WORK BOAT WEDNESDAY – KAREMOANA
Following on from yesterdays story ex Sven Wiig today we get to see the workboat (fishing?) KAREMOANA high and dry.
KAREMOANA was salvaged by a friend of Bill Ryland’s and in the 2nd photo, of the Wanganui Town Wharf, KAREMOANA IS 4th in line.
Can any of the workboat group tell us more about KAREMOANA and also the location of where and how she came ashore.
CLASSIC CLINKER LAUNCH – ELLEN
Following on from the recent stories on the ex workboat – ARIANA / TE KAWAU, owned by Sven Wiig, today we see the launch ELLEN.
ThE photo was sent in by Sven and is from the Ryland family album, from which Sven obtained the TE KAWAU photos.
In the photo ELLEN is located in Wanganui and owned by Ted and Bill Ryland. Bill also owned TE KAWAU.
Looks like a fun day out with all the flags and the number of crew onboard. An unusual being clinker and double ended – maybe an import? Maybe an ex lifeboat converted to pleasure use, or maybe I’m totally wrong, which is often the case 🙂
Anyone know more about ELLEN
11-07-2025 INPUT ex LIAM DALY – There were at least two other ‘almost identical’ clinker built launches built by Bob Swanson. One was named – TELSTAR and the other named – MANANA which was often mispronounced Mañana, named after a popular song of the day, translated from Spanish means, ‘tomorrow’ or ‘morning’.
Back in the day, MANANA was at one time owned by Bay of Many Coves identity Errol Christian. Errol installed a huge turbo charged 100 h.p. diesel engine in MANANA which he used as a water taxi throughout Queen Charlotte Sounds. Photo below, Liam thinks the photo shows Errol’s daughter-in law Lou at the wheel.
CLASSIC WOODEN EX WORKBOAT – ARIANA / GLENROWAN / TE KAWAU
Earlier in the week WW was contacted by Sven Wiig the owner of the classic wooden ex workboat – ARIANA. ARIANA made an appearance on WW back in Oct 2020 – link here https://waitematawoodys.com/2020/01/10/ariana/
I’ll hand over to Sven to tell the story –
“Today I had a bit of a breakthrough researching my boats history. You may remember I bought ARIANA in about 2020 and have been searching for more information ever since. A while back I discovered that before she was named ARIANA and before GLENROWAN she was named TE KAWAU as shown in the top photo above which I had just discovered.
The other photos are also from the 1950’s. She was then owned by Bill Ryland and fished out of Wanganui. Bill owned her until 1974 when she was sold to the Turner family and moved to Nelson where John Turner ran her. Sometime in the 1980’s she changed hands again and was renamed GLENROWAN then to the John Stewart who had her converted then I bought her.
So I’m hoping someone knows who owned her before Bill? The Turner family knew of the boat in the 1940’s as old man Turner fished on her then, possibly out of Picton. My best guess is that she was built by Lanes of Picton but searching the records does not come up with her name. I have been told that she may have been built in Lyttleton so maybe Millar Bros? She is similar to other boats built by Lanes and Millar and Tunnage so who knows?
ARIANA / TE KAWAU is currently still on the hard where I have been undertaking a major rebuild / restoration of her.”
WW has asked to be kept updated on the project, so fingers crossed for more stories. In the mean time can we learn more about this classic woody.
Check out the size of the snapper on the trailer in the b/w photos
The photos below are from the Oct 2020 WW story.
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