Alan Warren sent in the above photo of the launch – Escapade, the photo was taken in the mid 1950’s when owned by Keith Warren, one assumes a relative 🙂 Escapade was 32’ in length and built from Kahikatea. And that woodys is all we know.
Hopefully we can pad out her story some more .
Thanks to input from Nathan Herbert it appears that there has been ‘issues’ with the spelling of the boats name in the past – view WW link below https://waitematawoodys.com/2014/05/23/escapada/
AND IN CASE YOU MISSED IT LAST WEEKEND – CHECK OUT HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THE WW SITE – SEE BELOW
The ex Auckland ‘Blue Boat’ Auckland Harbour ferry – Olive Rose as made several appearances on the WW site, but only in her ‘modern’ configuration, photo below. Today thanks to the above b/w photo ex Jackson Brown via Lew Redwood we get to the work-boat version.
Obviously out as a spectator platform for an on the water event (yacht race?) , it would be a pretty safe bet that there wasn’t a personal flotation device for everyone aboard, nor life raft that could handle them. How times have changed.
The gent on the stern of the launch off her bow looks like he is a little perturbed 🙂
Now that headline will have a few woodys wondering how they missed out on one of the finest classic launches in New Zealand – well boys you can relax, it was only a model, photos below. Sold at Tuesday nights Cordys on-line auction.Sold for approx $500, 1.1m in length, so a seriously big model.
The condition was a little average in places but if you handed it to a ‘modeller’ and spent +/- $1000 you would have a piece of art worth $4>5,000. So someone got a bargain – I had forwarded the auction link to her owner so maybe they bought her.
Included in the sale was a lot of background Intel and photos – the two older ones above are interesting in terms of who the gents were.
Over the long weekend Jason Prew was crisscrossing the middle of the north side burning up fossil fuel, one of the rest stops was the Motuoapa Marina at Lake Taupo. While stretching his legs Jason spotted the launch – Waima, docked at the marina.
A quick WW search reveals no mention of her, so hopefully one of the Drake Bros. will chip in with some details 🙂
INPUT EX PAUL DRAKE WAIMA arrived at Taupo more than 60 years ago in the 1950’s, when she was called WAIMEA and owned by Lloyd Cotton. She is said to have been built by Lanes, maybe in the 1930’s? All planking is full length (kauri) and she is 28′ by 8′ 6″. She had a Chrysler Crown back in the day. She has had a succession of owners over the years but has remained a Taupo boat. She has a lovely powerful hull and deserves a decent top hamper. Present owner unknown, but WAIMA has been neglected in recent times. No doubt her time will come again.
Photo below c.1988 shows her more or less as built – back as far as the dodger anyway.
MORE INPUT from Paul Drake – WAIMA below – perhaps 8 years ago and in great condition.
Earlier in the year todays classic 30’ woody launch made an appearance on tme. We do not know much about her but she built by Jorgensen in 1953 using carvel kahikatea.
Powered by an 80hp Ford, she has a beam of 7’11” and draws 3’11” – and that is all we know. Given the level of presentation she looks to be a recent recipient of some serious TLC.
If anyone (or her new owner) can update us more on the launch that would be great.
Input ex Geoff Bagnall – Most likely named Sea Princess and used call Milford Creek home.
Woody Dean Wright sent in the above photo of the launch – Otehei. Dean ‘found’ the photo when having a clean out – its tagged on the back ‘Ian Spedding, Otehei, 1926 vintage’.
Dean’s thoughts are that it may have been taken by Ian Spedding and maybe lated from the late 1970’s. The location of the photos is probably off the old Fullers slipway at Russell.
Back in a 2013 WW story on Otehai – Harold Kidd wrote – OTEHEI was a sister-ship to the Collings & Bell-built hard chine launches built for various operators in the Bay of Islands in 1926-7 to service the game-fishing sport which had grown rapidly after an exploratory trip north by Colonel W.H. Hazard in his VIRGINIA in 1918. The other 3 launches to the same pattern were LORNA DOONE, ZANE GREY (later ALMA G II) and MANAAKI. These launches were all equipped with Redwing engines and were capable of 16 knots. OTEHEI was built for Frank Elliott who painted her red. Like the others, and the later AVALON, she was based at Zane Grey’s camp at Otehei on Urupukapuka Island.
She spent some time on Lake Taupo as GRACE DARLING but is now in Russell/Opua restored for the last 20 years or so as OTEHEI. View that story here https://waitematawoodys.com/2013/08/28/otehei/
The photo below is from Gavin’s collection of Otehei and shows her being relaunched at Fuller’s in 1977 post her first big restoration after returning to BOI after 40 odd years on Lake Taupo. Gavin believes it was taken on the same day as the photo above.
While there is a lot of thought and planning that goes into what we publish, the actual waitematawoodys website has grown organically i.e. sections have been added and deleted over the years, and we kind of assumed that you all had a good understanding of how to navigate your way around the site. In my recent travels mooching out stories, I have become very aware that not everyone is as good of driver as others and this means a lot of you are not getting the full experience.
So I have put together a few graphics to explain how to navigate around the WW site.I hope this helps you enjoy WW even more.
CONTENT I’m always looking out for stories, frequent comments I get are “I only have one photo” or “I have a photo but do not know anything about it” – well woodys, do not be the judge, send it in and let me decide if it has the makings of a WW story. Sometimes I already have another photo of the boat and now with your one, we have a story. DAILY STORY or REFERENCE TOOL When WW started the focus was on a daily story about classic wooden boats and the people connected to them, over time WW has also morphed into an amazing reference tool – we have over 5,000+ stories, 50,000+ photographs on tap. Most days when you look at the daily viewing numbers and what people are looking at, you get a 60/40 split – 60% are reading that days story and 40% are searching for something e.g. the name of their past boat, designs of a particular designer / builder etc. The site continues to grow year on year – with over 20,000 eye balls viewing each day.
THANK YOU & A CALL FOR HELP As always WW would be very average without all your help and input – so a big thank you. If you like the site we’d appreciate you spreading the word – share the content via one of those social-media giants by following the links on the WW site, or may be you’re old school like me and find it easier to tell people or just email the link to others that you think might enjoy a shot of classic wooden boating news each morning.
HOW TO FIND / SEARCH FOR ANYTHING
BUYING OR SELLING BOATS
VIEW RECENT COMMENTS + HOW TO GET EMAIL ALERTS ON NEW STORIES
EMAIL OR SHARE A STORY WITH OTHERS + SHOW YOU LIKE A STORY
ANOTHER SEARCH BOX + HOW TO ORDER WW MERCHANDISE
NEED SOME HELP
FIND THINGS BY CATEGORY (click on a word) – Note: the bigger the size of the text, the more popular the subject
MOST POPULAR CONTENT – Select by tag e.g. boat size / year / type of vessel – yacht/launch/work-boat etc. Note: the bigger the size of the text, the more popular the subject
VIEW MORE STORIES – We try to not slow down your computer loading up past WW stories , so each day only a few appear automatically on the site page you see. Click the box to view more & more & more etc
I know there is a name (its very short) on the life rings but I can’t read it. But given the very distinctive design of the launch, I’m sure we can ID the boat.
I came from a very old file I had so hopefully I have not posted the image before 🙂
How Well Do You Know The WW Site ? Hopefully on Sunday (if Saturday is a crap weather day) I will do a story on the WW site, I have spoken to several people recently that were unaware of the full functionality of the WW site – so I’m putting together some ‘flying’ instructions.
Regular WW readers will be familiar with the USA website – Off Center Harbor, Benjamin Mendlowitz who aside from being one of the world’s top marine photo journalists, is a co-founder of OCH – dropped me a note the other day re a video he shot for OCH last week. Its one of those feel good insights into what this classic woody boating gig is all about – Click the photo above to view – Enjoy 🙂
If you not a subscriber to OCH, you should be, neat stories and the back library is one of the best woody boating reference tool out there. In the link above there is a wee bonus – you can view 10 of the best OCH videos at no charge.
On one of my road trips up north I spotted the launch – Pelorus Jack berthed at the Kerikeri Cruising Club marina. Aside from the s/s jungle gym she appears to be a smart looking woody.
Nice big cabin with tasteful window design and size. I suspect the tanks are empty as she is noticeably pointing downhill.
Any northern woodys able to tell us more about Pelorus Jack?
Something for all the smaller classic woody boats – or crew that snore – a floating tent 😉
waitematawoodys.com #1 for classic wooden boat stories, info, advice & news - updated daily - 15+ million views 