Category Archives: Working Boats

Resolution

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RESOLUTION (Rio Rita)

1. Want to go cruising on a classic launch this Christmas?

2. Don’t have a spare $1,500,000 for a beach front holiday home.

If the answer was yes to either of the above then the phone call I received last week could make today your lucky day 🙂 Read on

NZ Kauri Carvel construction traditionally built 12.8m launch, from Collings & Bell shipyard in St Mary’s Bay, Auckland. Launched in 1929 and originally named “MV Rio Rita” this Ex survey vessel was tasked for 40 years as a tourist passenger ferry and royal mail vessel in the Marlborough Sounds.

Loads of history associated with this traditional timber launch. See waitematawoodys.com/2014/05/20/a-mystery-boat-200514/  . There’s further discussion regarding “MV Rio Rita” serving in 1942 for a period as a Battery Artificer for a gun crew in the Sounds out from Picton.

Renamed “Resolution” in 1971 when she relocated to Resolution Bay, Marlborough Sounds. For approximately the last 15 years she has been owned and maintained by a former boat builder in Omokoroa, Tauranga. Resolution has spent these long summers engaged in extended cruising up the coast between Tauranga and the Bay of Islands. This owner maintained her well and installed beautiful cabinetry throughout the interior, with materials in keeping with the vessels vintage and pedigree.

“Resolution” was recently acquired from this estate, as part of a “boat & berth” package in Tauranga’s Sulphur Point Marina. As traditional and beautiful as she is – Resolution is now surplus to requirements and seriously on the market following a significant price reduction. While Resolution requires a small degree of ongoing maintenance, nothing is urgent & work can wait until after the coming summer boating season.

Her new owner (boat & berth purchaser) has had a pre-purchase condition survey (dated Nov 2014) completed by Pacific Rim Marine Survey’s Limited, which will be made available to any prospective purchaser. Owner needs to sell her to make space for his existing boat so the price reflects this, I understand offers around $58,000 will buy her. Click the blue link below to view the extensive inventory & read more.

MV Resolution

Contact details – Warwick Bray Mob  021 288 6643 – Tel Hm  07 579 4043   Email : w.bray@aucgroup.co.nz

Tasman Star

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TASMAN STAR
photo ex Bill Belton

Tasman Star was anchored in Little Shoal Bay just off Bill’s house a few weeks ago.  From the photo she looks like a great an ex-fishing boat conversion.  Thats a serious dry stack on the starboard side, still it most likely works a treat.
I’m sure one of the woodys thats in the  ‘Work Boat’ group will be able to supply more details.

Update ex Baden Pascoe
Nice to see a work boat come up on Woodys. I’m not 100% sure who built her but Dick Lang rings a bell?.
She was built for the ‘dallies’ out west in the 1930’s. Her owner in the early days was Steve Mihaljevich, he fished for the Auckland Seine Boat Ass. Later
on she was owned by the one and only Ginger Gibbs.

MANANA III

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MANANA III
photos & details ex Harold Kidd

The  3 photos above by taken by Tudor Collins in the Bay of Islands c.1955 of the Miami-registered game fisher Maňana III. The images were bought at a flea-market by Sharon Knight who has made them available via Harold for all of ww followers to relish.
Harold had no idea that this boat ever came out here to fish, but here is the proof. She appears to have been built by Dittmore as the 48 footer Irish Lady and renamed Manaňa III when bought by Capt J. C. Lusk USN (retd) of Annapolis in 1948.
Sadly she was wrecked in Alaska some years ago.

Alma G & Alma G II

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ALMA G & ALMA G II

photos & detail ex Harold Kidd

Here is the first of a series of game fishing images taken by Tudor Collins at the Bay of Islands, which Harold would guess to be from the period around 1950-55 . The images were bought at a flea-market by Sharon Knight who has made them available via Harold for all of ww followers to relish.
This first one (today) shows ALMA G on the left and ALMA G II on the right.
ALMA G was built by Collings & Bell for E.C. Arlidge in 1922, the first of a series of splendid 35-36ft game-fishing launches built to Charles Collings’ renowned concave-convex planing hull design for the Bay of Islands. Her original configuration was the same as ALMA G II alongside her in this pic. ALMA G II was built as ZANE GREY for Mervyn Arlidge (for use by Zane Grey) in 1927. Other similar launches were MANAAKI and OTEHEI for F. Elliott (1927), LORNA DOONE for A. A. Holmes (1927) and AVALON for Peter Williams (1927). All were fitted with 6 cylinder Redwing 85-100hp marine engines.
Zane Grey’s visits to New Zealand with his mates caused an explosion of interest in game-fishing and added lots of US dollars to the NZ economy, culminating in the Collings & Bell’s commission from Zane Grey to build the 46 footer FRANGIPANI for fishing in Tahiti, launched in 1932.
ALMA G appears to have had a recent modernisation. Does anyone know when this done and who was the builder?

Photo below of ALMA G in her original configuration c1950, before the alterations.

Update ex Bruce Overhill
Bruce spent many hours on the refurbished Alma G in 2004 chasing Marlin. He commented that she can still catch them and was holding her own against all the big boats in the Bayleys fishing competition out of Whangaroa Harbor.

Below are a couple of photo to show the changes that she has had done.

28-04-2016 photo below of Alma G ex Hylton Edmonds via Ken Ricketts

ALMA G II - H Edmonds

Matahui

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MATAHUI

Lindsay Aitcheson, the new owner of the motor-sailor Matahui would like some input from the collective brains of ww followers.

It is Lindsay’s understanding that Matahui was designed by Athol Burns & launched into the Waiwartu  Stream in Wellington in 1955 (refer above photo ex Turnbull Library). Lindsay understands she was built as a fishing boat to long-line in Cook Strait. The builder is unknown but ‘could’ be Frank Dellabarca as he built several Athol Burns designed fishing boats e.g. MV Cristina (featured previously on ww).

Anyone able to shed some light on Matahui & her past??

06/11/14 -Updated with more photos from Lindsay Aitcheson (click to enlarge)

14/11/2014 Two photos of Matahui below ex Pam Cundy when owned by Tim Hall , he used her as a commercial fishing boat. He sold her to build another commercial fishing boat, ‘Skip Jack’ a 38′ Aztec. These days Skip Jack operates as a charter boat out of Gulf Harbour.

1934 Miller & Tunnage

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1934 Miller  & Tunnage

This 1934 work-boat conversion appeals to me. She is a big old girl 55’8” x 13’5” x 5’ 10” – built in heart kauri & powered by a Gardner 6L3 115hp diesel.

For sale on trademe she recently had an extensive refit. The owner is reluctantly retiring from the sea. would make a nice live aboard.

Anyone able to ID her? Currently in Picton so maybe one of the southern woodys?

More details here https://waitematawoodys.com/2013/05/28/wairangi/

Info ex Paul Drake –
Below is the ad for WAIRANGI when she was put up for tender by the Lyttelton Port Company (in the 1980’s?).

Photos ex Frank Stoks of Wairangi taken today (01/10/2014)

Boat on the Move – Kiwa

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KIWA
photo & ‘heads up’ from Russell Ward

The classic (workboat) Kiwa is on the move – spotted last week on-route from the Hokianga to Auckland – so the questions are :-
1. Who has bought her ?
2. Where in Auckland is off to ?

Russell took the fogbound photo (below) of her on her ex home waters on the Hokianga in 2006
Paul Gilbert alerted Russell to the post on The Shipping Office website.

Russell’s message to the new owner is  “Look after her, mate. I’ve long admired her”.

Can anyone supply some more details on her builder & past life – Russell?

kiwafogsmall

Got A Question, Looking For A Boat, Found Something Of Interest?

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Got A Question, Looking For A Boat, Found Something Of Interest?

ww gets lots of correspondence that start off like this :

” I used to own _ _ _ _ _ in the the 1960’s, do you know where she is now”

” I wonder if you could help me trace my granddads boat”

So I have set up a Lost & Found post – if your looking for a boat just enter brief details in the comment section below & click the ‘post comment’ button. You click on this icon, top right (up turns blue when you scroll over it), to go straight to comments – the number indicates the number of comments.

Over on the right hand side of the site is a Lost & Found panel – if you click on that it will take you to this post.

You can also use the search box to see if there have been any info posted – just type the boat name into the box & hit enter.

GIVEN ITS THE COMMENTS SECTION – KEEP IT SHORT i.e. NO STORY TELLING

I’ll trial it for a while & see how it goes. Alan H

Looking for Jaguar

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Sister ship
Jaguar 1972
Jaguar c1970 Bon Accord
Sister ships in UK factory
UK spec sheet
Otazei 1948

LOOKING FOR JAGUAR
photos* & details ex Ken Ricketts, edited by Alan H.
(*photos of Jaguar are ex 8mm movie film so very poor quality)

Some History
Jaguar is a very rare craft having started life as a flying boat tender. She is one of 87 built of this base specification by the British Powerboat Co., in Hythe, Southhampton, U.k. in the 1930 >1940’s period. These craft were used around the world both in military & civilian service.
They were designed by Hubert Scott-Paine who owned the British Powerboat Co. The actual architect involved in the project was a George Selman. They were powered by various types & brands of paired engines overseas, but all the U.K. craft had S6 Perkin engines (refer spec sheet above)
In New Zealand the craft were used by the air force for their flying boat fleet during & after WWII & Tasman Empire Airways Ltd (T.E.A.L.). TEAL used them out of Mechanics Bay, for flying boat patrol.  All these boats were made of mahogany, with double diagonal planking on the bottom & single diagonal planking on the sides. There were at least 3 boats in the TEAL fleet, one of which had, 2 x Ford V8 engines, one had 2 x Meadows 6 cyl., petrol engines & another with 2 x 4-53 GM Detroits (this one was to become Jaguar, in civilian life).
During the 1950’s the TEAL fleet was under the control of a Mr Arch Tucket, (owner of the 30 foot launch Otazel, photo below). Ken Ricketts family knew Arch Tucket & Ken went out on patrol on the boats a few times.
The boats were sold when TEAL moved operations to Mangere & focused on land based planes.

 Pleasure Use
One of the craft was given the name Jaguar & bought by a Mr Hansen, of The Parade, Bucklands Beach.
Hansen hardly used her personally, but she was in the care of & used extensively, by the a very fine gentleman, the late Jim Ellis, & his family, also of Bucklands Beach, a highly skilled specialist watchmaker, from the mid 1960s well in to the 1970s. She was moored at Bucklands Beach for many years on a swing mooring during this period. The Ricketts were friends with Jim Ellis & they cruised together often, in their launch Flying Scud.

So the question of the day is where is Jaguar today & what became of her two sister ships?

Harold Kidd Update

There appears to be a degree of over-simplification in Ken’s article between the TEAL launches and the RNZAF launches built to the Scott-Paine/ British Power Boats’ 40ft Seaplane Tender design. TEAL’s sole example was built in the UK by British Power Boats. She had twin Meadows engines.
The 3 RNZAF versions were built by W.G. Lowe & Son Ltd in Auckland and were launched in October 1942. They were W44, W45 and W46, powered with twin 6 cylinder 110hp Graymarine diesels, both RH rotation.
W44 went to CAB at Mechanics Bay but went back to RNZAF service in 1955.
A fourth RNZAF version, W88, was built by W.G. Lowe & Son Ltd in July 1943 and is now restored and on display at the RNZAF Museum, Wigram.
The TEAL UK-built boat was taken over by the RNZAF as W6.
A fifth Scott-Paine 40 footer was acquired by the RNZAF about 1952 and given the number W322. In his well-researched article on the subject in the AHSNZ Journal of August 1995,D.J. Duxbury states, “It is thought that this boat originated with the RAF in Singapore, and it appears to be identical to the New Zealand-built control launches.”
If JAGUAR is built of mahogany then she would seem to be either W6 or W322.

A news clipping below ex Harold Kidd from Papers Past – New Zealand Herald – 4 September 1942. click to enlarge

PP

01-07-2018 Update from John Bullivant – photo below shows Jaguar hauled out c.1975, at Bucklands Beach Yacht Club, her mooring in those days was 80m (on the left) from the haul out ramp.

JAGUAR 70S

Woody Report From A Far #3

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Woody Report From A Far #3

My cub reporter sames to have reverted to his past – the latest trip report is all sail & even a steel one, I have sent a strongly worded note reminding him his lavish retainer is based on a supply of wooden motor boat articles 🙂
OLD IRON SIDES

Only in the USA – the USS Constitution 200+ years old and even though now a museum, she is still a commissioned warship. Despite her nick name her hull is 21 inches thick timber. Undefeated in battle she was feared by the British who gave her the nickname as they could not sink her.

PEKING
One of the last generation of great sailing ships, the windjammers. Peking was built in 1911 & not a woody as her hull is steel.She is permanently berthed these days at New York’s South Street Seaport.