You will have heard me in the past prattle on about the future growth of classic wooden boating being trailerable boats – something you can take home and tinker with. This growth is driven by two key factors – the cost of keeping a boat afloat (marina $) in any of our metropolitan cities and the maintenance of larger craft as the owners get older and less mobile.
Todays woody popped up on Lew Redwood’s fb and at the time the seller was looking for around $13k – try buying a classic car for those dollars.
Approx. 15’ in length and powered by a 25hp Evinrude.
Hopefully Seeke II sold and is now someones pride and joy 🙂
SEE YOU @ 10am SATURDAY @ THE WOODYS BOAT BOOT SALE @ THE SLIPWAY MILFORD – 5 Omana Road – Bring cash
Jason Prew is currently on a road trip tearing up the highways and backroads of the South Island. I was pleased to see he wasn’t totally engrossed in the world of 4×4, the above photos come to us from the Otago Settlers Museum. Link below
The photos above are of a speed boat named Minx built in 1958 by Les Booth, Les also built the mini-me model in front. This would have caught Jason’s eye – he has a radio controlled model of his very quick classic launch – My Girl. Video of 1st run, prior to finishing below.
The Minx speed boat was originally powered by a Hillman Minx 4 cyl engine, but not long after launch this was replaced with a V8, must have been very quick.
A slightly worrying trend that is occurring on trademe is the number of wooden craft that are being offered up in ‘as-is-where-is’ condition with a short time window before they are disposed of. Probably a sign of the times in terms of storage costs and rebuild costs.
Todays wooody was saved, sold for less than $1,000 – lets hope the new owner has plans to restore her and not harvesting for parts / fittings.
Potiki II is 28’ in length, built by JH Young – thats all her tme listing told us. Thanks to Lan McDonald for the heads up.
Just a reminder we have the 38’ Robertson built classic – Katherine at Westhaven this weekend for viewing – 100% turn-key purchase – you’ll be boating this Christmas / NY. + W/haven marina also for sale. Email below for a viewing time.
When I saw Perano, a 16’clinker kauri built double ender – my immediate thought was lake boat. Built in the 1960’s by Bernie Perano (of the whale chaser family) she is a very cool little ship. The negative of being f/glass encased is off set by the positive of being able to be stored out of the water on her trailer and not needing to ‘take up’ when launched.
Perano it is powered by a super reliable 5 hp single cylinder diesel engine. Made by Yanmar the NTS 70 engine is started by hand it is a slow turning engine with a 2:1 reduction gearbox with shaft drive swinging a bronze 3 blade 13×12 prop. The hull speed of 5.4 knots is easily achieved with fuel consumption of 1 litre per hour. Fuel tank is 10 litres – plenty for a full day out and then some. Thanks to Rob Watt for the tme heads up.
AND ON THE SUBJECT OF LAKE BOATS – Put A big circle around February 5th 2023
That is the date of the uber cool Lake Rotoiti (Nth Island) Classic & Wooden Boat Parade. If you are a woody boat owner and have your craft on a trailer – consider doing the trip to Lake Rotoiti – its a blast. Details belowFull details at https://www.woodenboatparade.co.nz/wooden-boat-parade/. 5th Feb 2023 (Waitangi Weekend). There is a dinner the night before and a picnic after the parade. Normally well over 100 boats in different styles form the parade.
AND LASTLY – WOODY CLASSIC PICNIC ON TOMORROW AT MOTUIHE ISLAND 1PM – which side decided by weather on the day
Todays woody story comes to us via John Dawson who sent in a link to a Auckland Museum collection file on the 1914 Auckland Power Boat Association race to Cowes Bay, Waiheke Island. The event was run on the 7th March, 1914.
The launch featured is the 24’ Pastime, previously on WW we learnt that she was built by T. Le Huquet in late 1912.
Quite an unusual cabin/cockpit top, the owners must have been years ahead of the ’stay out of the sun’ crusade.
AND THE QUESTION OF THE DAY – Whats happening with the Percy Vos Shed ?
All dressed up and ready to shine BUT a peek in the door reveals a dust bowel – appears nothing has happened since I was last inside for the August 12th 2021 offical launching party…….. that’s 62 weeks ago. As numerous people have told me, the Maritime Museum (who ‘control’ the building) couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. At the August 2021 function it was announced that both the NZ Classic Yacht Association and the New Zealand Traditional Boat Building School would be tenants – anyone able or brave enough to supply an update?
The one positive from this is that the muppets at the CYA pushing the new Heritage Basin Yacht Only Marina will probably be long dead before the Maritime Museum gets around to making the yacht only marina a happening thing 🙂
This a great story with a long tail. I first rubbed up against the boat back in 2009 when a co Kiwi based – WoodenBoat Forum follower named Graeme Tearle, lived in Thames, mentioned online he was considering buying a Townson 22 – known as a Pied Piper (Piedy) on trademe in Auckland. Turns out it was sitting on the hard at the Devonport Yacht Club (I was a member back then) so I took some photos for him. Graeme bought the boat, below is an edit of his postings on the WBF, he has a unique style of chat and the yanks on the WBF loved him –
“But this boat has issues. For starters, her name. “Born Slippery”. Ye Gods, whatever was he thinking. So my daughter Abby came up with a new name. “Ceilidh”. Pronounced “kay-lee” it is Irish (or Scots) for an informal get-together featuring traditional song, dance and drinking. In other words, a party. My kind of party (I’m half Irish). Perfect. Next, her cabin shape is all wrong. Ceilidh has the original, shorter roof, which designer Des Townson lengthened when he redrew it, and I suspect he may have lowered the roofline an inch when he did so. Either way, Ceilidh’s cabin is too short & too high for my tastes. If you can’t stand upright in a boat, there is little point in adding an inch or two to the roof height and you still can’t stand up. It just spoils the aesthetics. Also the cabintop is built in the original style with internal roof beams & a 9mm ply skin. The new style has a laminated roof with no beams. This is vastly preferable; nothing to hit your head on & a much easier paint job. So the whole cabin top has to come off. This has the added bonus of allowing me standing room inside while I do the rebuild, and I can replace the ply coamings with varnished mahogany, as they were with Candyfloss (a previous Piedy he built) In my own personal, very biased, opinion, such a beautiful shape deserves nothing less.
The cockpit has been hacked about in the modern way with an open transom. I will fill the transom back in again & add an aft deck forward to the mainsheet traveler, then an aft coaming across it, aft of the traveler. There can be no lazarette here as the rudder shaft comes up thru the cockpit floor aft of the traveler, making a bulkhead impossible. Also, she has a rise in the companionway of about 300mm, to stop water entering the saloon should the cockpit flood. What absolute nonsense. This is the Hauraki Gulf guys, the best cruising grounds in the world, not Cape Horn. I’ll cut it out, fit a lintel about 50mm high, and should the weather become so severe that I fear a wave might jump into the cockpit, (yeah right, it is sooo going to happen) I’ll fit the first washboard & lock it in place. The ability to easily step thru the companionway without having to clamber over what amounts to a bridgedeck is a boon beyond measure on a cruise. The existing tiller is an ugly stick. I’ll build a new, properly shaped one.”
Graeme did an amazing job restoring the yacht (sadly all the work-in-progress photos on WBF have been lost) and bought Ceilidh by road up to Auckland for a Des Townson exhibition at the Viaduct and motor sailed her back to Thames – memory is hazy but I think I lent him a life jacket and a VHF radio for the trip. Graeme’s past post on the WBF was c.July 2014 and I think he sold the boat in June 2014.
Fast forward to mid July 2022 and the son of old family friends – Gavin Woodward tracked the boat down to a mud berth in Thames and was trying locate the owner, dockside chat was that she had been abandoned. Photos below showing Ceilidh looking very sad.
Fast forward to mid September 2022 and Andrew Sander – a previous owner of the boat , tracked her down and re-bought her. Andrews words “Spent Sunday preparing and Sunday night on the high tide dragging her from her mangrove and rat infested grave, she’s now in a berth in Thames Marina. Her next adventure is going to Tauranga for cosmetic work, a weight loss program and a new set of sails. Then it’s back to Auckland to catch up with her old Piedy mates where she will live. Looking forward to some great racing and antics. Get a Piedy up ya (again)”
Photos below of the extraction at Thames.Wonderful that these iconic craft are held in such high regard that yachties go to these lengths to keep them sailing.
ANYONE GOT A POT OF THIS WOODY PRODUCT?
Steam boat woody – Russell Ward contacted me as Russell and some of his fellow steam boaters are bemoaning the loss of Davis Slick Seam. The trailer boaters swear by it. It holds the leaks until the seams take up and it squeezes out -doesn’t set. Stops the incontinence when you launch.
Anyone got a spare tin or know what might have been in it? It was black, had some waxy filler apparently, stayed put and wouldn’t go hard. It is no longer being stocked. West are not answering emails, it is obviously not a big seller.
So woodys what would have been in it -NO EPOXY but maybe some of the filler they use. But it was tarry looking.
On the weekends Woodys Classic Weekend cruise to the Clevedon Cruising Club I had the services of a cabin boy (relax, he’s my neibour) so I handed the wheel to him for most of the trip up the river. This freed me up to snap some of the moored wooden craft, I’m sure a few might be f/glass or even steel – but still an amazing collection ’semi-hidden’ away, that us Auckland marina dwellers never see.
Enjoy the tour. AND make sure you check out the last photo below – seems the CYA A Class skippers have been playing bumper boats again.
Seems the CYA Classic A Class Fleet Are Playing Crash & Bash Again
One of the classic launch owners returning to their berth in Westhaven from the weekends Woodys Clevedon cruise – spotted a wee hole in Little Jim. Comment was it had the dimensions of a bow-sprite.
Fingers crossed the culprit has good insurance………… A review of the RNZYS results page for Saturdays racing shows two classics with a DNF alongside their names – being Little Jim and Rawene, chances are that tells you the other vessel.
Things like this probably contribute to why only approx. 6% of the CYA classic yacht fleet race (outside of one-off events like the Mahurangi Regatta) their craft. Too much testosterone is a bad thing with a car steering wheel or yacht tiller in your hand – then again maybe it was too much oestrogen this time?
Tony Marr sent in the above photo, dated c.1942 of Motukaraka, on the Hokianga Harbour showing the Launch – Omakura that his grandfather, George Harding, owned.
Tony commented that George operated the boat between 1920 > 1950, mainly fishing for mullet. In a previous life, Omakura was a creamery boat.
In the caption it states that the houses on the hill are Wi Gundrys, and the factory managers. The factory is behind the mangroves on the right, with the pump house and water tank above it. At the road there is Gundry’s building and General Store. Omakura is moored in front of the net stand.
Tony is keen to learn more about Omakura and what became of her.
Help Support A Great Boating Club
Next weekend is the Classic Woodys woodyCruise up the Wairau River to the Clevedon Cruising Club, thanks to the woody skippers that have RSVP’ed, fyi we have closed off accepting ‘entries’ but if any woody readers are feeling warm hearted, how about supporting the club in its fundraising for a new fuel jetty – read below the CCC flyer and buy a raffle ticket/s on $5. Lots of cool prizes. The contact for the tickets is Carol Parkes cparkes@outlook.co.nz
I’ll be emailing skippers tomorrow with full details on the weekend.
When I was coming onto the Slipway at Milford the other day, this very smart launch – Kotuku had just vacated the cradle I was heading for. Kotuku is a 26’ Pelin Mascot and has just had some serious TLC (9 weeks out).
Powered by a 25hp Isuzu 2ab1, she would be very frugal on the fuel.
She wasn’t going far – she’s a river rat e.g. calls Milford Creek home.
Message For The Skippers That Did The Woody Trip Last Easter To Paeroa
Check your prop/s – seems there was a few solid items hiding in all that mud – Raindance’s prop was in need of some love from Dr. Cam at the Slipway Milford workshop. All 3 blades were similar to the one below 😦
Todays woody is the Bailey & Lowe 1915 built launch – Lapwing. Her specs are 26’ x 6’6” and in the above b/w photo she was powered by a 17-25hp Sterling engine that gave her a very impressive speed of 12 knots. Her original owner was Capt. J Davies and the photo comes to us from a supplement to The NZ Yachtsman – May 22, 1915 via Lew Redwood’s fb.
Lapwood is my marina ’neibour’ and I took the bottom photo on Sunday, sadly she very rarely leaves her berth.
Below is a link to a WW story on her from March 2013.
INPUT EX PAUL DRAKE –LAPWING was a Taupo ‘hire’ boat for a number of years from1929. She was brought to the lake from Rotorua by Englishman Donald Hunt, who had arrived in Taupo in the early 1920’s. He was a mechanic who also had dinghies for hire, and who became the agent for Johnson outboards – he supplied a Johnson Sea Horse to our grandfather in 1928, an outboard which we still have and which is still operational. Later he was also the agent for Gray Marine and supplied the engines for PIRI PONO when she was returned to Taupo with a damaged engine after WW2, when she saw service with the RNZAF at Hobsonville, Auckland. LAPWING was renamed PANDORA after an incident which left her reputation a little tarnished. With bow pushed up on a beach in typical Taupo style, a number of passengers proceeded to move towards the bow on the same side, whereupon LAPWING took a severe list and deposited said passengers overboard. Reputation being everything, LAPWING was no more, but PANDORA went on to be a popular hire boat! Donald Hunt eventually progressed to SUNBEAM (now in Tauranga as SEA BREEZE). PANDORA continued at Taupo for some years as a private boat, before disappearing from view.
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