Category Archives: Launches

Varlene (Lady Sunshine)

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NY Day Kawau YC c.1972

VARLENE - BACK SECTION 1958 H T MORTON Builder Mac geady

VARLENE (Lady Sunshine)
photos & details ex Ken Ricketts

Varlene is approx. 36′ long, was originally called Lady Sunshine & built by Mac McGeady at his Summer St, Ponsonby premises. She was one of the comparatively few bridge-deckers he built. She was built for the Tucker Bros., who were food manufacturers (Sunshine jellies etc), hence the name of the boat.

She was bought by Com Hardley, of Hardleys the Newmarket Plumbing Merchants c.1946 & Ken thinks they may have changed the name to Varlene. They owned her for several years & spent quite a lot of time & money on her enhancing her individuality & styling.

The  Hardley’s sold her to H T Morton of Cliff Ave., Belmont  c.1949.  Morton had previously owned the launch ‘Spindrift’. He was lawyer & private pilot & owned his own aircraft since the 1920s. Morton was also a property developer & Varlene Tce. in Mairangi Bay was named after the boat, Morton Ave Glenfield, after him & Dianna Drive, Glenfield, after one of his daughters, Dr Dianna Morton & Rosalind Ave, after his other daughter. The boat & family were real identities on Auckland’s North Shore.

Ken cruised on Varlene  with Morton a number of times in the early to mid 1950s & cared for the boat for 6 months in 1952 whilst he was overseas.

He sold her in the 1950s & Ken lost track of her until Fred Hildich owned her for a shortish period after he sold the ‘Gulf Star’ in the 1980s.

Ken thinks there has perhaps been some minor changes to the bridgedeck in the photo above from original, as remembers her original bridgedeck was a little “squarer” on the corners, but this may perhaps just be due to some remedial or repair work, it is so minor. Also the aft cabin windows seemed to have 2 longer ones, rather than the 3 she had in the 1950s photo of her rear end.

She had a 4 cyl Ailsa Craig diesel when Ken knew her first, in 1946 (which was probably her original engine) & this was replaced some time later with a 6 cyl Ford which she had in the 1980s.

Got to like the kids dinghy race 🙂 AH

Golandrina

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Golandrina

Golandrina was designed & built by Allan Orams, of Whangarei & launched in 1964. She is 36′ & kauri cavel planked. She was re-powered by a Ivecco 90hp in 2006. From the photos she appears to be a tidy ship. Can anyone supply any more details.

Mystery Launches – Onerahi, Whangarei

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Mystery Launches – Onerahi, Whangarei
photo ex Nathan Herbert, most likely ex National Library

Time for a ‘who can put a date on the above photo & ID some of the launches in the bay. You will need to enlarge the photo.
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WW – Tip of the Day – Now I assume that ww readers know how to ‘blow-up a photo ? If not see below.
1. Click on the image
2. Scroll down on the black panel that appears & click on the tab that says ‘View Full Size’ (on the right side of the panel).

3. You can focus in on a selected area by scrolling the magnifying glass icon across the area & clicking, note only allows one ‘enlargement. If you click again it returns to the original (enlarged) image.
4. To exit the photo, click on the ‘X’ in the top left hand corner.
This works most of the times, unless the photo was a very small image to start with.

NOTE: Do not write in the ‘Write A Comment’ panel as copy here just gets tagged to the photo & does not appear on the main ww comments section e.g. unless people click on the photo, your comment is not visible (seen).

How Many Boats Did McGeady Build? Updated 27/10/2015 (& the launch Fantasy)

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How Many Boats Did McGeady Build? Updated 27/10/2015

A MESSAGE FROM KAREN MOREN

I would personally like to thank everyone who has contributed to postings and supplied information on Granddads (Mac McGeady) and Ben Hipkins Supreme Craft boats.

Without all of this information and photos it would not be possible to be up to 140 pages and more with further info still to come.

Kind regards
Karen Moren

LIST OF MCGEADY/SUPREME CRAFT BOATS

SUPREME CRAFT was founded in the late 1930’s possibly 1936 by                               my Grandfather Clarence V. McGeady but everyone knew him as ‘Mac’. Due to ill health, he retired approximately 1962 and the business was taken over by Ben Hipkins. The actual builders of Supreme Craft boats are distinguished by the suffix of ”McGeady” or “Hipkins” as the case may be. It should also be noted that some Hipkins boats were based on McGeady Designs and suffixed accordingly. Where McGeady designs were used, and the boat was built by Hipkins this would be suffixed with, “Design McGeady/Built Hipkins

This is a list only. (I know many people have contributed pics and info which is on my acknowledgements page)

ALBACORA – McGeady

ALCYONE – McGeady

ALPHEUS – Design McGeady/ Built Hipkins

ALTAIR – McGeady

AMARYLLIS renamed KOALA – McGeady

ANTARES – McGeady

AQUARIUS – McGeady

AQUILA – McGeady

ARCTURUS – McGeady

AROHANUI – McGeady

ASTRA – McGeady

AUSTRALIS – McGeady

AWATERE – McGeady

CHALLENGER – McGeady

EL ALAMEIN renamed RANUI- McGeady

FANTASY – McGeady (sistership to ANTARES

HUKARERE – McGeady

LADY ALLYSON renamed ERINOR – McGeady

LADY DIANNA – McGeady

LADY HELEN ? – McGeady

LADY SUNSHINE renamed VARLENE -McGeady

MANUIA – McGeady

MARANOA – McGeady

NIKA-SIA – Ben Hipkins

RANGIORA – Gary Wheeler/Ben Hipkins built under McGeady banner

ROTOITI renamed ISLAND PRINCESS – McGeady

SCEPTRE – Ben Hipkins

TEMPEST – McGeady

VALWYN – McGeady

VENTURE – sister ship/hull to SCEPTRE – Ben Hipkins

WAIMARU – Ben Hipkins

WESTERING – Ben Hipkins

WHITE CLOUD – Design McGeady/Built Hipkins

2 x M-CLASS 18 foot Patikis – McGeady

M – 22 MILADY 1945

M – 35 MARIANA 1946

 

Fantasy – below b/w photo ex Karen Moren + colour photos & details ex Ken Ricketts

Built in 1952 by Mac McGeady for Colin Lannam. Ken believes that she was built on the basis of Lannam’s first boat, Lady Dianna e.g. McGeady built the hull & cabin then Lannam finished the interior. Ken commented that Lannam had masterful cabinet making skills.

Neither Karen or Ken know much more about Fantasy – can anyone add more details on her?

Hinewai

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HINEWAI
details & photos from Dean Wright ex John Gander.

Hinewai a 40′ motorsailer was designed by Roger Carey (taken off Carey’s Taonui, a 1950s design) & built by John and Bev Gander in 1968. 39′ LOA, 11′ Beam, 4′ 6″ Draft. 17 tonne displacement.
Built with miro planking, tallowwood keel and stem & red birch frames. Sporting an oregan mast.
Powered by a 3 cylinder  371 Series GM, she has been re-powered with a John Deere.
Her teak decks were built from timber recovered from the wreck of the Amokura.
John Gander sold her many years ago. The current owner is Martin Farrand, who also owns the beautiful 1900’s classic 6m yacht, Scout.

Photos & classified advert ex Russell Ward

16-03-2018 UPDATE

Photo below ex trademe, so yes, she is for sale – a very salty girl that could take you almost anywhere.

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Astra

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McCeady on Astra
Mac McCeady c. late 1950′ / early 1960’s

Recent hauled pout at Sandspit photos

ASTRA

b/w photos ex Karen Moren’s mother Lyn McGeady,ex Ben Hipkins. other photos ex Ken Ricketts, details told to Ken Ricketts by Ken Robinson & Ven Barclay. edited by Alan H

Thought I would continue the McGeady thread of late.

Todays post is Astra, built in 1957 at 1A Summer St Ponsonby for Percy Ward, who had previously owned the Wairuama (refer earlier ww post).

Percy Ward did not keep her very long & sold her approximately a year later to Aussie Lawless, who was a good friend of the late Les Robinson & family & when a couple of years later Lawless become ill, Robinson bought Astra off him in 1960. Astra remained in the Robinson family until October 1992 (32yrs) when the Robinson family sold her to Ven Barclay the present owner.

She is 30′ LOA with a 10’4″ beam which made her extremely beamy. She is also one of the very few McGeady sedan toppers with a high bow & sweep in the deck that does not have the ‘signature’ McGeady look i.e oblong portholes in the bow.

Astra, as built, was a smorgasbord of timber e.g. kauri for the hull, spotted gum for the ribs, totara for the frames, pacific mahogany cabin tops &  interior, matai decks & a pohutukawa knee in the stem.

She was originally powered by an Austin “Skipper 100” 6 cyl 100 h.p. petrol engine with a side exhaust 6 inches above the waterline in amidships, which is still there exactly as it has been since she was built, however it has been blinded off inside & the exhaust is now just above the waterline out the starboard side of the tuck. The Austin was replaced in 1974 by a 60 hp 4 cyl Ford diesel.

Her varnished coamings were retained until fairly recently by Ven B but it became too much for him to maintain them, so he reluctantly painted them.

Rangiora

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RANGIORA

photos & details Karen Moren & Harold Kidd

The above b/w photo of Rangiora was sent in by Mac McGeady’s grand daughter Karen Moren ex her mother Lyn McGeady, Mac was her father in law. Karen gathered the story below a couple of years ago from one of McGeady’s apprentices – Ben Hipkins.
“Mac’s condition deteriorated and he was very confused and at this time we received an order from Gordon Collie for a 48ft bridge deck Motor Launch. Mac still had the ability to design the hull. This boat was too big to build in Summer Street, so we built the backbone and frames in the factory and built the boat in a shed supplied by Mr. Collie on a poultry farm at Pakuranga.
Gary Wheeler and I built the hull from the deck level and Gordon and his cousin Ralph laid the decks and built the superstructure and furniture, a truly excellent job. The name of this boat was Rangiora”.
Harold told ww that Rangiora was built in 1964  & she was a breakthrough McGeady design with the substantial beam of 15′ on an overall length of 52′. Her original engines were twin Fords. Tony Vazey bought her in the 1980s and replaced the Fords with twin GM 4/51 supercharged diesels. He kept her at Westhaven, always absolutely immaculate as you can see from Harold colour photo below. In late 2001 Tony sold her to Nick Tansey of Wellington. These days she can readily be seen from the shore on her marina berth in Wellington, a very beautiful hull with totally aesthetically pleasing topsides.

 

02-04-2020 – Input from Brian Hewitt – My company Sea Services had the pleasure of owning Rangiora for 4 or 5 years, my business partner was Fred Keith and we bought Rangiora in Whangamata, she was owned by Stan who ran the local putt putt golf park beside the movie theatre, he was in the middle of a very messy divorce and had to sell her. She was very tired in the exterior but good and sound and we brought her to Auckland to the Shipbuilders slipway and rebuilt the decks, took all the brightwork back to clean timber and applied 8 coats of varnish, recaulked and repainted the hull using Transocean paints. We serviced the Ford engines including replacing the injectors, serviced all the pumps etc…replaced the funnel, beds and squabs, the toilet, radio, steering cables, carpet etc and she was quite a picture and gave us a lot of enjoyment. This included 2 seasons in the BOI with trips to Whangaroa, The Cavalli Islands, Poor Knights and Cape Brett, many trips to Barrier and Coromandel and 2 trips to Mayor Is. We had on-going overheating issues when under max revs as her heat exchangers were barely adequate when the engines were in their full glory, the engines were also slightly out of sync and we tried changing propellers, fine balancing the drive shafts and realigning the motors with new mounts but never really solved the issue. We were originally on ‘A’ marina then moved over to (I think T) when Westhaven expanded the southern side. Fred left Sea Services in the early 80’s and I was also getting divorced so we sold her to fund the business. Rangiora was a Lloyds Registered vessel (I think she was 36 tons). We sold her to Murray from Chanton Apparel who took the engines out and had them balanced, replaced the cable steering with dual hydraulic steering and I think it was Murray who also rebuilt the stern into a walk through transom. In reality Murray bought Rangiora for the marina as 18M marinas were very sought after and he had a new 54′ launch being built by Salthouse. I saw Rangiora some years later at Tutukaka and she looked fabulous, also saw her in Wellington 3 years ago still looking good. I live in France most of the year and have some photos there and will revert with them when I return to France. Brian Hewitt

30-04-2020 Update from Brian Hewitt – “I’m back in France now and found my photo album that had some photos of Rangiora, I think we sold her in 1984. I also had an earlier 34′ launch called “Joel” built by Ship Builders, the new owners renamed her, I had a quick search and couldn’t find anything relating to her, is this a name anyone may have come across ?

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Tasman

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Tasman

photo ex Peter Loughlin

Peter L sent in this b/w photo of the 1927 Colin Wild Tasman pictured above. Anyone able to ID / date the launches behind her?

And now some eye-candy, a photo I took of Tasman in Sullivans Bay, Mahurangi.

08-02-2021 UPDATE – Photos below ex Nathan Herbert of Tasman at Whakatakataka Bay (OBC) late Jan 2021. Looking very sharp under new ownership.

Sceptre

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SCEPTRE
photo & details from Karen Moren

Karen is the grand daughter of Mac McGeady & is attempting to track down / record as many of the the McGeady / Supreme Craft boats as she can. All she knows about Sceptre is that she was 36′ & built for a Mr. Stuart Dalton in the Archers Road factory off Wairau Road, Takapuna. Possibly c.1965.

Does anyone have any more info on her ?

29-10-2016 Photo added – is the photo above & below the same boat ? I took the photo during the Launch Parade at the 2016 Mahurangi Regatta.

sceptre

Wirihana Who ‘Built’ Her?

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WIRIHANA

Todays post is in two parts – first an attempt to ID some of the Colin Wild crew that built Wirihana. Chris McMullen, the caretaker of Wirihana had been looking through a box old of Wilson and Gould family photos & uncovered todays photos. Chris’s guess on a date for the above photos is 1933. Even thou its over 80 years ago one of the ww followers may recognize a relation. So folks – dig out those old family albums & lets see if we can put some names to the faces.
Col Wild and Mr Martyn Wilson are on the right. The man with the black hair holding the dog may be young Jack Gould who was (Chris believes) Mr Wilson’s step son. That needs to be verified. The Gould Family still own Wirihana to this day.

The 2nd part is to try & confirm what became of the earlier Wirihana, as pictured in the photo below. The ‘smaller’ Wirihana was also owned by the Wilson family. There is a family photo album recording a cruise on her. The album is dedicated to ‘The Crew of the Wirihana 1930-1’.
Chris wonders if the original broke her mooring. Interestingly there are some photos (not in the subject album) showing the wreckage of a wooden vessel but regretfully no details. Could it be that the current Wirihana was a replacement?

Looking forward to some interesting feedback. If you know anyone that had family or a relation that worked at Colin Wild’s yard in the early 1930’s can forward this ww posting on to them & ask for their help with ID’ing the people.

And lasting I could not do a Wirihana post without a photo showing how magnificent she is today 🙂

Update from Nathan Herbert

The below press clippings from the NZ Herald (2nd August 1933) make interesting reading. Wirihana (1) was relaunched on 01/08/1933 after an extensive overhaul at Lanes yard, the work included a new keel – so the questions are

1. Was the work done following an oops ?

2. Was W1 renamed, as W2 (Colin Wild) was being launched around this time?

Harold – where are you?, put down that legal brief & join in 🙂

Harold Kidd Input

My reconstruction of this tangled web is as follows (and some of it is conjecture).
1. Lane Motor Boat Co built WIRIHANA (1) for Joe Wilson in 1929. There is an image of LADY GAY (1) on Lanes’ slip at Mechanics Bay and she’s indistinguishable from WIRIHANA (1). photo below added by AH


2. She flew a “Wirihana” flag because “Wirihana” is maori-ised “Wilson” (and is nicely euphonic).
3. Colin Wild built WIRIHANA (2) in October 1933.
4. The quote above concerning WIRIHANA’s overhaul in 1933 is from the NZ Herald (owned by Wilson) but there’s an almost identical quote in the Herald of 17th November 1933 but referring to the boat as “J. M. Wilson’s LADY GAY”.
5. Clearly, WIRIHANA (1) was renamed LADY GAY while getting her big overhaul at Lanes in 1933 and after WIRIHANA (2) was launched. Her cabintop was altered drastically to provide full headroom so that her earlier semi-bridgedeck style disappears.
5. Wilson kept LADY GAY/WIRIHANA until July 1935, shortly before LADY GAY (2) was launched.
6. He then sold her to H. Walker and I lose sight of her, obviously with an agreed name change.
7. Sooner or later we’ll find out what Walker called her and say “Of course!”.