Todays gallery of classic Bay of Islands wooden boats was snapped by Dean Wright , owner of the majestic woody – ARETHUSA. Dean was un-route to hauling ARETHUSA out for her annual TLC.
For top to bottom we have – AQUARIUS (1955 Supreme Craft), MAHARATIA (1947 Roy Lidgard), POSEIDOM (1965 Owen Woolley), and the last boat, the bridge-decker, is MANU (1913 Bailey & Lowe) a mystery, but looks familiar , hopefully we can put a name to her.
Make sure you check out WW on Monday, we have an epic trip report from John Oates who recently attended the 2025 Port Townson Wooden Boat Festival.
1960’S NOSTALGIA – CLASSIC WOODEN BOATS AT WARKWORTH TOWN BASIN
Todays woody photos popped on the Warkworth NZ Old Time Photos fb and comes to us from Alison Wallis via Maurice Sharp. The photo was tagged – Warkworth wharf late 1960’s, around Christmas time.
The classic wooden launch alongside the wharf, pointing downstream has to be TASMAN , the 1927 Colin Wild built beauty.
The bridge-decker anchored mid stream is a mystery – at first glance I thought – LADY RAE the 1948 Chas Bailey design, but a quick WW search proved once again I was wrong.
So woodys can we put a new to the bridge-decker.
LABOUR WEEKEND WOODY ACTIVITY
Time to start thinking about boating for Labour weekend (Oct 24>27). The Kawau Boating Club’s Spring Splash Regatta is a great event and there is something for everyone. Details below. Next week I’ll supply details on the motor launch activities.
CLASSIC WOODEN LAUNCH – LADY TANA > KHUTZE CRUISER > FURIOSA – ORIGINAL OUTSHINES REFIT
Back in Jan 2020 WW ran a story on the 1971 wooden launch – LADY TANA, built by Oliver & Gilpin. At the time we learnt a lot about her via the WW comments section. We have repeated them below.
Now thanks to an email from woody John Dawson, we get to see LADY TANA as launched. A pity about the ‘additions’ …… refer below photos.
Jan 2020 ex Matthew Keys – Lady Tana was built for my grandfather Harry Keys by Oliver and Gilpin in 1971. He cruised extensively in Northland in the early 70s with Whangaroa being a favourite. Tana rock in the Kerikeri inlet is named after the boat after it struck the rock. Kelly Tarlton made the rescue temporarily patching the hole. The boat was sold to Warwick Ross in Tauranga where it stayed for many years. In the 1980s it was renamed the Khutze Cruiser and ran booze cruises out of Paihia for a while.
May 2023 ex Donna Cowslip – My name is Donna Cowsill my grandfather Syd Deadman bought the Lady Tana that was in the 80s. Was the 2nd biggest pleasure boat in Whitianga. Did a lot of game fishing with my dear grandad, can’t remember the year he sold her but he regretted it big time. He down sized to the Waimaro nice boat but nothing could beat the Lady Tana. Queen of the sea
Oct 2024 – ex Tara Busby – She is renamed FURIOSA (Mad Max) and based around Northland/Hauraki Gulf as a liveaboard fishing and diving platform. We dropped the Lady name because she’s more of a bitch than a lady. She’s not elegant and pretty but big, strong and solid! As new owners we intend to modify her appearance to reflect her new name.
RESTORATION OF THE SOUTHERN WOODEN LAUNCH – NANCY LEE
Another woody story from my new hunting ground, the ‘Memories of Abel Tasman National Park’ fb page.
Todays classic wooden launch is named NANCY LEE and the photos come to us from a Sept 2020 fb post by Darryl Wilson, via John Burland.
At the time of the post the NANCY LEE was under going a restoration at the hands of Marc Wilson and Craig Hyland,the location of the work was Port Motueka Marine Services. Looks like a big labour commitment taking her back to bare wood.
Then in 2021 Margaret posted an update, as seen in the 4th photo above, but commented that there was a wee way to go before she is back in the Riwaka Estuary.
Can we learn what happened after 2021, did she get finished and if so where is NANCY LEE now.
AND PROMISE – NO MORE Abel Tasman stories for a while 🙂
TRADITIONAL CLASSIC BOATS MOORED ON THE WAIROA RIVER
Following on from yesterday’s story on the annual Classic Wooden Boat Cruise to the Clevedon Cruising Club, as promised today we share the wooden craft passed moored on the Wairoa River.
Many are semi permanent residents and its interesting to see what (if any) work has been undertaken in the previous 12 months. All too often these back waters can become parking lots for owners that object to lining the back pockets of the Auckland marina owner fat cats. So it was nice to see most skippers are keeping up the maintenance on their craft, and pleasing to see a lot of ’new’ arrivals.
Enjoy the gallery – photo quality varies as the first click was at 6.30am and the light improved as the journey progressed up river. As always click on photos to enlarge.
CLASSIC WOODEN BOAT CLEVEDON SPRING CRUISE HIGHLIGHTS
A tad weary writing this story so it will be short and I’ll let the photos tell the story.The weekend just gone saw a fleet of classic wooden craft making the pilgrimage to the CLEVEDON CRUISING CLUB for the annual woodys overnight BBQ.
As always the tide wags the dogs tail so we were looking at a very early trip up the Wairoa River, by early try 6.15am. The smart woody skippers travelled down Friday afternoon and anchored overnight at the river mouth. A great sunset delivered some nice photos.
I took photos of the classic woodys moored on route, it is always interesting to view the deterioration of some craft and the new arrivals. Will do a story on the river trip tomorrow.
Most of Saturday was spent boat hoping and catching up on dockside gossip. Rest assured if you weren’t there you were talked about.Captain Giddens hosted late afternoon drinks on ALLERGY and then we moved onto the clubrooms for the evening.
If you haven’t been to a Woody gig at the CCC its an all-embracing old school night shindig – bbq’s, outdoor fires, karaoke with a professional singer that could make even the worst shower singer sound ok. There are raffles, which I have to report the woodys skippers did very well at – Captain Giddens collecting 4 prizes. Everything is BYO but the club very generously provide additional food and an impressive dessert table.
Departure home on Sunday was almost as early as Saturday and the forecast wasn’t flash eh N>30 knots. I can’t speak for the others but it wasn’t the very pleasant and if it wasn’t bolted down it ended up on the cabin floor 😦
A big shout out to the classic yachts that joined the flotilla this year, with access to the local knowledge of Barry Abel, the deeper draft yachts had an uneventful passage on the river . Special thanks to all the woodys that attended by car, your company added to the evening.
Enjoy the photos and start thinking about the Spring Splash At Kawau Island on Labour Weekend.
Today hopefully, weather permitting, myself and a collection of classic woodys will be docked at the CLEVEDON CRUISING CLUB for our annual overnight BBQ cruise up the Wairoa River.
Whilst a few boats I’m sure will be slightly over crewed, none will match the photo of the tourist boat KOTARE that we see above unloading passengers at Kaiteriteri Beach, Nelson. Seriously…… how there wasn’t a capsize I do not know, and you can be sure there wasn’t a PFD for everyone 😦
The photo comes to us from the ‘Memories of Abel Tasman National Park’ fb on a posting dated Nov 2019 by Trevor Norriss, via John Burland.
Seems these days there is a fb page for just about anything and everything – John Burland sent me a link to the ‘Memories of Abel Tasman National Park’ page. There I came across a posting dating back to April 2023 where a Peter Campbell posted a copy of a Cody Engineering advertisement from November 1951 , featured in the ad was the 26’ launch – KAIPO. At the time owned by Henry Cotton. She had a 8’6” beam and draft of 2’6”. We ran a brief story on her back in 2023 but didnt learn about, so we try again 🙂
Then we learnt in the comments section(ex Steve Thomas 2024) thatDon Thomas and Boxer Fanslowe purchased KATIPO from Nelson Fisheries mid 1950’s and was then refurbished by Dick Stringer in Nelson.. In another comment in 2024 a Lynda Gould advised the Don Thomas was her father and him and Boxer owned the boat in the 1950”s > 1970’s.
She was originally built by the Juke yard, Wellington and launched 1929. The Petter 10hp engine was replaced around 1960 with a Ford Dexta 3 Cylinder, 32hp. KATIPO remained in the Thomas family until sold around 1998.
She’s now sitting in Picton Marina and I believe with the same Dexta engine still going strong after 63 years service. Photo below ex Steve Thomas, taken around 25 years ago.
Do we know what became of KATIPO.
03-02-2026 INPUT ex JOHN BURLAND – Now located in Picton Marina on a pole mooring. Powered by Ford Dexter diesel engine and 4sale on tme.
An unnamed woody recently sent me a link to a craft on tme with a one line note “wow check this out, you should buy it”.
Well woodys turns out the craft was a 1955 17’ speedboat . Bui;t by someone named ‘Lewis’ and repowered with a 350hp Mercury inboard V8, capable of 90 kph (50 knots).
Short answer – not for me.
Reading the listing it was all a little OTT eg “Rare vintage boats like this almost never come up for sale”, well thats not correct tme has mutable listings and then this line – “Trade-ins and finance welcome, and transport can be arranged nationwide.”
The nostrils started to twitch , smells like a car dealer…… well reading on turns out it was being sold by a car yard. And with a $40>45k price tag someones been sniffing the fuel tank.
So what’s the real story today – well this listing just illustrates the current divide between classic wooden motorboats and zoom zoom recreational trailer craft.
For the same $$ you could own the 40’ Miller & Tunnage classic woody below and do laps of NZ.
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