Tag Archives: Avalon

Resurrection Of Avalon

Posted on by
9

RESURRECTION OF AVALON

Back in February 2020 a friend was cruising the streets on Auckland’s North Shore (he is allowed to – drives a car with a strip of lights on the roof) when he spotted the woody launch – Avalon, resting on a residential properties lawn. Turns out the 80+ year old owner has owned Avalon all her life – you can read and see more at the link below https://waitematawoodys.com/2020/02/17/mystery-sam-ford-launch/

Fast forward nearly two years and it turns out that the launches owner , Marjorie Mumme is Tobias Forsyth’s grandmother. Tobias owns MV Callisto and his Dad, Iain Forsyth has MV Meola. Tobias being a good grandson has stepped up to the mark and taken on the restoration of Avalon. To quote Tobias – no rush, first step = put her in a shed, the fear was she would end up as a garden sleep-out.
Avalon was designed and built in 1954 by Sam Ford and is a one owner boat (Lloyd and Marjorie Mumme) , in fact still has the original Morris Navigator petrol engine. When launch she was 24’ but has 2’ added to the stern soon after.These days health & safety would lock you up for transporting a boat like we see on the truck above.  The video was filmed by Tobias.

30-11-2021 INPUT FROM Carol Forsyth  (nee Mumme)    From birth to bikinis and boyfriends, my sisters and I grew up on Avalon. Motuihe, Browns Island, Islington Bay, Waiheke, Coromandel and Kawau was our playground and oh the stories that boat could tell!  Dad loved Avalon as much as we did and when he passed on Mum took over Dad’s loving care. Now that Mum has finally handed over Avalon to my son Tobias and his family we look forward to seeing her in the water again.The black and white image of Avalon under sail was taken off Kauri Point and I would assume Dad had the Morris Navigator ticking over, but maybe she was under sail only.   

HELP NEEDED – Tobias would like to find out more about the petrol Morris Navigator in Avalon. He is looking for any one that may have spares or have had a lot to do with them in the past but any info or spare parts would be greatly appreciated as he would love to keep the original engine but it must be reliable. Mainly if there are some Morris car guys that know if this engine is just a marinised version of a car engine of some vintage possibly? I can email better copies of the above photos if that would help.

I like the sail set-up – very salty, if I put that on Raindance, I might qualify to be one of the chosen ones to berth at Chad Thompson’s yacht only, new 40 berth Heritage Basin at the Viaduct 🙂

12-11-2024 UPDATE – photo ex John Dawson. Sames owner Tobias is doing some soul searching re what the replacement cabin top could / will look like – older below, and considerations below that.

Big Game Fishing Wooden Boats

Posted on by
1

BIG GAME FISHING WOODEN BOATS

WW contributor – Scott Taylor, sent in the link to the above short film – titled ‘New Zealand’s Deep-Sea Fighting Fish’. The film comes to us via Archives New Zealand, and was originally produced by Neuline Film Studios, Auckland for the Dept. of Tourist and Health Resorts.

The film isn’t dated but both Scott and myself believe it is from the early 1950’s, can any one date the film from the footage?

There is an impressive collection of woodys featured, all looking very ship-shape, and most still afloat today.


WHO OWNS DEODAR  – Looking for the current owner of the ex Auckland Police launch Deodar – can you contact WW at the email address below – trust me its worth your while 😉 waitematawoodys@gmail.com

2021 Lake Rotoiti Classic and Wooden Boat Parade – 175+ photos & videos

Posted on by
4

PICNIC

24th LAKE ROTOITI CLASSIC & WOODEN BOAT PARADE – 175+ PHOTOS & VIDEOS


As promised todays WW story is a doozy, we travelled down to the lake very early on Saturday morning and were hosted by the clubs commodore Dave Wilson and wife Glenys, who own the magnificent 1947 Colin Wild built bridge-decker – Haumoana. The launch is kept at the end of the lawn at their lakeside property (photos below) – More details on Haumoana here https://waitematawoodys.com/2014/06/05/haumoana/

Dave lent me is ‘fishing boat’ – the f/glass runabout seen the photo below, to use as a photo boat for the parade – fingers crossed no one got a photo of me at the helm 😉


Close to 80 classic and wooden craft of all shapes and sizes – power, sail, oar and steam participated in the days events – starting with a parade that snakes around the waterfront properties and vantage points. Post parade every one heads off to Wairoa Bay for an old school boating picnic – being lake based, no issue with tides or anchoring, people just nudge up to the shore – perfect for checking out each others woody.

The afternoon activities had something for everyone – adults and kids activities (egg throwing, bucket diving for sweets etc) + lots of cool prizes to be won.Without a doubt its the best organised and executed boating event I have been to – very slick and the bonus – lots of nice friendly people – we like that 🙂


Enjoy the photos. As always – click photos to enlarge 😉 If I missed your boat, sorry but one boat and one camera can only be in so many places at one time  – next year.


Waihaha (Lena >Avalon)

Posted on by
2

WAIHAHA
photos & details from Alan Craig

When talking with Alan Craig the Lake Rotoiti boat builder a few weeks ago re the restoration of  Manowai (ww 14-09-2015), he casually mentioned that he had just ‘put another boat in the water’. The other is Waihaha, previously named Avalon when she was on Lake Taupo. Alan’s yard, Craig Marine, installed a new Volvo D2 engine & raised and extended the wheel house as the old one was rotten. You will see from the above photos that they have done a great job, it so easy to get the proportions all wrong.

So woodys, what do we know about Waihaha>Avalon>Waihaha ? ex Lake Taupo now residing on Lake Rotoiti?

UPDATE from Paul Drake

The photo shows her at Taupo in the 1950’s, before she was renamed WAIHAHA, when she was LENA. She ran commercially in those days.
She went from Taupo to Tauranga (Omokoroa) when she was renamed AVALON, because someone told the then owner that she was in fact Zane Grey’s AVALON.
This is clearly not the case. It is good to hear that she has reverted to WAIHAHA. At Taupo she had a Morris Commodore engine. I think she is 32 feet.
I believe that she is Bailey and Lowe, although I cannot remember why I believe that! Perhaps she had a builders plate?

Also in the photo is LAMORNA (Colin Wild 1936) – on her mooring – and LADY PAT at a finger berth. Both well covered in WW.

 

Avalon – the game fisher

Posted on by
13

AVALON

photos & details ex Harold Kidd

The above 3 photos of Avalon are from the Tudor Collins Bay of Islands game fishing collection*.

Avalon 36′ x 8’6″ x 3’6′ was built by Collings & Bell in December 1927 for Peter Williams of Russell for use as a game fishing boat in the Bay of Islands. She was one of Collings’ typical concave-convex square bilge designs like Alma G, Manaaki, Lorna Doone and Zane Grey also built for the Zane Grey game fishing circus. She had a 85-100hp Redwing engine and was designed for 16 knots. She was often chartered by Zane Grey who took her to Bermagui, NSW in 1936 for game fishing (sharks) there,  she came back to NZ after the expedition. Some few years ago she was exported to the US to the Zane Grey Museum, somehow avoiding the then Antiquities Act.

*the images in the collection were bought at a flea-market by Sharon Knight who has made them available via Harold for all of ww followers to relish.

Photo below from classicgameboatsnz

More photos from the Tudor Collins collection – this time taken during the 1930’s visit of the Duke of Glouster. Mailed in by Ken Ricketts

avalon-14

avalon-15

Alma G & Alma G II

Posted on by
23

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

Avalon

Image

4

Avalon

AVALON
I do not know anything about the above launch other than she was actively engaged in the game fishing sport.
Any help re more info much appreciated.

photo ex classicgameboatnz

Harold Kidd Update

AVALON was built by Collings & Bell in December 1927 for Peter Williams of Russell for use as a game fishing boat in the Bay of Islands. She was one of Collings’ typical concave-convex square bilge designs, 36′ x 8’6″ x 3’6′. She had a 85-100hp Redwing engine and was designed for 16 knots. She was often chartered by Zane Grey who took her to Queensland in 1936 for game fishing there. Some few years ago she was exported to the US to the Zane Grey Museum, somehow avoiding the then Antiquities Act.

And more

OOPS Zane Grey chartered AVALON to chase sharks at Bermagui, NSW, not Queensland. She came back to NZ after the expedition of course. And I may have made a glib assumption that she was square bilge to his “concave-convex” design like the other Bay of Islands game launches he built like ALMA G and ZANE GREY (later ALMA G II) for the Arlidge brothers etc. I am doubting that somewhat and wonder if anyone can post a hull shot of her?

And more

All’s well. I’ve turned up a pic of AVALON clearly showing that she’s square bilge, like ALMA G, MANAAKI, LORNA DOONE and ZANE GREY also built for the Zane Grey game fishing circus.