Category Archives: Non Waitemata

Elsie Evans

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ELSIE EVANS

details & photos from Bob McDougall & the Timaru Herald

Timaru’s first pilot boat, the ELSIE EVANS, a 1901 Bailey (13m x 2.4m) has been relaunched into the Otago Harbour after a very long $500,000+ rebuilding / restoration project that saw her spend 59 years on land.

The ELSIE EVANS was built by Auckland firm Charles Bailey Jr, as the first pilot boat for the Timaru Harbour Board and as a replacement for its paddle-tug MANA.

It was launched on December 31, 1901, and named after the wife of the harbour board chairman at the time, William Evans.

The boat’s main tasks were to tow small craft, tend the big steamers, take the health officer out to deep-sea sailing vessels and carry the pilots.

Those were roles it continued until 1927, when it was sold to Captain Percy Moss, of the Portobello Railway and Ferry Co.

From 1928, it was used as a launch to tow barges, carry freight, and ferry passengers when the company’s other ferries TAREWAI and WAIREKA were out of service.

In 1944, it took over from the TAREWAI and regularly sailed the 2.4 kilometers between Portobello and Port Chalmers, carrying up to 37 passengers.

It was a role it continued in until 1954.

Life for the old launch took a turn for the worse after that. While several owners had big plans for the boat, nothing happened and it was sitting in a paddock when the South Canterbury Historical Society bought it for $1200 in 1997.

B/W photo above (ex Bob McDougall ) show ELSIE EVANS being brought to Dunedin’s Birch Street wharf from its long-time mooring at Ravensbourne, on 1 September 1962, and taken by road to Waihola, where it languished there and later with other owners/other places, for decades.

It is planed that passengers (exact number subject to a stability test) would be allowed on ELSIE EVANS by January after she has passed her survey

View TV news article on the launching here

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/century-old-boat-back-water-video-5527794

Check out in the posting below this post, of the 2011 mini movie by Simon East backgrounding the history & restoration, stunning footage of the Otago Harbour.

Elsie Evans – Timaru’s first pilot boat

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ELSIE EVANS

Check out this 2011 mini movie by Simon East backgrounding the history & restoration of the ‘Elsie Evans’, the 1902 Charles Bailey Jnr. built Timaru pilot boat. Some stunning footage of the Otago Harbour.

Then read the posting above for more details + relaunch photos.

A proud NZ maritime family – the Guthrie’s

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The Guthrie’s

CYA member Graham Guthrie & brother Roger’s great grand father, Henry Guthrie, settled in Dunedin in July 1864 from Largo in Scotland. He married Isabella Graham in 1866 & became a ship owner & broker. Most of the ships owned by Henry initially were jointly owned with mainly with his younger brother Walter. Sir William Larnach (Larnach Castle, Dunedin) was another co-owner & several joint ships can be viewed today on the walls of the castle. One joint ship has the claim of taking the 1st shipment of frozen lamb to Britain.

However from 1878 he was essentially the sole owner of the vessels.The Laira an iron barque built in Sunderland,England was owned by Henry from 1889 to 1893.
A large number of ship passed through his hands in his role as a broker. He was a member of the Otago Harbour Board in 1879-1883 and 1892-1894.
It appears that he was bankrupted in the late1880’s but all their children received a sound education and the family lived a settled and comfortable life.
Henry died  on 21st April 1913 in Rattray  St Dunedin as he was walking up the steep hill to his home.
The photo above shows the ship Alcestis when she ran aground in Otago Harbour c1880. This ship ‘gave’ its name to the Guthrie family launch, Alcestis (photo attached), which features frequently on this site.
Update / photo from Russell Ward – photo of an unidentified tug -possibly ‘Dunedin’ – towing Alcestis out of Otago after her grounding.
I guess she lived to sail another day unlike many of them on that coast.
photos & details ex Roger Guthrie

Do not marry a farm girl

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A tale for any waitematawoody considering marriage & also those that are now boat-less.
I found this tale, ‘Something to remember -by James S Pitkin’, a few years ago in the wonderful old 1947 book ‘The Book of Boats’ by William Aitkin. Aitkin saw the book as becoming a quarterly journal but only two issues were printed then publication ceased. You can find / buy copies on ebay & its a collection of short stories & a great read.
I had a copy & one day hopefully the CYA member I lent it to, whose name eludes me, will open the dust cover & see my stamp & return it 🙂
Harold Kidd Update:
A visit to the maritime provinces of Canada and the New England seaboard reveals the similarities between the Canucks, the Down Easters (and other Yankees) and Kiwis; each of these sets of populations originally arrived by sea, mainly in sailing craft; and each traded and gathered their food and went from place to place on the sea. No wonder there is a great fellow feeling between these peoples. There is the same feeling in Brittany and Cornwall too. The sea is at the core of our being.

258 Stunning Classic Boat Photos

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258 Boat Porn Photos

 
The few above are to tease you to view all the 258 stunning  photos from the Bell Street Harbour Classic Rendezvous, pull the cork on a nice Pinot, find a good chair & click the link below. Enjoy 🙂

Atatu

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An update on Atatu
words & photo from Frank Stoks
Here are a couple of fresh pictures of Atatu (1919, Bailey and Lowe) mentioned on this site about a month ago.
The new hardwood aerofoil rudder (installed 3 years ago) replaced the flat steel plate in order to eliminate all zincs and stop delignification of hard to repair timbers.
Moreover the rudder still works drifting into the berth at 1 or 2 knots whereas the flat steel rudder didn’t work at low speed.
She was a luxury launch for Holloway, then Nathan family, war service in Wellington, converted to fishing vessel in 1947, has had several wheelhouses the last of which (shown) by us about 15 years old now. Present engine is a Caterpillar D330B installed new in 1968 still going strong [touch kauri].
I have an extremely detailed history of her, concerning owners, incidents, activities, conversions, and engines – with photos starting from before she was launched to the present day. Unfortunately the Atatu embossed Royal Dalton China, cutlery, carpets and etched glass have long disappeared.
And yes the funnel is a folly – but I’m proud of it!

Not quite the Waitemata – but very cool wooden boats

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Not quite the Waitemata but this video of the Classic Yacht Association USA /Pacific Northwest Fleet’s traditional kick-off to the boating season is a great parade of gorgeous motoryachts. Of particular interest to me is the new PNW Fleet Commodore, Jessica Freeman, seen onbard aboard her Flagship, PEACEFUL, leading the fleet.

I have followed the ‘rolling renovation’ of PEACEFUL for several years (seasons) on the WoodenBoat forum. Link below
http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?110427-Restoration-of-a-1939-Richardson&highlight=Peaceful

Avante / Avanti

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Matiatia 1949/50
AVANTE/AVANTI
A message from the new owners.AH
We have recently purchased Avante – a motorsailer from 1946.
We are trying to find more history on her – if any of your members can help.  We found her Registered # carved in as 178442 and Nett Tonnage to be 2.02 tonne
What I have found out from Maritime NZ is:
Her registered name is Avante even though her plaque say Avanti
She was registered in NZ in 1949 and her registration closed in 2003 under Section 91 of Ship Registration Act
Her year of build was 1946 by Bruce Eady in Auckland.  She was designed by Brian Donovan,with a cutter rig and is double diagonal Kauri with carvel plank.
Construction started in 1939 by Brian and his boatbuilder brother Des but nothing was done during the war until 1945 when Brian sold her to Bruce Eady and Bruce put on the third skin and completed the job.
She was launched at Mission Bay in 1946 with a 4 cylinder Gray auxiliary.
Eady sold her to N R Sanson in 1954.
She was in the Sanson family for many years, at least until 1990.
She was stolen in 1973 for a while.
She has a registered length of 8.58 meters.
I have attached some photos of her as we found her in Tauranga – at present she is on our front lawn and work has started on her refurbishment.
Any info anyone may have would be great. Email Ann at
tobinhnz@xtra.co.nz
Note: Thanks to Harold Kid for input re known history
SIDEBAR 1(AH)
B/W photos,  just before launching, supplied by Don Currie , those dad worked with Bruce Eady on Avanti. Avanti was completed on an emptly section on Cogrington Crescent, Mission Bay, his father and Bruce worked on the boat in a partnership.  Don’s parents met through Avanti (one of his Mum’s aunts lived a couple of houses up the road in Codrington Cr), they are still together, and I understand they were right chuffed to hear that the boat is about to get a bit of a birthday.
SIDEBAR 2 (Ken Ricketts)
Photo added of Avante taken in 1949/50 in Matiatia when he was 12 years old
SIDEBAR 3 (by Bruce Eddy ex Ken Ricketts)
I and Graeme Currie worked on her together during the war.  Materials were scarce we had no electricity so everything was done with hand tools.  I remember carving out the original mast by hand what a job.
The correct name or the name i christened her is Avanti.
The two crew mentioned in the photo at Matiatia are John Kernahan and Vern DeGroot.  Graeme and I spent hours riveting and with his design brilliance, we installed a gray marine in the cockpit, reverse position driving a 2 to 1 chain reduction.  Petrol shortage made us build a heat exchanger to switch to kerosene.  The lead keel we moulded on site with firewood from scrape suffering many personal lead burns.  Originally I installed a small wood burner stove and we made our own style toilet.  The rig was my own design and given a good wind on a reach we would keep up with many yachts.
SIDEBAR 4 (by Ann Tobin, current owner, ex Ken Ricketts)
Currently she is sitting on our front lawn in Kaikohe – the photos on waitematawoodys are the day we hauled her out and had her trucked up in May this year.  She hadn’t been out of the water (or off her marina berth at Bridge Marina Tauranga) for 9 years.
We have found an amount of rot in her (mainly just the planks) and she is slowly drying out.  At present the interior is gutted – she had been leaking through the cabin top and the inside was completely ruined.
Avante is now powered with a Sole Diesel – which we have out and intend to have blasted and painted (at present sitting on our garage floor on a pellet) – The engine would not run – a starter motor issue we believe.  Steve (my husbands) father has worked on these engines so looking forward to getting it going.
I believe that the previous owner used her as a batch basically in Tauranga as he lived in Huntly.
I have attached some photos of her at home for you (added to the montage above AH) – you can see where we have started stripping paint and some of the areas of rot we have found.  There is also a couple of the cabin top which is now sealed and Steve has started to fiberglass.  It had a type of cloth over it which has split – never been repaired – and therefore was leaking like the proverbial sieve!
Sometimes I think we are mad – but others cant wait to see her back in the water.  Wooden boats are in my blood – Mum and Dad did a similar thing with “Isa Lei” back in the 90’s – we see she has just been resold by a guy in Whitianga.

Royal Saxon

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ROYAL SAXTON

photos & story ex Harold Kidd

ROYAL SAXON was built by Colin Wild for Whangarei surveyor Harold Frederick Saxon Charlesworth and launched in October 1930.

She was 33ft loa, 9ft 6in beam and drew just under 4ft. Her original engine was a 35hp Kermath.

In late 1936 Charlesworth sold her to Mrs. G Kendall of Hamilton who kept her on the Waitemata. The Sanders brothers bought both ROYAL SAXON and MOVARIE in 1940. They kept MOVARIE until they bought LADY CROSSLEY in 1956 but sold ROYAL SAXON in 1943 to Gordon Hunter. ROYAL SAXON was a patrol vessel with NAPS from around 1942-1943, under skipper J G Brook as Z21.

Gordon Hunter sold her to R & J F Phillips-Turner in 1945, they sold her to W G Gottwaltz of Thames in 1947; he sold her to J G Browne of Katikati in 1948; he sold her and she was owned in 1973 by Dr. W R Trotter of Epsom. She was owned in Motueka  when I saw her and photographed her about 11 years ago nosing her way into the Sandfly (Falls) River on the Tasman Bay coast, still in lovely condition.

The photo of her on the slip at Whakatakataka Bay is probably during the latter stages of the war when she had reverted to civilian control. She’s wearing her wartime reporting number on her bows without which she could have been sunk by the batteries on North Head.

Update from Rick McCay (current owner of Luana)

We owned Royal Saxon from 1989 to 1994. She was a superb first classic launch for us. We bought her from Don Watson who lived on Waiheke Island and to his credit she was in perfect condition. We restored the bridge varnish as she was all white when we got her. In 1994 we sold her as we had fallen under the spell of Luana, and as we all know while owning one old boat is a catastrophe, two is an absolute disaster. We sold her to a lovely man Captain Tom Rowling [brother of PM Bill Rowling] who was skipper of the Golden Bay cement ship. We had a great afternoon on board his ship one time it was in Auckland. He trucked Royal Saxon to Mana and motored her across Cook Strait to her future home, Motueka. Dr Trotter was a keen amateur cabinet maker and Saxon had a lovely interior courtesy of his expertise.

SIDEBAR (ex AH)

Now a woody who shall remain nameless passed this story onto me 🙂
“When Doc Trotter owned “Royal Saxon”, he had an elegant daughter who was draped on the bikini deck  –the part between the houses on a bridgedecker –quite sheltered for sunbathing.. Anyway, I did my hair and rowed slowly past and tried to chat her up. She didn’t want any of it! Shame-  she could have had me too if she had tried.
 Life is paved with rebuffs from Dio and St Cuths chicks…..”
17-02-2016 photo of Royal Saxon at Kaiteriteri ex John Burland
Royal Saxon @ Kaiteriteri