THE REBIE Y55 – Sailing Sunday David Campball-Morrsion sent in the above photo of the mullet boat – The Reble, which David’s father in law and a couple of mates owned before the war, his name was Arthur Coughlan (Buster) and they kept her in St Marys Bay in Auckland. The bridge motorway put paid to that area years later.The Reble had the skull and cross bones on the main as in the photo. Buster played for Ponsonby Rugby Club and became a NZ Barbarian just before the war and became a Ponsonby life member and an Auckland rugby selector, also an active member of the Ponsonby Cruising club.
After the war Buster and family moved to Dunedin for ten years which he claimed was his sentence, they then moved back to Auckland to take up the position of personal manager at Pacific Steel when it opened. David would take him out a number of times on the family yacht, then in their launch Arima, but David commented that fishing in his tinny at Coromandel was his love in his later years.
David is keen to learn what became of The Rebie post the Arthur Coughlan (Buster) ownership period.
Big WW milestone yesterday, the odometer clicked past 6,000,000 views – I got so excited when it went into 4 digits, used to check it every 1/2 hr to see how many and who was visiting the site 🙂
Can we put Russell Ward out of his misery? Russell sent in the 2 photos below of a boat named Silver Spray, that dropped anchor on Friday night below him, in Scotts Bay /Landing – from the distance she appeared to be approx. 40’, with a counter stern, slightly Wild Dock looking. Any one know the boat?
Silver Spray when an Island Bay fishing boat launched c. 1938 (photo ex Baden Pascoe)
22-12-20 Input from John Bullivant – Silver Spray at Half Moon Bay Marina. Owner advised she is powered by a GM671
ROSEMARY – Leon Warne The above photo of the launch Rosemary popped up on Lew Redwood’s fb – the caption read ’the Rosemary, Feb 1950 at the wharf, Otehei Bay, Bay of Islands. Seen here ‘bearing the pennants of a striped marlin and black marlin’.
A little research via the WW comments section, un-covered input from Harold Kidd and Ray Morey that matches the above launch – in summary, that she was designed / built by Leon Warne in 1920 at St Mary’s Bay, Auckland and was approx. 36’ in length. Rosemary was prominent in game fishing in the B.O.I. . All that seems to match today’s launch, so we now have a photo of Leon Warne’s Rosemary in the 1950’s. Photo below of her in the 1920’s running alongside Ozone, built by Collings & Bell in 1912.
Firstly I need to thank Predictwind for Saturdays forecast, 100% on the button, as usual. One woody at the picnic didn’t come by boat based on the forecast published in Saturdays NZ Herald newspaper……………….. I suspect they also believe the horoscopes in the same paper are factual.
The morning started off a tad eerie with a sea mist blanketing a lot of the sea area off the east coast – but this burned off late morning and we then enjoyed perfect weather. The NZH and coastguard weather forecasts saw the numbers of launches attending drop to 12 but great to see so many turning up by car. Also very fine to have 3 past CYA chairman in attendance – Steve Cranch, Rod Marler and Peter Mence. The waterfront based Stillwater Motor Camp is an idyllic setting for a gathering of classic wooden boats – deep water wharf access to raft up to + a tree shaded lawn. After some interesting docking (too many dockside expects) we had the launches tied up and everyone then decamped to the lawn. Special thanks to Mark Edmonds (Monterey) for again coordinating the venue. A lot of the group had not caught up since the CV-19 lock-downs so it was good to swap stories and boating plans for the upcoming summer.
There has always been good camaraderie on the water between boaties and its something that we foster at Woody Classics Weekends – proof of it in practice is seen below in the photo of Rod and Fiona aboard Arohanui taking Murray Deeble’s Waikiore under tow. Towed him all the way back to the entrance to Milford Creek, where another woody – Jason Prew had ventured out in rather unpleasant conditions to get Waikiore back on her Milford berth. Well done to everyone.
Message for Murray – “should have bought a Yamaha” 🙂
Next Woodys on the water event – November 8th – Riverhead Tavern Lunch Cruise
DAILY BREAD Short and sharp story today, busy relaunch the boat and heading off to Stillwater for the Woodys Waterfront Picnic later today. 20 boats have RSVP’ed so should be a great day.
Paul Trevethick posted the above photo of the launch – Daily Bread on his fb and commented that the launch was seen here departing Portland Island* after dropping stores off at the lighthouse. Do we know anymore about – Daily Bread, is she still around, name change, etc.
* Located off the southern tip of the Mahia Peninsula on the North Island – photos below
KURI – A Peek Down Below The 44’ Kuri has made a guest appearance on WW back late December 2015, WW link below. Now thanks to her tme listing (thanks Ian McDonald) we get to have a peek below.https://waitematawoodys.com/2015/12/30/kuri/
Kuri was designed by Herbert Levi and built in 1929 by WG Lowe, she has had an honest life as a workboat and now resides in Picton snd converted to pleasure boating / live-aboard. Powered by a 115hp Gardner 6L3, she is very well fitted out (as are most southern boats). Depending on her condition its a lot of boat for $83k
MARLIN The above game boat photos was included in the bundle of Ken Warne’s photos of his launch Marline – can we uncover more about her, a very distinctive looking woody. Also maybe Jason Prew could just walk across the boat shed at the Slipway, Milford and ask Ken – he is there most days working on Marline.
Speaking of Marline the ’new’ / stripped down dog-house is coming along nicely – photos below.
The above gallery of photos of the launch – Erewhon, were sent in by Kerry Alexander. Erewhon was once a very salty woody, sadly these days she is high and dry in Helensville at the Kaipara Cruising Club. In another life, Erewhon was a registered long-liner, owned by a friend of Kerrys, Great Barrier Island resident, Brian Burrell, who currently owns the woody – Lynmar.
Can anyone tell use the designer / builder? And what became of her between long-liner at being parked at KCC.
Back in September 2019 I spotted the launch – Marline coming up Milford Creek on-route to The Slipway yard. As it turns out she was being hauled for a heart transplant – a wonderful new Yanmar 120hp was being installed. The top two photos above show here in the ‘creek’. At the time I thought – very nice woody, but ……….. pity about the low rise block of flats on top.
So you can image how pleased I was last Thursday to walk in to The Slipway shed and see a team in the process of demolishing the flats. Marline was built in 1950 by Leon Warne in St. Marys Bay, for his own use. Son Ken gave me a guided tour of the boat and detailed the work in-hand. And she will be returning to a more traditional configuration 🙂 Marline is approx 35’ x 11’ 4’ and draws 3’6”. She had a reputation as ’the party boat’ and once aboard its easy to see way – an 11’+ beam on a 35’ boat makes for a lot of living space.I love the original cabin lights – Leon Warne cast them, son Ken still has the mould……….. now that has got me thinking 😉
The gallery of photos below, ex Ken, give us a peek into her past, as you will see, she was successfully used for Game Fishing for many years, out of Tauranga
Back in late 2019 Arethusa’s Bay of Islands owner Dean Wright, a professional photographer by trade, and well known to WW readers gave me the heads up that the 1917, 33’ Bob Brown built, ex gaff rigged cutter, was in for a treat – a new wheelhouse. Since then I have been pestering Dean on a regular basis for photos, even threatened to drive up and take them myself 🙂 Problem was, the mans a perfectionist and didn’t want to send anything in to WW until it was all shipshape. Well woodys as you can see from the above, its very shipshape, in fact in my eyes – perfect. Well done to the team. I asked Dean to tell use about the project, so I’ll hand over to him. Remember you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them – Enjoy 🙂
“Over the years we’ve got keen on changing Arethusa’s wheelhouse to be more in keeping with her age, so at 102 she’s undergone some cosmetic surgery 🙂
We lost 8″ inches of headroom in wheelhouse when we installed the Gardner, so we’ve gone up in height 6 inches and forward 8 inches and gone for more traditional upright windows fw’d.
Boat builder John Gander did the job in his Waipiro Bay workshop. He started by taking patterns off the existing wheelhouse and fw’d cabin top. He replicated the curve of the fw’d cabin top in ply and built the new wheelhouse around that in six sections. He also laminated the new wheelhouse roof, allowing for a good eyebrow fw’d and a smaller one aft.
John learned his trade at Roger Carey’s yard in Picton in the 60’s and 70’s, where beautiful work boats with great looking wheelhouses were the order of the day. John built one of my favorite Carey designs, Hinewai for his own boat and we’ve replicated her fw’d opening half window on Arethusa.
Once the wheelhouse was complete, we hauled Arethusa at Ashby’s in Opua and got to work with the skill-saw. In no time we’d reduced her to a convertible. We were lucky for Northland’s drought everything stayed reasonably dry and also that we got everything closed in and back in the water before Covid shut the yard down.
I’m in awe of how boat builders can build something like this away from the boat, then fit the pieces with a minimum of shaping. Fitting and gluing the six sections to the existing house went really smoothly.
The wheelhouse is built from 2″ Iroko. This is the first outside varnish we’ve had on Arethusa, we hand brushed 2 coats of Cetol as a base and six coats of Schooner Yacht Varnish.
Over lock-down, the apprentice made new interior joinery, gone are the Warehouse plastic drawers and chipboard frame 🙂 Moved the batteries under the new bench unit so we can now stand at the wheel. John laminated me up some lovely curved trim for the front of the oven unit. Our old manky plywood dash got an upgrade to kauri and the old wheel got a fright with a good scrub and a varnish.
Outside we made nav light boxes and dorade boxes. We had to move the aluminium framed front hatch fw’d, a more traditional looking one in Iroko is on the to-do list. The liferings also got a birthday.
Here’s some before and after pics and also some that I hope will give some idea of the process. Thanks John for all your incredibly skilled design and build work, we’re really stoked with it.
We’re always keen to learn more of Arethusa’s history, especially the 1955-2000 period in the South Island. If you have any stories we’d love to hear them.”
Koputai was built in 1939 by Miller & Tunnage in Port Chalmers for use as a pilot vessel. Her specs are 56’ x 14’6” and she draws 6’5”.In the early 1990’s she returned to Miller & Tunnage to be converted to a pleasure boat. The WW link below takes you to her 2015 WW story for extensive details and photos, back then she was offered for sale.
Fast forward 5 years and I have been contacted by Keith Foster who purchased Koputai from Louey Sandiant (deceased). Keith sent in the above photos and like all of us is keen to uncover more on her past. https://waitematawoodys.com/2015/05/03/koputai-sailing-sunday/
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