of hosting Mike and Peggy in Auckland a few years ago. Special people and a special boat. The photo below records the transfer of ownership.
Todays woody is tad different in that Black Swan was designed in Australia but built in NZ by Colin Harman’s father in the 1950’s.
In the above photos she is at Riwaka, Nelson. Colin commented that these days she is a ‘house boat’ and Nelson is still her home port.
Thanks to John Dawson for sending thru the photos and details.
Do we know anymore about the boat?
The Riwaka Inlet is home to some very fine woodys – I last visited there in March 2019 – see link below and also links to photo essays from friends John Burland and Pauline & Tim Evill – enjoy 🙂
The 40’ launch Norana was designed by Joseph Gillanders and built in 1913 by Miller Bros at Port Chalmers for Charles William Sundstrum. She had a beam of 9’ and draw 3’6″.
Sundstrum was a Dunedin dentist who was a key figure in Dunedin yachting circles for many years. His first launch was the 31’ clinker double-ender Valmai of 1910 which had a Dunedin-built 5hp Viking engine. He raced her with the Otago Yacht Club including one of their Ocean races to Timaru.
He replaced Valmai in 1913 with Norana, which had a 16-18hp Jersey Standard marine engine, that gave Norma a cruising speed of 8 3/4 knots. He sold her to Arthur Brett of Auckland in 1927. During WWII she was taken over by the RNZAF and sent to Fiji for towing work.
In the top photo that appeared in a supplement to The NZ Yachtsman, June 5th, 1915, ex Lew Redwood fb, Sundstrum was the then Rear Commodore of the Otago Yacht & Motor Boat Club.
In the bottom photo which appeared on WW back in Sept 2015 as part of a story on the launch Thetis. Sundstrum sold Norana and had J McPherson, Dunedin, build Thetis for him. Thetis measured 35’1” x 8’1” x 2’9” and was launched in 1929. A serious speed machine – as launched she was good for 18 knots. During the war years with a bigger engine, that speed increased to 26+ knots – read / see more at this link https://waitematawoodys.com/2015/09/07/thetis/
MYSTERY LAKE TE ANAU LAUNCH I was recently contacted by Richard Hockey who resides in Brisbane in regard to the above launch. Richard is very keen to find out anything about the launch.The top photo (must be by a professional – stunning quality) is dated 1947 and the location is Brods Bay, on Lake Te Anau (see info on the area below). The photo is ex Archives NZ, a Tourist and Publicity image, photographer unknown.
The second photo is dated c.1950, again Lake Te Anau and was by a VC Browne uncovered in a collection of photos put up for sale by Webb’s the auction house.
Can anyone tell us more about this rather fine launch? Side note – she appears quite bow down in both photos.
Info for readers outside of NZ – Lake Te Anau is in the southwestern corner of the South Island of New Zealand. The lake covers an area of 344 km 2 (133 sq mi), making it the second-largest lake by surface area in New Zealand (after LakeTaupō, North Island) and the largest in the South Island. It is the largest lake in Australasia by fresh water volume.
SOMETIMES YOU’RE ALLOWED TO SKITE
WW readers will be familiar with the name Benjamin Mendlowitz, one of the worlds top marine photo journalists. For the last 40 years Benjamin and his buddy Maynard Bray have been publishing the mega selling calendar – ‘Calendar Of Wooden Boats’. If you have a copy, when you flip the page today for September, bang – there you’ll see the interior of my pride & joy – Raindance. Needless to say I bought a few copies 🙂
Benjamin and Maynard are also co-founders of the wonderful video-blog – Off Center Harbor that we plug often on WW. And to even further confirm Benjamin’s woody credentials – the man co-owns one of the fastest and prettiest woodys on the Waitemata – the 1919 Bailey & Lowe built launch – Romance II – we like that 🙂
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