PANDORA After all the shinny paint yesterday probably best to have a work-boat story today. The 48’ fishing boat – Pandora was built in the late 1960’s at the Alex Baxter Yard in Whangarei.. Her original owners were Brook and Winston Richards of Kaitaia, who had her built for commercial crawfishing. But she was set up so she could be converted to trawling within a few hours.The photo taken on launch day is dated Feb 1970 and is ex Photo News, and comes to us via Lew Redwood’s fb. A comment there stated that Pandora was the best looking fishing boat built- big call, but she is a looker.
The news paper headline read – ‘$40,000 Boat Launched’ so she must have been out there in her day.
Do we know what became of Pandora?
Remember the Riverhead Tavern Woodys cruise today – lots arriving by car, so if you are put off by the weather – take the car for a spin 🙂 details below
Raindance Gets A Birthday Firstly a double apology
1. If you are one of the several WW followers that have an issue with me posting photos of my launch – switch off and read a book, in fact do everyone a favour and push delete to WW updates
2. Today is all about the boat – after several weeks of being hauled out at The Slipway Milford, I relaunched today – I have used the term b4 but I’m as happy as a dog with two dicks 🙂 I will not bore you with all the work but Jason and Cam at the Slipway have corrected a telephone book size list of issues, faults and potential future oops – the ‘Readers Digest’ version of the work I’m very happy about is :-
• the paint job, stunning
• the steering, rebuilt including new rudder tube / stock / arm
• the mast – rewired / vanished + visual enhancements
• refurbished stern – removed upright support posts + rot
• refastened duckboard
• addressed several niggling water leaks
Still a few cosmetic jobs on my list but she is looking 90% perfect. If you are joining us on Sunday for the Woodys Riverhead Tavern lunch cruise, you can have.a gander dock side 🙂
Feb 2021 Islington BayAs launchedGraham Gibson at helm1988- Owner Stewart Bridgford,- center
KAIKOURI – A Flashback
The 40’ Kaikoura was built in 1951 by P Vos. It is believed she was built for the owner of Kaikoura Island at the mouth of Fitzroy Harbour, Great Barrier Island, as transport between the island and Auckland.
She has always been a zoom zoomer – when launched she had twin165 engines that gave her a top speed of 25 knots. These days she is a regular compeditor (& winner) at CYA race events. The flybridge was added in 1988, by then owner Stewart Bridgford,
20-06-2021 – Input on Kaikours’s twin Perkins 510, 8.36 liter, V8 4-stoke diesels from Mark Erskine The 510 (cubic inch) V8 was the first V8 model manufactured by Perkins, UK in 1965 and were rated at 170 HP at 2,800 rpm and were used predominantly in trucks and a few bus models.
The 510 was followed by the more reliable, longer stroke 540 cubic inch V8 Perkins at 8.84 liters and 170 HP at 2,600 rpm.
Other than their considerable size and weight for a modest power output, the 510 (and 540) proved reliable enough in commercial vehicle operation, so would make good, reliable marine engines when run at constant lower revs and moderate loads.
“Kaikoura’s” previous Kermath inline 6-cylinder engines were side-valve (or “flat-head”) design and all side-valve engines have a lower crank center line to top of engine measurements than overhead valve and overhead cam inline design engines.
The lower engine height above crank shaft center line helps boat builders retain flat cabin floors in larger boat designs.
Most V8 design engines (including overhead valve) also have lower crankshaft center line to top of engine measurements because the cylinders and cylinder heads are inclined in “V” shape out either side of the crank shaft center line.
So although the 510 (and 540) Perkins V8 diesel engines are considerably larger and considerably heavier than the previous Kermath inline 6-cylinder engines for similar power output, the top of the Perkins V8 engine wouldn’t have been much higher than the top of the inline 6-cylinder Kermath side-valve, which means “Kaikoura” would have likely retained her same flat cabin flooring over the Perkins engines – a nice feature in all boats.
REMEMBER RIVERHEAD TAVERN LUNCH CRUISE ON SUNDAY – TIMES BELOW. Join in by car if you are boatless.
SNOOZER The 1947, 33’, Sam Ford built bridge-decker – Snoozer has just popped up on tme (thank you Ian McDonald),. We do not know much about her other that she is kauri carvel planked and powered by a 85hp Isuzu diesel that has her cruising at 8 knots. Whangarei is her home town. Might be wrong, but I would suspect a name change at some time.
Can anyone enlighten us on Snoozer’s past life ?
06-05-2025. UPDATE– for sale again , current owner credits her designer/ builder as Sam Ford 1947. And says previously named JUANITA – Would be nice to confirm.
Input from Bruce Pullan – bellow is a picture of Awa Manu, it looks like Snoozer.
Yesterdays Quiz Winner To Name The Launch Alongside The Wharf – was K. Sutherland, who was the first to correctly ID the boat as Lady Helen – WW cap on its way 🙂
Something different today a 4 minute black and white movie featuring mainly Russell in the Bay of Islands and some of the A Class fleets underway and racing. A cool flashback to that era. Their are two movies on the link – the boating one starts at 6 minutes, fast forward – Enjoy 🙂 (movie ex Archives NZ Weekly Review #390 – 1949)
WIN A WW CAP I’ll give a WW cap to the first woody than can correctly ID the launch alongside the Russell Wharf. Entries via email only to the address below and to make it fair NO entries before 8.30am. waitematawoodys@gmail.com
Over the weekend one of my spotters, sent in the photos above of Galatea hauled out at Te Atatu Boating Club – the answer to ‘what happened to Galatea’ – is – not much happened to her. Fingers crossed she gets a break and is returned to her 2017 condition. In the 2017 WW story we did not uncover much about the vessel – can anyone enlighten us more?
Explanation – if you wondered why you received two email today – the first one, the ‘Woodys Classic Events’ calendar was just a posting to allow me to get the calendar into the WW system, so I can link to it. Make a note of the dates in your diary, I’ll be sending out invites closer to the actual dates. If you haven’t been receiving notifications about Woody events – drop me an email with – your name, boat name + mob # (some comms we do via txt – send to waitematawoodys@gmailcom.
May 23rd – Moon Engines – Diesel Maintenance WorkshopDONE
June 20th – Riverhead Tavern Lunch CruiseDONE
August 14th > 15th – Clevedon River Dockside BBQ (overnight)DONE
October23rd > 25th – Woodys Long Weekend Cruise to Kawau Island (Labour Weekend) – Saturday morning Dinghy Cruise up Matakana River to Markets. Sunday evening dinner / gathering at Kawau Boating Club. POSTPONED – NEW DATE TBA
November 28th – Sunday – Riverhead Tavern Lunch cruise
2022
February 26th – Stillwater Dockside Afternoon Picnic
The above gatherings are put on to encourage classic boat owners to use and enjoy their boats more, and meet like minded people. We point out that the get togethers are not Classic Yacht Association (CYA) organised events. They have a cruising focus and the locations point to participation by launches but we welcome all classic vessels.Invitation to the events is via email and the waitematawoodys.com website. If you would to be sent invites, simply send an email with your name, boat name & mobile # to waitematawoodys@gmail.com Closer to the actual dates, we send more details to attendees.
Photo below ex Greg Philpott, of Pirate next to the Deeming’s boat shed at Tapu Point across the water from Opua.
PIRATE – A Peek Down Below
Unless you are a Warkworth river rat, mooching around the upper reaches of the Mahurangi Harbour you wouldn’t have seen much of the stunning 1939 46’ launch – Pirate. Launched in 1939 at Matauwhi Bay in Russell, Bay of Islands, designed and built by Leon Warne. She has spent a large chunk of the last 18 years berthed alongside the old Cement Works. She always makes an appearance over the Mahurangi Regatta weekend and is one of those boats that just look right from any angle.
Pirate is constructed in full length kauri carvel plank and has twin Ford 6 cylinder 100HP diesel engines.
Pirate has an interesting provenance having been built for a German wool buyer (Otto Sommer), commissioned by the NZ Navy in World War II and used in degaussing operations, and subsequently in 1944, became Auckland’s second Police launch, replacing Tirimoana. Later she was a well known big-game fishing boat in the North, hosting among others Lord Mountbatten, who signed the Log Book.
She is a fine example of a classic launch restored and cared for by passionate owners (18 yrs), these owners have just made the hard decision that it is time to pass Pirate onto her next custodian – so woodys, this is a unique opportunity to own a classic wooden boat of the caliber of Pirate. Expressions of interest should be directed to waitematawoodys@gmail.com BUT – do not hang back, boats of Pirates size, presentation and provenance find new owners very quickly
In fact a tad more than a facelift- its a total refit 🙂
A couple of weeks ago I was moodching around the Tauranga / Mount Maunganui area and took Doug Owens up on his longstanding offer to view Nereides in her ’shed’. The timing was perfect as I also meet son Mohi, who is project managing the refit. Click photos to enlarge.
Nereides has always been a rather special woody – as are most boats built by Colin Wild. She slipped out of the CW shed in 1937 and her specs where 55’x15’x6’5″ and powered by a 200hp John Deere. The photos above are a combination of the ones I took on the day and others shared by Doug and Mohi, as you can see its a mammoth undertaking but is very close to re-launch. WW will kept you in the loop on this project.
Pre – Refit
UPDATE 12-04-2022 Getting very close to splash day 🙂
MARINUS – In the 1950>60 Period Back in December 2020 we featured a great insight into the launch Marinus and how she was ‘rescued’ from Great Barrier Island and became the mule for an avant-garde refit.
At the time Harold Kidd commented that Marinus was owned for many years by Keith Lackey of Wellington. She was built by Barr-Brown, Owen and Stewart and launched in 1947. Her first engines were twin 6 cyl Gray petrol. According to Lloyds she was designed by A.M. Deeming.
Now thanks to Mark Erskine, who came across the above photos on the www, we get to sre her in the 1950’s > 1960’s period. Mark commented that bearing in mind her launching after W.W II, “for commercial work in Cook Strait” it’s hard to know if these photos show Marinus as she was built / launched, because her design looks to to be more a large, spacious pleasure craft, rather than a commercial / work boat of some description.
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