Tag Archives: Claude Smith

SEAMIST – A Peek Down Below

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SEAMIST – A Peek Down Below

Todays woody story features the 33’8” Claude Smith 1966 built launch – SEAMIST. She made a brief appearance on tme a little while ago and based on her looks and presentation I’m sure she sold quickly.

Built of double skinned kauri, sadly her hull has been splined and both above & below water the timber has been f/glassed.

Powered by a 70hp Fordson 4 cyl. diesel engine SEAMIST she cruises at  7 knots.

As seen in the photos she is very well kitted out.

Can anyone tell us more about her past life.

Olwen – Sailing Sunday

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OLWEN – Sailing Sunday

The above yacht caught my eye recently on Lew Redwood’s fb. Olwen was designed by Claude Smith and built in 1960 by Smiths Boat Yard in Whangarei. At 33’ there is a lot of usable cabin and cockpit space, very few yacht designers manage to include good sized windows and retain a classic look.In the photo she looks like some TLC is overdue, but with those ‘good bones’ I’m sure Olwen will get the attention she deserves.

Do we know any more about Olwen?

Input ex Robin Elliott – Olwen won line honours in her first race, Dec 3 1960 in the Onerahi YC 100 mile Moko Hinau Ocean Race from a fleet of 13. Conditions were tough with a strong SE wind and gusts up to 35 knots, and set a new course record of 15 hours 15 minutes.

A HEADS UP – THE ADMINISTRATOR CONTROLLING THE WHANGTEAU TRADITIONAL BOATING CLUB facebook page HAS DECIDED THAT LINKS TO waitematawoody STORIES ARE NOT SUITABLE CONTENT. SO WW STORIES AND EVEN MYSELF ARE BARRED. This means that if you have linked a WTBC fb post to an existing WW story to provide more details on a vessel, your link has been deleted. Very narrow minded and introverted thinking – and clearly a low understanding of how social media communities co-exist and facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, and interests through virtual networks. I would have thought ‘holding hands’ with a site that has just passed 7,500,000 views would have been a good thing for WTBC. Never mind, we will find new friends to play with 🙂

Silvery Main

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SILVERY MAIN
photo ex Pam Cundy

Today’s photo of Silvery Main was sent in by Pam from the Whangateau Traditional Boat yard & was taken last weekend at Kawau Island.
Now I’m not a big fan of flybridges on older boats but the one on Silvery Main has been done well, nice proportions.
Can anyone shed some light on the history of the launch?

Harold Kidd Input

I have SILVERY MAIN’s original plans and details of her early history from Bob Cairns, her former owner for 5 years. I’ll post the plans when I’ve had them copied. However, essentially her hull was the 28ft sport fisherman SEA STRIKE design by Rogers Winter of Florida with the cabin top and interior only designed by Claude Smith who built her in Whangarei. Her first owner was a chap called Hermann, a mill-owner from Whangarei who had her built to tow logs from Kawau to Sandspit when he got the contract to fell the pines.She was built much heavier than the American design and had far less power.
Very sweet design!

08-12-2015 Input from Ray Morey
‘Silvery Main’ was built by Alan Smith of Whangarei for Charlie Herman of Herman Timbers & in my eyes another example of flowing curves spoiled by straight lines and square corners plonked on top of a nice hull.
The bit about being built to tow logs was a bit of creative accounting for tax purposes, yes she is heavily built and underpowered and probably had a limited survey for a time but I did all of the log hauling for Charlie with the new twinscrew tug ‘Tangaroa’ and the Tauranga built barge ‘Rakanui’ belonging to Whangarei Towboats Ltd. The logs were pushed over a cliff at Schoolhouse Bay and I loaded on the flats there. I also built, with the help of the logging contractor (Mike Johnson) a bit of a landing in South Cove and took several loads out of there.

02-01-2016 Input from Alastair MacKenzie

“A few memories of the Silvery Main from the mid to late 1960’s when she was owned by my then employer Charlie Herman skippered mainly by my off-sider Barney Mahanga and used  by the  Hermans as their family launch. We would use her also to tow the Co’s small barge with freight and goods from Sandspit but she certainly never towed barges of logs – far too flash for that !!
All the logs we produced were towed to Whangarei from both Schoolhouse Bay and South Cove from a landing built by Mike Johnson. The barges were Bert Subritzskies which we would load with an old Skagit swing boom log hauler!  It was always a drama to get the barge loaded in time for the next high tide.”