Tag Archives: Bob Brown

Arethusa Aground on Farewell Spit

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Arethusa Aground on Farewell Spit

Regular readers of WW will be familiar with Bay of Islands photographer – Dean Wright and the stunning images he shares with us. Dean and partner Deb are the custodians of the classic woody – Arethusa, which has one of the best back stories of all the craft in your fleet. The 33’ Arethusa was built in 1917 by Bob Brown and started life as a gaff rigged cutter, 105 years later she has the features of a commercial ex work boat – but a very swish one 🙂 Link below that shows some of the transformation – and being such a looker she has made numerous WW appearance, but today we bring to light a somewhat unknown (to most of us) event in her life – I’ll let Dean do the intro to the above photo essay :- https://waitematawoodys.com/2020/09/07/arethusas-new-woody-wheelhouse/

“Deb and I were down south recently and did the Farewell Spit Bus trip. The tour operators were able to tell us approximately where Arethusa ran aground all those years ago (late December 1955). 

They dragged the boat to the other side of the Spit and relaunched her, about 1.2km’s. An excerpt from book at the Spit lighthouse keepers house: “She was sailing between New Plymouth and Nelson and the crew thought they were heading between the lights of Farewell Spit and Stephen’s Island when they ran aground. Obviously they mistook the light on Cape Farewell for that on the Spit, and, as the Cape Farewell light had only gone into operation in 1951, they may have been unaware of its existence.”

The press clipping above in the Christchurch Press ran the headline – ‘The Arethusa – A Total Loss’ – well they got that wrong – well done to everyone that invested the funds and time to help Arethusa become a centenarian. If anyone knows more detail of her time in the South Island, Deb and Dean would love to hear from you.

Bob Brown – Boat Builder

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The Boat Builder Bob Brown

Woody Dean Wright was reading one of the recent WW stories that featured a Percy Vos built hydroplane ( https://waitematawoodys.com/2021/10/17/woody-hydroplane/ ) and this prompted Dean to let me know that when doing a bit of research into his boat – Arethusa’s builder Bob Brown, he found the photo above of a land yacht that Brown built in 1933 – capable of over 40mph. In the photo we see the land yacht on Orewa beach.

Read more about Brown, the land yacht and his other boats below – https://m.facebook.com/Timespanner/posts/robert-birt-brown-of-northcote-with-his-home-made-land-yacht-1933-a-locally-buil/1306944202691525/  Sadly the following year Brown aged 50 and his son both drowned at the same beach (Orewa) after getting into difficulties while swimming. 

WE HAVE ANOTHER CYA COMMITTEE ZOOM MEETING ON TUESDAY NIGHT

I wonder if anyone in the last 4 weeks has grown some gonads and will front the elephant in the room e.g. clarification of the 40 berth Heritage Basin sub-committees intent i.e. will the classic vessels berthed there be a true representation of the CYA’s Classic Yacht Policy, as per the constitution – “New Zealand or foreign designed yachts, launches, dinghies, boats, vessels of all sizes, description, ages, whether powered by wind, steam, combustion or otherwise’. OR woodys – a parking lot for what I understand the sub-committee openly refers to as ’The Heritage Sailing Fleet’. Read more by clicking the Tui banner above.

The original conceptual sketch*, below, of the CYA’s current marina (Heritage Landing) certainty portrayed a fair mix of craft 🙂 *david barker

Arethusa’s New Woody Wheelhouse

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ARETHUSA’s NEW WOODY WHEELHOUSE


Back in late 2019 Arethusa’s Bay of Islands owner Dean Wright, a professional photographer by trade, and well known to WW readers gave me the heads up that the 1917, 33’ Bob Brown built, ex gaff rigged cutter, was in for a treat – a new wheelhouse. Since then I have been pestering Dean on a regular basis for photos, even threatened to drive up and take them myself 🙂 Problem was, the mans a perfectionist and didn’t want to send anything in to WW until it was all shipshape. Well woodys as you can see from the above, its very shipshape, in fact in my eyes – perfect. Well done to the team. I asked Dean to tell use about the project, so I’ll hand over to him. Remember you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them – Enjoy 🙂


“Over the years we’ve got keen on changing Arethusa’s wheelhouse to be more in keeping with her age, so at 102 she’s undergone some cosmetic surgery 🙂

We lost 8″ inches of headroom in wheelhouse when we installed the Gardner, so we’ve gone up in height 6 inches and forward 8 inches and gone for more traditional upright windows fw’d.

Boat builder John Gander did the job in his Waipiro Bay workshop. He started by taking patterns off the existing wheelhouse and fw’d cabin top. He replicated the curve of the fw’d cabin top in ply and built the new wheelhouse around that in six sections. He also laminated the new wheelhouse roof, allowing for a good eyebrow fw’d and a smaller one aft.

John learned his trade at Roger Carey’s yard in Picton in the 60’s and 70’s, where beautiful work boats with great looking wheelhouses were the order of the day. John built one of my favorite Carey designs, Hinewai for his own boat and we’ve replicated her fw’d opening half window on Arethusa. 

Once the wheelhouse was complete, we hauled Arethusa at Ashby’s in Opua and got to work with the skill-saw. In no time we’d reduced her to a convertible. We were lucky for Northland’s drought everything stayed reasonably dry and also that we got everything closed in and back in the water before Covid shut the yard down.

I’m in awe of how boat builders can build something like this away from the boat, then fit the pieces with a minimum of shaping. Fitting and gluing the six sections to the existing house went really smoothly.

The wheelhouse is built from 2″ Iroko. This is the first outside varnish we’ve had on Arethusa, we hand brushed 2 coats of Cetol as a base and six coats of Schooner Yacht Varnish.

Over lock-down, the apprentice made new interior joinery, gone are the Warehouse plastic drawers and chipboard frame 🙂 Moved the batteries under the new bench unit so we can now stand at the wheel. John laminated me up some lovely curved trim for the front of the oven unit. Our old manky plywood dash got an upgrade to kauri and the old wheel got a fright with a good scrub and a varnish.

Outside we made nav light boxes and dorade boxes.  We had to move the aluminium framed front hatch fw’d, a more traditional looking one in Iroko is on the to-do list. The liferings also got a birthday.

Here’s some before and after pics and also some that I hope will give some idea of the process. Thanks John for all your incredibly skilled design and build work, we’re really stoked with it.

We’re always keen to learn more of Arethusa’s history, especially the 1955-2000 period in the South Island. If you have any stories we’d love to hear them.”

Links to previous WW stories on Arethusa
https://waitematawoodys.com/2019/12/11/arethusa-new-wheelhouse-project/
https://waitematawoodys.com/2017/12/31/restoring-installing-a-gardner-in-arethusa-revisited/
https://waitematawoodys.com/2013/11/01/arethusa-winsome/

RSVP waitematawoodys@gmail.com

Woodys Cruising The Bay of Islands – Summer 2019/20 – Part One

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Linda – 1927 – Colin Wild

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Nautilus – Oliver & Gilpin

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Darleen – 1920 – Possibly Bailey & Lowe

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Echo – 1935 – Les Coulthard

Echo – 1935 – Les Coulthard
Echo – 1935 – Les Coulthard

 

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Thetis – 1955 – Lane Motor Boat Company

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Lady Crossley – 1947 – Colin Wild

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Lady Ngaio – 1928 – Collings & Bell

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Manapouri – 1960 – Parkes

Omega – 1965 – Quality Boats
Waimana

WOODYS CRUISING THE BAY OF ISLANDS – SUMMER 2019/20 – Part 1

Just got home yesterday from 10 days mooching around Waiheke and while clearing the in-box I spotted an email from Dean Wright, now Dean is a Bay of Islands based professional photographer with a passion for wooden boats. He even owns one  – the 1917, Arethusa.

Now any email from Dean normally contains some stunning photos and yesterdays one was a cracker – too good to run all as one, so I will split them in two.
Today we have featured pleasure launches – the first being one of the smartest classic wooden launches in our fleet – Linda. She has appeared on WW many times so if you want o know more just enter Linda in the WW search box.
I love the photo above because its the personification of our classic wooden boating movement.
Below I have included a photo of the 2018/19 built ‘spirit of tradition’ launch – Grace, and with her beautiful lines, she could only ever be a Salthouse 🙂
I have captioned the Woodys that I have been able to ID. To read more on the boats featured, use the WW search box 😉

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Grace – 2019 – Salthouse

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Arethusa – New Wheelhouse Project

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Arethusa – New Wheelhouse Project
 
Back in October as part of another story I mentioned that Arethusa was inline for a treat – her Bay of Islands owner, Dean Wright has decided to a build / install a new wheelhouse. Arethusa is almost 100 year old (99) so a perfect centennial present for the 33’ Bob Brown built ex gaff rigged cutter. Arethusa these days is configured in work-boat / launch style.
 
The new wheelhouse is being made from Iroko by John Gander – John is a shipwright extraordinaire, served his apprenticeship and worked for Careys for many years. 
Included above are the design drawings for the wheelhouse and an existing photo for comparison. 
We will be following this project on WW with much interest – love a good project.
 
To see / read more on Arethusa, including restoring & installing a Gardner 4LW – more links there  https://waitematawoodys.com/2017/12/31/restoring-installing-a-gardner-in-arethusa-revisited/

Highlander

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HIGHLANDER

I have been having ongoing chat with Bay of Islands woody and photographer Dean Wright, he is about to undertake a build / installation of a new wheelhouse for his almost 100 year old (99) 33’ Bob Brown built ex gaff rigged cutter – Arethusa, these days presented in work-boat / launch style.  The wheelhouse will be made from Iroko and the big question is yellow or red Uroxsys (Allwood) primer.
Dean sent me a sample of the timber and I have done a 1/2 and 1/2 varnishing job – the result? Not much between it, slight golden tinge to the yellow section. I think the natural colour of the Iroko is just so strong that the primer tint makes little difference.
I have attached at the bottom of the story a photo comparison of the existing wheel house and the plan for the new one – very smart.
Anyone back to todays story – Dean email me mid-week and said “check out what’s parked in our bay tonight” and sent the above photos of the 49’ Highlander. Designed by Roger Carey but not built by Careys. Wheelhouse designed by Don and Peter McManaway.
Dean mentioned Highlander was featured (page 127) in the 1988 book ‘By Boats We Live”, written by Joan Clark. The book records the history of the boats built by Roger Carey. I have reproduced the page below, have a read – its very good
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Arethusa – New Wheelhouse

Restoring & Installing a Gardner in Arethusa – Revisited

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Restoring & Installing a Gardner in Arethusa

story & photos ex Dean Wright

It not often I get sent info on a boat & it jumps the queue & appears on ww the next day. If you have been following on ww the rolling restoration Dean has been doing on Arethusa over the last few years you would know two things, Arethusa is in very good hands & Deans a very talented commercial photographer. So the links below to Deans latest project – the restoration of a Gardner 4LW & subsequent installation in Arethusa are well worth check out.

Restoration     http://deanwright.co.nz/arethusa/log-arethusa/152-gardner-4lw-diesel-restoration.html

Installation      http://deanwright.co.nz/arethusa/log-arethusa/154-installing-the-gardner.html

Some history below

Arethusa ticked over 96 this year. She started life as a gaff rigged cutter, built by Bob Brown (designer of the Z class) at Sulphur Beach, Northcote. She’s carvel planked kauri, 33′ 4″ LOA with a 12′ Beam. With the aid of a fair bit of ballast she weighs 10 tonnes. She’s had an interesting life, more details here http://deanwright.co.nz/history.html

Restoring & Installing a Gardner in Arethusa

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Restoring & Installing a Gardner in Arethusa

story & photos ex Dean Wright

It not often I get sent info on a boat & it jumps the queue & appears on ww the next day. If you have been following on ww the rolling restoration Dean has been doing on Arethusa over the last few years you would know two things, Arethusa is in very good hands & Deans a very talented commercial photographer. So the links below to Deans latest project – the restoration of a Gardner 4LW & subsequent installation in Arethusa are well worth check out.

Restoration     http://deanwright.co.nz/arethusa/log-arethusa/152-gardner-4lw-diesel-restoration.html

Installation      http://deanwright.co.nz/arethusa/log-arethusa/154-installing-the-gardner.html

Some history below

Arethusa ticked over 96 this year. She started life as a gaff rigged cutter, built by Bob Brown (designer of the Z class) at Sulphur Beach, Northcote. She’s carvel planked kauri, 33′ 4″ LOA with a 12′ Beam. With the aid of a fair bit of ballast she weighs 10 tonnes. She’s had an interesting life, more details here http://deanwright.co.nz/history.html

Arethusa & Winsome

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The Boats of H Pickmere

photos ex Dean Wright. details by Alan H

Arethusa was used extensively by Hereward Pickmere during WWII when he was employed by the Lands & Survey Dept. to survey Northland’s coastline. Arethusa started off life as a gaff rigged cutter (see b/w photo with a 30’ long boom), she was built in 1917 by Bob Brown at Sulphur Beach, Northcote. Carvel planked kauri – 33′ 4″ with a 11′ 7″ beam.  She was converted to a launch in approx. 1955 after being wrecked & salvaged post a grounding on Farewell Spit on a passage from New Plymouth to Nelson. You can view some wonderful old images of her & the Pickmere family cruises on Dean’s website:

http://deanwright.co.nz/arethusa-log-sub/123-pickmeres-my-arethusa.html

Arethusa was sold in 1943 & the Winsome acquired. She is described as a 34′ flush-decked launch built by Bailey & Lowe (that will please HDK) in 1918 with a draft of 2′ 7″ & had previously been owned by Hereward’s father since 1923.

Both boats still live in the Bay of Islands & you can view further details on Arethusa here: http://deanwright.co.nz/arethusa.html

photos – the 2 colour photos of Arethusa and Winsome together were taken by Dean earlier this year in the Bay. The b/w sketch below of Winsome is ‘borrowed’ from Pickmere’s Atlas of the Northland coast.

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Update 25-07-2018 ex Arethusa owner, Dean Wright. The cutting below show Arethusa leaving Auckland on-route to Suva.

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