Category Archives: Tales & Yarns

THE STORY OF W1 – one of fastest boats ever on the Waitemata

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W1– WWII CIRCA 1942 In Cook Strait
W1 — WWII CIRCA 1942 — BRIDGE
W1- NAPIER LIONS MARINISED AIRCRAFT ENGINE
W1 — SIDE VIEW – AT SPEED CIRCA 1942
W1 — CAROMA — AS AT TODAY
W1 — WWII CIRCA 1942 AT SPEED
W1 – WWII AT GISBORNE — CIRCA 1942

The story below & photos above from Ken Rickets is the accumulation of over 65 years of one mans fascination with this vessel. It all started when Ken was 10 years old & saw her on her moorings, adjacent to the huge flying boat hanger & apron, at Hobsonville Air Force base. This one off experience moved Ken enough to see him for the next 65 years constantly making enquiries & researching the vessel. In 2001 Ken meet with a retired WWII air force officer, who was stationed on her during her wartime service, the officer gave Ken many of the photos above. Then more recently chats with Mr Allright Jnr. the second member of that family to own her, they had her in total for 40 years, & Mr Keith Bellingham who owned her from the mid 1990s to early 2000s provided enough additional insight for Ken to put together this wonderful story about a vessel that spearheaded our WWII air force coastal maritime defenses.

(Note: Harold Kidd accompanied Ken Ricketts when he met with the retired air force officer & may be able to add more details from that encounter)

Read below & enjoy. Alan H

THE STORY OF W1  – as told by Ken Ricketts

W1 was one of 2 identical boats ordered by the RNZAF during WWII for coastal defence duties & they were named W1 & W2.

W1 arrived circa 1939  from England, where she was designed & built to a Scott Payne design.

W2 never got here, the ship that was transporting her to NZ, was torpedoed & sunk, on the way out from the UK.

W1 was powered by 3 x W12 x 1000HP (3 banks of 4 cylinders) marinised Napier Lion aircraft engines, marinised by “Power Marine” in UK. — refer photo. The engines were configured with one either side & one in the centre facing forward, & driving through a Vee drive as there was not enough width to have the 3 engines side by side.

Such was the layout, power & performance of this boat, that it required an engineer to be seated in a padded chair in the engine room with massive ear muffs, whenever she went out,  with a fire extinguisher in his hand. He also also had to control all engine controls including throttles & reverse levers, which were huge long steel arms  standing vertical on the gear boxes of the engines.

On her maiden voyage, after she arrived, it was decided, I am told, that they would go for a run to Tiri, to “try her out,” but such was her petrol consumption that they ran out of fuel at Rangitoto Lighthouse.

While W1 was a “one off” for NZ & in her day, capable of very high speeds (I was told she could do over 50 knots), as evidenced by the photos — not bad for a 64 feet vessel. There were a total of 21 of these craft built & 3 of the early boats went to South Africa & were fitted with 2 Rolls Royce aircraft engines of bigger horsepower than the Napier Lions, but Hubert Scott-Payne had a disagreement with RR & they refused to supply any more engines for the boats, hence the change to Napier Lions.

A smaller 42 foot version was built later & there is one of these in a military museum in the South Island.

She is substantially made of spruce & mahogany & the bridge was more like the flight deck of an aircraft.

I saw her many times after WWII, on her moorings adjacent to the flying boat base & slipway, at Hobsonville airport, when cruising with my parents, Ralph & Wyn Ricketts on their first boat, JULIANA, (1946-49). — I never actually saw her going anywhere, (just wish I had), but obviously she did so, however I think she had almost no use, after the war, until they eventually sold her which I think was circa late 40s or early 50s.

She had a very impressive side exhaust system just above the waterline amidships,  with 2 groups of 3 exhaust outlets one side & 1 group of 3 outlets the other side. — Have not seen many boats around that have that layout.

After the war, she was eventually sold in 1955 by tender to Mr Norm Allright, who lived in Mt Wellington, on the banks of the Panmure River, not far upstream from my parents waters edge home, at No 1 Bridge St Panmure, they could see her from their lounge windows.

Mr Allright Snr., refurbished her to a degree, for pleasure use, when he bought her off the air force & called her “CAROMA”, he also replaced the 3 Napier Lions with a matched pair of counter rotating 671 GM Detroit diesels, she still went well, as you can see in the photos. Later Mr  Allright Jnr. did a splendid job totally & massively refurbishing her in the early 1960s, see photo.

She was sold in the mid 1990s to a Mr Keith Bellingham, who had intended to do a major refasten of her hull, along with other significant work, which was in serious need of attention, however, it proved not to be cost effective & he onsold her to a man in Tauranga, who in turn sold her later to a Waiheke owner, in the later 1990s & she was moored at Waiheke at that time.

She later still, sat on a marina at Bayswater, looking very neglected & painted purple, with her beautiful cabin top, as per the photo above, removed, & generally in a serious state of disrepair, apparently, & she was there until a couple of years or so ago.

I beleive she was taken to the Silverdale industrial area after that & has been moved now, to a private property, address at the moment unknown.

Any info on her current whereabouts would be appreciated.

Harold Kidd Update

Ken is substantially right on all points. However there was a W2, a 28 footer that had been built for the NZ Permanent Air Force for use at Hobsonville to service its DH Gipsy Moth and Fairey IIIF seaplanes. There’s a good book on the subject “The Golden Age of N Z Flying Boats” by Harrison, Lockstone & Anderson. The RNZAF’s W numbering really only started after W1 arrived in 1940.

One of her first tasks was get to the NIAGARA which struck a German mine off the Hen & Chickens on 19th June 1940. The Whangarei launches, Florence among them, were on the scene first but the skipper of W1 ordered them by radio to keep away, ostensibly because of the minefield but really because he wanted the glory of getting there first. The Whangarei boats had towed the ship’s lifeboats clear however by the time W1 arrived, leaving her with only 20 people to bring back to Auckland.

Norman Allright bought her in 1948. She is now called CARROMA.

Nobody ever claimed more than 38 knots for her or her type.

Update – 10/08/2014 from Ken Ricketts

In the original post on W1 Ken spoke of the engineer  that had to be seated in the engine room with ear muffs to supervise & control  the engines & of course to guard against a fire. In the photo below you will see the engineer’s chair in front of the centre engine (3x Napier Lion 1000 HP W12’s each being 3 banks of 4 cylinders).
& the 3 leavers with the black round knobs on each one surrounding the chair. Note the centre engine is sloping forward to drive in to the vee drive unit. The noise must have been unimaginable when they were flat out.

Gearbox photos below show an original vee drive gear box that were fitted to all centre engines with the Napier Lion W12 engines.
Also one photo shows the original engine installation concept of a WI – with the 3 Napier Lion 1000 HP W 12 (3 banks of 4 cylinders) configuration engines.

The photo of the interior of the large boat shed with several boats under construction was taken at Hyde Southampton, U.K. where the British Powerboat Company owned by Hubert Scott-Payne was sited & where all the W1 family of boats were built.
Photo also of Scott-Payne the 1930’s designer of the W1.

 

 

 

UPDATE 08-08-2025 INPUT ex JIM DONALD

“My Uncle Norman Allright was the owner of W1 . Here are a few facts about it as I remember. 

He tendered for the boat in about 1947. I don’t think he was all the fussed about it so tendered $1200 , ( 600 pounds of course) . His was the only tender. 

The boat was on a huge cradle in shed at Hobsonville Air Base. It was then towed around to his mooring he had put down in the Tamaki River opersite his property at the end of Waipuna Rd. His new house on the point had not been built as yet so he was still in the old farm house in Waipuna Road.                     He was a keen Ministry of Works auction attender and purchased a old D9 Caterpillar dozer that had built the Air Field on Gt Barrier Island. With this he constructed a road / track down the beach around the point from his mooring. He brought some Brengun carriers and removed the tracks which he concreted into the beach upside down. On the huge cradle he fitted the solid rubber tyred wheels which ran in the tracks. He then pulled W1 out with the D9. The 3 Napier Lions were then removed as they were useless to him . They ran on AV gas and used horrendous amounts of fuel . They were Supercharged and I think 2 stroke. The story was they could be a bit unreliable anyway and often returned on 2 motors. There was a permanent engineer in Air Force days in the engine room. The fuel tanks which were under the Wheelhouse held 5000 gallons of AV gas. There was no access from from the Wheel house to the forward crew’s cabin as it had water tight bulkheads so you had to go on deck and climb down a ladder. My uncle cut excess holes in the bulkheads. The engineer has his own cabin and head aft af the motors. There was then another compartment with a winch in it and a cable ran out a hole in the stern to winch aircraft which what the were there for. The Napiers were replaced with 2 Gray Marine motors ( GM 671) that were purchased secondhand from Honalulu. These were out of WW2 landing craft and purchased through a chap in Hamilton , Jack Tidd. Of course it had 3 shafts ,props and rudders. The center one removed and plugged up. The boat had no keel at all ( for speed) so the props and gear was very vulnerable. I guess this detracted a bit for the strength of the hull a bit and would explain the many frames / bearers on the cradle, for support. I remember it had a 2 cylinder motor driving a generator so I presume it had 240v but didn’t have it working in my day. I remember in the wheelhouse the incredible bank of guages on the .panel ahead of the wheel the 3 huge Tacos taking pride of place. Of course Norman had to run throttles and gear levers through to the wheel house as these were operated by the engineer down below . My uncle had to go below to the motors to start them as the buttons were mounted on top of the motors ?? Not sure why ? It had a large bank of big batteries but I think only charged from the motors own generators so always seemed to have power trouble meaning very very often the anchor had to be pulled by hand ??? About a 50mm rope and a big chain and anchor so jolly heavy work.

I went away many times on the boat with my cousin Robert Allright who was the second son , Donald being the eldest. No alterations or mods were done to the boat while Norman ran it but after his passing Don ( as we called him ) took over the boat and carried out a major refit which included the new cabin top and flybridge. The motors were removed , overhauled ( at Stevensons workshop at Otahuhu ) an on a Dyno and refitted. This would have been about the late 70s I think? It was at this time it was named ” Carroma” it had no name before that. It was a much nicer and more user friendly craft after that and had more speed with the uprated motors. During the earlier yrs my uncle had built a Jetty , and dinghy shed near the point so the boat was then tied up to it and the mooring pulled up. He had also built a lovely home just above which eventually sadly taken along with some land for the new Waipuna Road bridge. The house that was built mainly of native timber was torn down ??????? I have knowledge of the Carroma after it was sold but glad to hear it’s still about !! The story was they were built for the war only and not meant for longevity???? I remember one-time going up to Walkworth and tieing to the walf there and going for a shop in town. On leaving it was quite a job turning the thing around awning to the length so needed a 3 point turn to go about.                                    Hope this is a bit enlightening for some interested folk.”

Blokes & their boats

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Blokes & their boats

Sailing ‘pond’ yachts has been a hotly contested hobby for as long as the models bigger cousins have been around. Des Townson took it to another level with his radio controlled Electron yacht, production of which continues today under the expert hands of CYA deputy chairman Bruce Tantrum. Racing takes place at several venues across Auckland, details on upcoming events & Bruce’s contact details found here http://www.electron.co.nz/#

Some rather nice dinghies on display in the b/w photo, I imagine the dinghy maneuvering was an ‘event’ in its own right.

b/w photo ex classicboatsnz

The 5 Knot Rule

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The 5 Knot Rule

Seems that some boaties have been flaunting this rule for years. The photo above is another example of how some of our forebears did little for the cross-cultural motor boat / yacht relationship 🙂

Thanks to Harold Kidd for this photo

Yachts ‘versus’ Motor Boats

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Yachts ‘versus’ Motor Boats 

29 Jan 1953 – the day it all turned to custard

Now its commonly accepted that a lot of yachties do not hold motor boat owners in very high regard, hopefully its a little different with the CYA members, but even to this day, fathers are telling little Johnny that he would have won the local yacht club Opti race if it had not been for that bl_ _ _y launch that went past.

I think Harold Kidd summed the situation well in the book ‘Southern Breeze’ (published 1999) – extract below:

“Launches were originally considered an integral part of the sport of yachting and civilized it, providing comfortable, safe & (initially) segregated accommodation for the former yachting widows & the children.

Soon, yachtsmen assimilated the new order. Launch owners went out of their way to render assistance to yachts in distress & provide a welcome tow home in flat calms. The relationship, however, between yachtsmen & launchmen was always a little flawed by the affected superiority of the yachtsmen who deprecated launches as ‘stinkpots’, but the truth was that most of the crews were interchangeable, well-know to each other & experienced in both branches of the sport. That situation prevailed during the ‘classic’ period to 1960, but the advent thereafter of fast planing craft in the hands of often totally inexperienced owners diminished to some extent the mutual respect between yachtsmen & powerboat owners”

 In my search for cool photos for waitematawoodys I have uncovered photographic evidence that it happened 7 years earlier than Harold thought, evidence of the exact day & event it all turned pear shape – 29 January 1953, Auckland Anniversary Regatta.

See photo above, the displacement launch in the middle of the photo is all good, the speed boat in the bottom right……………. you can just imagine the language aboard the yachts 30 seconds after this photo was taken.

From this day on we were all tarred with the same brush 🙂

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

Kawau Island Copper Mine

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KAWAU COPPER MINE

If you live in Auckland & own a boat at sometime you will have cruised past the remains of the mine & no doubt wondered how & why it was constructed on this beauitful island in our Hauraki Gulf – well read Russell Wards story below & next time you pass by you will be the ‘clever one’ aboard that knows the answers 🙂 AH
story by Russel Ward
Below is a bit of nostalgia. It is the engine house at the Kawau copper mine when I first saw it a misty day in 1961. A lot of it has fallen since then.
It may be of interest to you all that the pumping engine didn’t actually do much work at all because it became obvious to the engineer in charge that the rock they were having to get though was harder and harder. Moreover the initial expert had grossly overestimated the amount of copper available.
Of great interest is that a beam engine enthusiast in the UK, Kenneth Brown has visited the Kawau pump house and measured it and thus deduced the size of the engine. He is adamant that it was transported back to Cornwall making it the most travelled Cornish pump engine ever. This was a bit early for the Thames miners 20 or so years later, it would have sold readily in NZ. 
Ken Pointon of MOTAT, however is certain that it went over to Australia. Interesting. 
I wrote article below 20 years back, its still good bedside reading. RW

THE KAWAU COPPERMINE AND ITS PUMPING ENGINE – Russell Ward

I first saw the Kawau copper mine in the late 50’s and have nursed a fascination for its history ever since. My primary interests are mechanical and I often wondered what sort of engine had been installed and the nature of its fate. There was an old boiler lying alongside, but it appeared to be much more modern than the engine house. It was evident that the engine house was of a type found in Cornwall and that a beam engine typical of Cornish mines was likely to have been installed. I researched the nature of the workings in the early 1990s and reported on my findings in “Breeze” at the time.

My interest in the old engine was revived in Finland, of all places, where I was attending an EU classic steamships meeting. A chance mention of the Kawau engine to Brian Hillsdon archivist for the Steamboat Association of Great Britain led me to an exchange of correspondence with Kenneth Brown, a member of the Trevithick Society for the Study of Industrial Archaeology in Cornwall. Kenneth kindly sent me a copy of the Society’s journal, which reported on the various attempts to mine copper at Kawau and the possible fate of the pumping engine. I am indebted to the Society for allowing me to draw heavily on this document.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE MINE

In the 1840s Kawau was bought and settled by the Bon Accord Mining Company of Aberdeen on the strength of its copper deposits, which had been discovered in 1844. Mining started using local labour but, in January 1846, a party of miners arrived from Cornwall with Capt James Ninnis head operations. Ninnis, an able manager, was from a well-known mining family and a strict teetotaller. He founded a flourishing Kawau Total Abstinence Society.

For a time, 200-300 people, miners, surface workers and their families, were living on the island in timber dwellings. At first ore was shipped to Sydney with the intention of sending it to Wales for smelting. However the ore displayed an alarming tendency to spontaneous combustion, not healthy in a wooden ship, which led to the decision to build a smelter on Kawau itself. The copper content could then be raised from 6 to 30 percent making the ore safe to ship to Swansea for final refining.

The copper lode itself lay in the small (though originally much larger) headland we all know, just 18 ft below the surface. As the miners sank shafts the workings inevitably went below sea level. A 12 hp steam engine was bought in NZ and installed to work pumps in one of the shafts and possibly a crusher as well. A horizontal level, or adit, ran into the mine from an opening in the headland above sea level. To provide a greater working area, the miners blasted the cliffs and used the rubble to form a narrow strip retained by wooden piles, which incorporated a wharf to load ships. A longitudinal section of the mine, on a plan drawn by Captain Ninnis in 1848, shows four shafts. Three were inland, each equipped with a horse whim (or gin) for hoisting. Lawyer Frederick Whitaker owned the fourth shaft.

Whitaker seems to have had his share of skulduggery in the young colony. In this instance he managed to obtain from the government the right to mine beyond the high water mark. His workmen, however, were caught red handed mining inland on the other claim. Protracted legal battles ensued, resulting in the company having to buy Whitaker out for £5000. While there was an expectation that the copper deposits extended out under the sea as often happened in Cornwall, the unfortunate consequence of the physical integration of the inland workings with Whitaker’s undersea workings probably hastened the later flooding of the mine.

Ninnis left when his contract expired and his place was taken by Begher a German metallurgist with experience of smelting but not mining. As the mine went deeper, the amounts of water seeping in became ominous. In 1852, with the work at 24 fathoms down, the ingress of seawater overcame the pumps, flooding the mine. Begher set sail for England to persuade the company to put up the cash for increased pumping capacity. At this time, the company was reformed as the North British Australasian Company and management was from London.

A report by mining engineers John Taylor & Sons was optimistic on the prospects for the mine and proposed

“… To send out immediately a Cornish steam engine of sufficient power to drain the mine with facility to a depth of 60 fathoms at least and keep it clear of water even if the present quantity should be doubled.”

It is on record that the 330 ton barque Baltasara was purchased by the North British Australasian Company and despatched from Falmouth in late 1853 or early 1854 with the engine, engineering and mining personnel on board. The Perran Foundry was one of the three major builders of Cornish beam engines and is the only one likely to have shipped an engine from Falmouth. The engine was erected in the engine house and ready for work by 15 July 1854. In 1995 it was deduced from on site measurements that the engine was probably about 36” bore and had a stroke of between 8’ and 8’6”. More of this later.

By August 1854, the new engine had dewatered the mine to the 24-fathom level where the work had ceased three years earlier. Begher was back in charge but a Cornishman Capt Anthony Bray was appointed to oversee the actual mining. The difficulty was that the deeper the mine went, the harder the rock became and the costs escalated. The 34-fathom level was finally reached in September 1855 to find that no payable ore was available. Begher had, moreover, grossly overestimated the quantity of easily workable ore left at the 24-fathom level.

Shortly after, the Sydney agent began refusing to honour Begher’s heavy drafts on the company. The decision to recoup company losses by stripping the assets seems to have taken the English shareholders by surprise. By December 1855, all mining had ceased and the engine had been or was about to be dismantled after little more than a year’s work. The only result was 32 tons of copper ore shipped back to England and a further 50 tons said to be ready for shipment from the smelter.

After this setback, the company sold its mining interests in Australia and concentrated on sheep farming.

The Mining Journal, a weekly newspaper of the period reported quite fulsomely on the recriminations at the shareholders’ meetings that ensued. They reveal a sorry tale of failure of the mine after little more than a year’s activities. As a result Taylor resigned but the directors and Begher seemed to have been primarily responsible for the company losing £30,000 on the venture. The previous company apparently lost £45,000; these were quite substantial sums for the day.

WHAT BECAME OF THE ENGINE?

Following the abandonment of the mine, it seems that the engine was returned to England for sale. The suggestion is that the company hoped to return it to the Perran Foundry for resale. There is no record of it making it back to Perran’s works. The plot thickens a little and the following advertisement, which appeared in the Mining Journal 4 October 1856, is interesting.

FOR SALE

            Mr Little will sell by auction at Devoran in the port of Truro on Monday 13 October next at Twelve o’clock the undermentioned materials all of which will be found in excellent condition (some of the pitwork quite new) and lying on the wharf convenient for shipment:

A steam engine 36″ cylinder, 8½ ft stroke equal beam. Large iron angle bob, with plummer blocks and brasses about 3 tons 31 9ft 3in pumps (ie sections of the rising main)

Then all the pitwork in detail including 12 and 14 in brass plunger poles, 10 and 12in iron buckets 6 and 7in brass buckets and clacks.

May be viewed on application to the Redruth and Chacewater Railway Company’s offices at Devoran

From Kenneth Brown’s measurements, it would appear that this might be the same engine. Certainly the ancillary equipment offered suggests that it was recently removed from a mine. Moreover, it appears that some of this equipment was not associated with the new engine but was from older pumping activities.

The more modern rusty boiler on site dates from a short-lived attempt to rework the mine in 1898-1900 by a Capt Holgate. It features in a picture in the Auckland Museum showing its installation in a lean-to alongside the old engine house. Jet machinery was installed in the shafts for pumping.

I have included a picture scanned from the latest copy to hand of the British journal Old Glory. It is part of an article about a preserved Cornish tin mine. The Levant mine ceased work in 1939, but was reopened and worked again in 1960. Its venerable pumping machinery was taken in hand in 1935 by a group of local enthusiasts and conserved. The National Trust now preserves the mine. Would that we had had some preservation enthusiasts in 1935 over here! Our only enthusiasts were wielding gas axes and chopping our heritage up for the melting pot.

The Kawau copper mine pump house is worthy of rebuilding to its original configuration. It stands as the first major site of very early colonial industrial activity and should be reinstated. Any lobbyists keen to take up the cudgels?

Harold Kidd Update

I had a lot to do with the mine in the 1960s when I acted for a couple of eager fellows who were sold on the idea of recovering the rails in the mine. The mine had run well out under the sea and flooded as soon as the workings ceased. The seawater acted as an electrolyte, depositing the copper from the exposed workings on to the iron trolley rails in a fairly pure form. Despite valiant attempts, the two guys just could not dewater the mine to make it safe enough to get at the rails.
I took a party of Japanese mining engineers to the mine to show them around with a view to raising capital to get the appropriate gear. To impress them (I thought) I turned up in my father’s brand new Datsun Bluebird, one of the first Jap cars sold here. But nothing impressed them, especially not the rough trip to the pumphouse on the tray of a beat-up WW2 GMC truck. Guadalcanal all over again perhaps?
So the copper is still there for the taking…if you’re brave enough!

The classic wooden boat maintenance myth

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The classic wooden boat maintenance myth

Every time I talk to a potential (first time) buyer of a wooden classic the one thing I hear again & again is the worry about the time required on maintenance. Yes they require constant TLC but the days of sanding & varnishing, sanding & painting etc etc have been significantly reduced with some of the new (ish) products in the market place. But if working on your boat does not appeal – buy fiberglass.

I believe in beating the drum for good, make that great, products – one of which is Uroxsys (now marketed / sold as AWLWOOD MA) this product has revolutionized the maintenance of exterior clear coated timber. There are boats in the CYA fleet that are in their 6+ year of Uroxsys protection + it looks a million dollars & its easy & quick to apply.
In the marine game you generally get what you pay for, Uroxsys / Awlwood MA not found in the bargain bins at marine chandleries & has recently undergone an international price alignment, but if your are looking for cheap, again maybe that fiberglass boat is a better option for you 🙂
Read the report above from the UK Classic Boat magazines long-term performance test – enough said !! AH

Percy Vos book to be launched

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Percy Vos book to be launched

A little bit of a heads up, very very soon we will see the launch of a new book ‘Launching Dreams – Percy Vos – The Boats & His Boys’ by CYA member Baden Pascoe. I have had the pleasure to work with Baden on the production of the publication & its a both a great read & a wonderful pictorial insight into the world of Percy Vos & the people that rubbed up against him.

Its a ‘big’ book so clear some space on the coffee table & start saving the pennies because if you are seriously interested in classic wooden boats – this will be a must have book.
Its on the printing press as we speak so more re publication date soon 🙂
Harold Kidd Comment:

It’s not only a great read but a beautiful thing to hold in the hand; a superbly produced book that glitters at you at all sorts of levels. A complete “must buy” for anyone with a whiff of salt in his or her veins.

Charles (Chas) Collings – Designer / Boat Builder

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Charles (Chas) Collings – Designer / Boat Builder

The story below on Charles Collings’ approach to design in the immediate post-WW1 period has been penned by Harold Kidd.

Charles Collings emerged from World War I with a massive reputation for fast craft. In late 1914, when the war was just a distant rumble in France, he had built the 21ft restricted racer FLEETWING with which he raced and beat the Christchurch boat DISTURBER on the Waitemata in April 1915 at exactly the time of the landings at Gallipoli. He developed his “concave-convex” hull design where the chine hull had a convex (hollow) entry and progressively transitioned though straight to convex at the stern. He was by no means the originator of the idea, but certainly grabbed it as his own through decades of successful planing hulls he built for racing, fast cruising and whale chasing.
There is no doubt that he was well ahead of his time in a local context, although Major Lane was close behind.
By war’s end in 1918 Charles Collings had been a notable war effort contributor as a pal of local motorboat guru Charles Palmer (see ADELAIDE on this site), had lost his partner Alf Bell who had gone to the Walsh Brothers helping them build flying boats at Kohimarama for their flying school (and did not welcome him back afterwards), and was preparing for the post-war boom in large launch building that was inevitably coming, during which he built MARGUERITE, PAIKEA and RUAMANO amongst many others.
I have had a chip at his aesthetics from time to time but, to be fair to the man, he did not have the hindsight we have on the way launch design went and could not know what looks good to us today.
Faced with the design of a fast cruiser, only 32ft loa by 8ft 6in beam, and the desire for headroom in the main cabin, he came up with his second motorboat called FLEETWING (by now a brand for him). She was an extension of the ideas in the 1915 ADELAIDE.
I think, with this second FLEETWING, Collings’ first training as a civil engineer shows through more than his secondary training with Robert Logan Sr. as a shipwright. To obtain headroom he carried the tramtop/clerestory concept to the point IMHO of ugliness, using the parameters of the railway carriage, the electric tram and the motor bus of the time, abandoning completely the parameters of the yacht, even a token attention to which had kept launches aesthetically pleasing until now.
Anyway, see what you think of this image of the second FLEETWING which I have taken from one of Collings’ own glass plates, very decayed, but an amazing insight into the goings on in St Mary’s Bay in late 1920. Collings & Bell’s yard is out of picture to the left, so we see the yards of Dick Lang and Leon Warne close up.
This launch was on TradeMe at Picton recently, erroneously called MISS FLEETWING.

Update: Charles Collings was a very good amateur photographer with excellent gear. After his death in 1946 his glass plates got scattered around in the workshop, many were used for skipping across the Bay, most were smashed one way or another. A very few survived, most cracked or with their emulsion badly decayed. I have a handful more of which a couple are excellent and the definitive shots of his 26ft mullet boat CORONA after her launching in 1936.

PS Leon Warne took over the shed on the right in 1916 from Henry Barton who left for the US with his family because of his anti-war convictions (and had a shocking time on the way). Warne had served his time with Collings & Bell. He painted up the shed very nicely as you can see but was building in St.Mary’s Bay only until c1924 when he and his brother set up in Russell, building and chartering game fishing launches.

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.