Tag Archives: Belle Isle

Lake Waikaremoana Woodys – Belle Isla and Idalia

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Belle Isle – Home Bay 2003
Idalia c.1970’s

Lake Waikaremoana Woodys – Belle Isle and Idalia

It never ceases to amaze me how boats crop up on WW. Wayne Stevens posted the comment below recently on a 2013 story about the launch Belle Isle (link below to that story) https://waitematawoodys.com/2013/07/04/belle-isle/

I have reproduced Wayne’s comment below

“Hi, I’ve just discovered the WW website & love reading about these lovely old craft. On a whim I decided to search for a couple of the boats I know from Lake Waikaremoana, the Belle Isle & Idalia, & was interested to see your story on Belle Isle. I have a photo of her moored in the smaller bay at Home Bay in 2003, refer above. On another visit there I’m pretty sure it was her with only the tip of her bow above water, & I think she was taken away from the lake after that.

The Idalia was a big part of a friend’s deer culling life in the 70’s. The owner would drop Jim Wright (the culler) at the far end of the lake for his trips into the bush, then pick him up weeks later. Jim spent time on the Idalia recuperating then would be dropped back in the bush for more culling.

Unfortunately the last photos I have of the Idalia was of her tied to the bank in Home Bay after being broken into & scuttled, refer belowI’d love to know what happened to her once she was taken away”.

Can anyone help Wayne with any intel on what became of Idalia?

INPUT ON IDALIA FROM ANTONIA METZ – Unfortunately the Idalia is no more – she was refused permission to remain on her mooring at Waikaremoana due to her condition and left tied to the shore for some time – photos to follow – eventually the owner was asked to remove her and as that was not feasible she was broken up and taken away.

Belle Isle > Belle IIe

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Belle Isle > Belle IIe

An update on Belle Isle (now renamed Belle IIe) as you will see in the above photo she has entered a new stage in her life. Better has a Beehive restoration i.e. a box of matches > fire & I’m told the owners wee son loves her – thats good enough for me 🙂

To view older photos & details on her click this link https://waitematawoodys.com/2013/07/04/belle-isle/

And Jason Prew –  b4 you comment – no I don’t have the room in my backyard for Raindance 🙂

Belle Isle

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BELLE ISLE
New owner, looking for details on this rather pretty 27′ double ender. Kauri planked, obviously had an in-board before that appendix on the stern. The un-confirmed build date is ‘said’ to be 1913. As the architects say – she has great bones. I can just see her on a lake.
She came from Taranaki.
Being this distinctive someone must be able to shed some light on her past?
Harold Kidd Update:
The only reference I have found is to a BELLE ISLE being a 26ft Hutt Valley launch, one of 23 that joined the Heretaunga Boating Club in October 1929. I suppose it’s the same one that somehow migrated up the coast to New Plymouth, maybe by rail. I would think that 1913 is right for the raised foredeck but wrong for the torpedo stern unless she’s a Sounds boat where the builders favoured such sterns well after they had been dropped in favour of broad tuck sterns elsewhere.
Belle Isle was a well-known barque that traded on the Tasman in the late 19th century and could be the inspiration for her name, although I suspect she wasn’t built as BELLE ISLE.
Update (09/07/13) from the new owner
I’ve just caught up with the guy who sold it to me, I’ve got some new info on her.
First, she’s never been to Taranaki..but she was built in Auckland, spend a long time on Lake Waikaremoana and end up in Wanganui.
Harold Kidd Update

If that’s the case, then she would have been built in the period 1903-6 and certainly without that raised foredeck. In 1903 Logan Bros built a launch, KAHURANGI, for the Government Tourist Bureau’s passenger work on the Lake of vaguely similar configuration, but bigger at 36ft, so there’s a possibility that she’s a Logan. It was quite a trick getting vessels to the Lake in those days as they had to be shipped to Gisborne and taken over the metalled road to the Lake on a waggon drawn by a bullock team. 
A Dr. Collins of Gisborne had a similar launch on the Lake which was damaged in a fire in 1913. I have no name for that boat, but it could have been rebuilt in this configuration after the fire, perhaps?
Most of the Lake launches migrated there from Gisborne or Napier, like IDALIA which is still there.
 
HK Update2
As an afterthought, It’s unlikely she was built by Logan Bros who, although they built many launches with this type of “torpedo” or “compromise” stern, usually didn’t build single skin boats, nor would they have built a single skin boat with those horrible butts in the planking in the image taken from aft, although I guess they could be the result of amateurish repairs.