Category Archives: Launches

Nereides The Facts

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Nereides The Facts

Lots of dock-side chat & speculation around the fate of the rather special 1926 B.J.L. Jukes launch Nereides.

Fact 1 – On Sunday  27th May she was involved in a ‘vessel hits submerged item’ incident
Fact 2 – She suffered damage to her port side, refer below photo
Fact 3 – She took on considerable water, refer above photos
Fact 4 – She did not sink
Fact 5 – With the help of Coast Guard she was pumped out & ‘beached’ overnight on Motuihe Island
Fact 6 – She was recovered the next day & is now on the hard at the marina while being assessed.

Her owner is confident she will return better than before. That will be hard as she was a 9/10 before this oops, as per photo below of her at Patio Bay.  🙂

Looking for a marina to rent ?

While Nereides is out (2>3 months) her 14m berth on A pier at Westhaven is available for rent. If interested contact    mark@thesweetshop.tv

Juanita

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Lake Taupo
Ohinau Island Mercury Bay

JUANITA

Juanita has appeared several times before on ww, but always in b/w, her current owners, Marty & Lena Pooley of Whitianga after ‘discovering’ the b/w older ww postings, sent Ken Ricketts some stunning colour photos of her & some updates on her previous ownership & length – she is 32′ not 36′ as previously reported.

Built by Allan Williams at Milford Creek for Cyril Bertrand of Bell Rd. Remuera c.1953, she had an Osco converted Ford V8 originally. When she was sold, she lived for a good number of years, at the Sandspit Warkworth, had a 6 cyl For Diesel fitted & was maintained (tbc) by Lees Boatbuilders, for the then owners.
She was owned by Ernest & Rae  Blumenthal from the mid 1960’s to the 1994, when her husband died, Mrs Blumenthal sold her to Eric Nicholson Vickers in 1994. Vickers sold her to James Brown in Whangarei in 1997. James Brown sold her to Greenwoods in Napier in 2007, who took her to Kinloch Marina on Lake Taupo.  Her current owners, the Pooley’s, bought her in January 2009 and she now lives in Whitianga Marina.

Juanita today remains almost identical to ‘as launched’ & her past owners need to be thanked for this. Marty & Lena say she is a babe – that she is.

Harold Kidd Update

JUANITA was built by Alan Williams at Milford in 1951 for Cyril Bertrand. The APYMBA records show her dimensions as 32’6″x31’3″x10’2″x2’10″ and being fitted with an Osco Ford V8 as Ken states. She was sold to M.T. Burrill in 1959 and then to John L. Gilbert in 1961.Her call-sign was ZMZF.
She was part of the honour guard for the arrival of the GOTHIC in Auckland in December 1953 for the Royal Tour.
What confuses me a bit is that she was called JUANITA II in APYMBA records after 1966 when Gilbert still seems to have owned her, and was JUANITA II when the Blumenthals owned her in the 1970s. Any reason? Same boat?

Photos above – with ‘mast’ is at Lake Taupo & minus ‘mast’ is at Ohinau Island Mercury Bay

Photos below – taken a Mercury Islands 3/4 May 2014

Juanita May2014
Juanita May2014
Juanita May2014
Juanita May2014
Juanita May2014
Juanita May2014
Juanita May2014

Takaro

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TAKARO

update photos from Zach Matich
Takaro was built approx 1952 & has had the same owner for the last 29 years.
35 ft kauri planked displacement launch, with a 11’3” beam which makes her a wide bottomed girl 🙂
She has recently been fitted with a reconditioned 120hp D-series Ford motor with Lees Marine conversion. Top speed is 10 knots, with a comfortable cruise speed of 8 knots, which = 7L per hour.
Home port is Pahi on the Kaipara Harbour & she is for sale on trademe.
Anyone able to expand on the builder, designer?

Harold Kidd Update

My first thought was that she’s very like the Colin Wild-designed 34 ft sedans that John Salthouse and then Salthouse Bros carried on building after Wild died. I went to the TradeMe entry which says “TAKARO = PLAYMATE” so Ken’s memory is correct on this occasion.
MY PLAYMATE was indeed designed by Colin Wild and built by O’Rorke Bros in 1949/50 for M.V. Wilson of Awatea Rd Parnell who owned her until at least 1964. Her original engine was a 90hp Chrysler. It looks like her present owner of 29 years didn’t like her name so used the Maori equivalent.
There were a couple of plain PLAYMATES owned by Roy Swales, a 22 footer he built himself in 1931 and the bridge decker built for him by Sam Ford in 1936 which caused confusion with MY PLAYMATE whose “MY” was eventually dropped in the Squadron and APYMBA records.

PS One of the brothers,J.J. O’Rorke, was a shipwright and boatbuilder living at Westmere. He built my former E Class keeler LOLOMA in 1909 and a number of big workboats over the years including MAROKOPA for Marokopa and RATAHI for Tauranga.

Autumn Cruising

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RainDance
RainDance
RainDance
Rorqual
Silens
Waimiga
Waimiga
Waimiga

Playing Hooky

It appears that quite a few CYA launch owners took the opportunity today to pay hooky & grab the last few days of Autumn. As they say, made if you don’t 🙂

Waiata & her builder

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WAIATA & HER BUILDER

details & photos (b/w) by Harold Kidd, colour photo ex Rob Uivel

Waiata is featured else where on several ww posts but Harold’s below brings every together.

Rob Uivel owns the neat little launch WAIATA which is a remarkable survivor from the pre-WW1 period, 101 years old and going strong still. WAIATA was built by David Reid at his yard in Drake Street, Freeman’s Bay and launched in November 1913 for Devonport enthusiasts Edward Percy Earle and Alfred George Lunn who were keen competitors in the highly popular NZ Power Boat Association races in the “under 9 knots” category. Her first engine was a 14hp (rated) Britt engine but that was changed in 1921 for a 14hp Westman engine, for which W.R. Twigg was the local agent.

She held the NZPBA championship pennant several times during WW1. She also took part in the search for Count von Luckner when he and several other German prisoners of war escaped from Motuihe in the launch PEARL in December 1917. Earle dropped out of ownership in late 1919. Lunn became Commodore of the NZPBA in 1920 but sold WAIATA around 1922. She pretty much drops out of sight except for being recorded as being used as mark boat for Devonport Yacht Club and other clubs’ yacht races right through the 1930s. It would be interesting if WW people could fill in the gap between then and now.

David Reid was a very good boat builder indeed and had the agency for the very fine Buffalo marine engine. He had a prodigious output of launches culminating in the very fast Cascade in early 1916. David was the son of Robert Reid whose business he had taken over in 1904, and the brother of James Reid who was equally important as a launch builder. However, David suffered from asthma so badly that he sold his business, machinery and moulds to T.M. Lane & Sons and left for Queensland in late 1916.  It was a very great loss to this country.

photo below of 1st owner – Alfred Lunn

A Modern Classic

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A Modern Classic

If someone in Auckland does not nab this soon, I beat you it will be heading off to the lakes.

You rarely see the angles & proportions looking right on a sub 30′ boat. At 25′ this one is dam near spot on, but you would expect that given it was modelled on a William Garden dory design. A great picnic boat, she has explored harbours, lakes and rivers. With a double v berth forward , over-nighters are also on the agenda.

Built in 2005 from ply (I known, I’ll go & wash my mouth out) & glassed over (make that a double wash) she has a 2005 21h.p. Nanni diesel motor, done 400hrs from new & wait for it, she even has a bow thruster……….

On trademe for $30k, would be hard to find a better boat of that money.

Seagull

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SEAGULL

Now this boat has some provenance, built in 1953 at the Devonport Navy dockyard, was originally on the starboard side of the HMNZ Monowai Survey ship.

29.8’ in length & powered by a 53hp diesel, new in 2004, now with     1850 hrs on the clock.

Seagull is a solid, reliable, economic, ex Navy survey launch converted to pleasure use & is perfect for cruising around the Hauraki Gulf.

Recent work over the winter of 2013 includes, full hull repaint, including anti foul, new cockpit, lockers, new toilet, new stern platform with stainless steel ladder. Full engine service, oil and filters, belts etc including new batteries.

Garmin GPS chart plotter/fish finder. New VHS radio. New 2 burner gas stove. Good sized electric fridge. Solar panels for battery backup.

Owned by a fellow DYC member, Seagull is currently for sale on trademe as her owner has a desire to return to the dark side (sail)…… Hopefully he will see the light & buy a motorsailer.

Tawhiti

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TAWHITI

Mill Bay photo ex Ken Rickett

Waitemata photo ex Harold Kidd

The above launch was recently sited moored in Mill Bay, Mangonui by Ken’s daughter.

Like a lot of Mill Bay boats she appears to be crying out for some TCL.

More info on her would be appreciated if anyone knows anything.

SEE HDK COMMENT BELOW – ME THINKS MR RICKETTS WILL BE OFF TO SPECSAVERS ON MONDAY MORNING 🙂 Spelling corrected in headline & categories for google searches.

HAROLD KIDD UPDATE

That’s TAWHITI not TAWHIRI as you can see clearly from Ken’s own image. Someone needs specs.
Recent owners have given me a bunch of information about her, some of which is clearly rubbish anecdote (as anecdote usually is).
The tale must however contain some truths.
It is roughly as follows;
1. TAWHITI was built by Logan Bros in 1908. Even though the bridgedeckerisation obviously occurred in the 30s at the earliest and her name may well have changed several times in her life, I put this down as a myth.
2. She was built as a passenger launch for the Kaipara. Maybe.
3. Known owners don’t go back very far but are George Twitchett, Bucklands Beach, 1955 to 1965 who sold to Stan Honeybun that year, to John Hunt to Jim Duckworth. I think another owner was Rex Norwood c2000.

Clear facts are that her dimensions are 36’x36’x9’3″x? and she was recently powered with a Ford 60hp 4 cylinder diesel. She is single skin and was a flushdecker originally of the period 1910 to 1918. A pity her name is lost.
My database contains several local TAWHITI entries but I have no way of knowing if there was only one or several TAWHITIS without corroborating evidence. There may have been several people who wanted to use the name TAWHITI which is charged with meaning in the Maori language and, with Hawaiki, equates with the spiritual homeland = TAHITI. But it is also the Maori name for Woolshed Bay at the entrance to Coromandel Harbour. She was never registered with the APYMBA.
My first TAWHITI is a launch on the Manukau in February 1919 with no further mention on that harbour. Conjecture, built by Les Coulthard and shipped across after trials?
The second (or the same) is recorded in A.H. Pickmere’s log as being in Bon Accord on 18/4/27. Then groups of people from TAWHITI visited the new LITTLE JIM on four occasions between December 1934 and February 1936. Unfortunately no owner was identified, but surnames involved were Curnow, Hoban, Keely, Barton, Sturtevant, Oborn, Wooley, Graham, Craig, Grant, Seabrook and Wilson. Some of those are well-known North Shore names of that period.
I guess it’s possible that the name was mispelt in LITTLE JIM’s log 4 times, and was in error for the Col. Wild yacht TAWHIRI, but none of the names concur with TAWHIRI’s owners.
I took some good images (see above) of her off Rocky Bay on 2/1/2002 when she was in good order. Those aboard said they had no real idea of her provenance. They kept her in the Tamaki River, just upstream from the Panmure Yacht Club. But I was interrupting their fishing and sheered off.
I saw her again several times later in the the season and the next doing some serious fishing around Rakino.

My conclusion is that she will be a known boat by a good builder whose origins have, as is so often the case, been obscured by successive alterations and (possibly) a name change.

PS My “built in Onehunga” theory may have some legs as Les Coulthard built a lot of boats for ports on the west coast as it eased transport issues mightily if they could get there on their own bottoms or, if small enough, by coastal steamer from Onehunga. For example Les built the 56ft schooner-rigged trawler HELENA for Westport in 1934 and the New Pllymouth Harbour Board’s pilot launch in 1935. So it’s entirely possible that the “passenger launch on the Kaipara” is the truth……………if a little long on assumptions!

Boat Designer – Sonny Levi

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Boat Designer – Sonny Levi

photos & details supplied by Ken Ricketts

Levi designed at least 3 launches for the NZ market (refer below)

Designer Bio (straight from his website)

Born in Karachi 85 years ago, Sonny Levi was at school in Cannes when the war broke out.
His father, an interior designer and manufacturer, and an enthusiastic motor yachtsman, moved into Government contract boatbuilding at a shipyard in Bombay. From this early age the young Renato (‘Sonny’ was bestowed by an ayah who could not manage the letter ‘r’) designed boats, inspired by the multitude of local craft in that seafront city.
He joined the RAF and trained in England, studied aircraft design and demobilisation and returned to Bombay, where by 1950 he was chief designer in his father’s busy drawing office. In 1960 he moved to Italy to work for Navaltecnica in Anzio. “I have been very fortunate to have clients who are prepared to take risks” he says today.

“I always tried to be as honest with them as I could when we discussed their projects. And occasionally something didn’t work. This is the problem with original design.”
But for every failure there were a great many ground-breaking successes, and it seems typical of the man to ascribe these to luck and pass on credit to his customers – even if they were signing the cheques.
But when you look at some of the projects he involved them in you begin to see what he means: so many of the designs were at the cutting edge of naval architecture, where success was by no means certain. Like an artist with wealthy patrons, whenever he had an idea for a new work he could usually find someone to pay for it.

Rich playboy powerboat racers would find themselves enthusiastically funding outlandish and dramatic experimental prototypes. Commercial boatyards would be talked into daring new engineering solution on the promise of more speed and efficiency. If Sonny Lei is a problem solver at heart, he is one who has never seemed inclined to solve the same problem twice.

The Levi Boats

#1 Resolute

2012
1974

Built in the mid/later 1950’s, originally 38 ft., she was lengthened somewhere along the way, probably in the 1990’s, to about 42 feet, originally with twin 4-53 GM Detroit Diesels, until a 2012, which were still going fine, but were replaced with 2 larger Yanmars. Resolute belonged to a friend of Ken Ricketts, Ray Bailey, for a period in the mid 70s & is now moored at Westpark Marina.

#2 Ikikai
Little is known about Ikikai, she was circa 40 feet & originally also had twin Detroits.

Both of these first 2 boats, were designs based on boats he designed & were built in numbers, for the Indian Police, as Police Boats, in their era.

#3 Bacardi

1990’s

Launch date unknown but powered by twin 427 cubic inch ‘Interceptor’ GM V8 petrol engines, circa 400 hp each, these were replaced with 2 x GM Fuel Pincher 4 cycle V8 diesels circa 200 hp each. Barcardi was owned in the 1990’s by another of Ken Ricketts friends, Rick Brown.

All 3 boats were all built for Arthur Jenkinson, who was in the musical instrument business, in Auckland, by Percy Vos, & /or Shipbuilders.
Levi was very radical in his designs, for his day, virtually all his launches were designed as high speed, high performance boats, many of them having a reverse shear, & in the case of Ikikia & Resolute a slanting out tuck that v’ed to a central point in the middle.
Bacardi had a “cathedral” type bow, but she was very quick with those 2 “Interceptor” GM V8s.

 

Lady Dianna

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Lady Dianna

LADY DIANNA

photos & details ex Ken Ricketts

Lady Dianna, 36ft., was built by McGeady in his premises at 1A Summer St Ponsonby for Colin Lannam, a furniture manufacturer of Pakuranga c.1949.

Mr Lannam finished the interior himself at his business premises & did a superb job.

Ken & his parents were friends of the Lannams & Ken was on L.D. several times. He took the above photo in Mansion House Bay, Christmas 1949.

LD more recently belonged to a lawyer, who Ken thinks kept her in Thames, post 2000 & she was powered with a Ford Diesel.

Harold Kidd Update

LADY DIANNA and LADY DIANA got thoroughly confused in yacht registers, club lists and so on.
Colin Lannam was a cabinetmaker and lived in Lemington Road, Westmere. He finished the interior after McGeady built her. Lannam didn’t keep her long as she was owned by S.L. Wallath of Okahu St, Orakei by 1953. Later owners include H.C. Thomas of Inga Rd, Milford in 1973 when her dimensions were given as 36’x35’x11’x3’6″, her engine as a 100hp Ford diesel.and her build year as 1948 in her APYMBA record card.
According to Capt. Barry Thompson’s book “Deeds Not Words” on the Coastguard service, Trevor Kelly owned LADY DIANNA around 1985, but that’s probably a typo for LADY DIANA.

27/02/2015 – ex Karen Moren

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