ALBATROSS SPEEDBOATS

The annual Lake Rotoiti Classic & Wooden Boat Parade always attracts a good turn out of the Albatross speed boats, but at last weekends parade we had the biggest turnout in one spot in the Southern Hemisphere. Read below for the local (Lake Rotoiti) on the craft – as told by Richard Stevens.

“Campbell Motors (Queen St Auckland) were the NZ agents.
The Beamish-White family at Okataina Lodge had a fleet as “Drive U-Self” hire boats, including a 4-seater with Coventry Climax version of the engine and one of the two seaters had a factory alloy-framed full height 4-pane glass windscreen.
They also had a set of hull jigs and did all their own maintenance on site including re- skinning.
These boats took a hammering and were eventually replaced by outboard-powered craft. Les Warner ran a small hire fleet from his home at Hinehopu. (I recall as a kid seeing one as a crumpled mess after crashing into the jetty at speed.)
There was also a hire fleet on the Rotorua lakefront. These were painted red. One allegedly sank and was never recovered.
There was also a fleet at Queenstown. These may have been the remnants of the Rotorua hire fleet.
The boat in these fleets may be double-ups. I do not know how many boats there actually were in total.
In addition to the Stevensons and ours there were two more on the Lake during the ’60s. One was the Annabel family, the other the McDonalds. (I saw their boat in Auckland a few years ago, complete and painted black) 

These boats are the MG Midget of the water. They don’t have excessive power in their standard format, but they are fast, nimble, well designed and beautifully built with excellent handling. They are simple, cheap to run, easy to maintain and, above all, great fun. 

These boats have held classic status worldwide for many years now and are highly collectible.
It is pleasing to see that they are acknowledged on Rotoiti as part of our boating history. 

Addition: Alan Clark owned one here at Lake Rotoiti in the 1950’s. 

Addition: Don Wykes and his brother purchased the Rotorua Lakefront business from Judd & Jean Davies in the 70’s.
It had the launch Ngaroto (the Davies had this built in England) that took people out to Mokoia Island and had 3 Albatross hire boats: 2x 2 seaters and 1x 4 seater. They were painted Red. 

He is able to confirm that one of the 2 seaters sank just short of Mokoia Island, when his worker was heading over to mow the grass. They put a buoy over the oil slick, but when they went back to retrieve it someone had moved the buoy. They sent down 2 divers but were never able to locate it, the water was too murky. He doesn’t recall who he sold the others to, but remembers one of their workers bought one and put a bigger motor in it, a 105 he thinks. “

Below is a gallery of the Albatross craft that participated in the parade – as always click on photos to enlarge. Also scroll down to view yesterdays WW story – 200+ classic and wooden boat photos from the 2024 Lake Rotoiti Classic & Wooden Boat Parade.

Read more about the boats at the WW link below to a 2015 story on Greg Lees pride and joy. https://waitematawoodys.com/2015/07/30/an-albatross/

Also included is a copy of the NZ Register of Albatross craft- supplied by Alan Thorn