Tag Archives: Collings & Bell

Mystery Launch 23/10

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photos ex Ron W & Harold Kid

Harold thinks its a Collings & Bell work boat but we are all scratching our heads to ID her any further. When you consider there were 1000’s of these ‘little’ launches built, we might be scratching for a while 🙂

Harold has sent in a better pic of the launch which he took off  the Collings & Bell original glass plate. You can see a square-rigger in the background.

Harold Kidd Update

I have always thought that this is probably C. & B. of which there were 3, this one being launched in November 1912. I have a much better copy of this image with more background.The other two were 20 footers of the same general configuration but the 1912 version was a 32 footer. Maybe it’s a 20 footer? The sidelight boxes look pretty large.  I’m pretty certain it’s a Chas Collings negative from his quarter-plate camera but I’ve always thought it was a later image as it is associated in my Collings collection with images from the 1930s. I’ll check with other pics.

Update #2

She’s not any of the 3 C. & B.’s but very similar. The last of the C. & B.s had the same little dodger (a very early example of a dodger installed ab initio), the same bollard forward, but her foredeck was raised. Tentatively, I think this is OZONE, built for Fred Woolley in June 1912, probably off the same moulds as the 32ft C. & B. This OZONE is NOT to be confused with the Percy McIntosh-built OZONE which did a lot of game-fishing in the Bay of Islands and is now rumoured to be at Mahurangi. This OZONE (if it is her) was a total wreck at Tawharanui Point, Takatu in January 1930.

Betty / Achernar / Achinar

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ACHINAR

photos & information ex past owners & Harold Kidd

as purchased by the Diamond family
1984 Clevedon River Jetty
post Lanes make over
Whau River Te Atatu Feb 1984
Name plate
Lake Rotoiti

BETTY / ACHERNAR / ACHINAR

Designed by well known yacht designer R.L. (Bob) Stewart and believed to be the only launch that Bob Stewart designed. 31ft in length, she was built by Collings & Bell in September 1939 for Bob Stewart’s father as BETTY. R L Stewart Senior owned her continuously until 1948-50 as BETTY. She was renamed ACHERNAR (not ACHINAR) when he sold her.

When purchased in 1984, the nameplates installed on the boat had the spelling as “Achinar”, and that is how they knew her during their long period of ownership. The current owners since 2008 have changed it (back?) to Achernar. So any mis-spelling of the name would appear to have occurred between the 1950’s and early 1980’s.

1984 saw a major refit and a flying bridge added at the Lane Motor Boat Co. on the Tamaki River and she was cruised extensively around the Hauraki Gulf and further afield for the next 20 years.

In 1993 the BMC diesel was replaced with a 6 cyl. Nissan diesel.

In 2008 Achernar was sold from Auckland to Lake Rotoiti (North Island). Another professional refit was undertaken for the new owners, including removal of the flying bridge. Achernar is now a regular participant in the annual Lake Rotoiti Parade of Classic and Wooden Boats (the photograph taken on the lake is courtesy of their website.)”

Note: There is dockside talk that the vessel may have been linked to US Navy Admiral William ‘Bull’ Halsey during his WWII R&R in Auckland. 

Paikea

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PAIKEA

The 1921 Collings & Bell launch. The old press clippings support the b/w photos. Hopefully readable on ww. If not & anyone wants a better copy, email me.

Photos from Heather Rose, whose partner Keith Nicholson owned her in the late 70’s/early 80’s. The couple currently have the Paea, the 1943 ex RNZN harbour defence motor launch.

For more details on Paikea click link below.

https://waitematawoodys.com/2013/08/22/paikea/

Carrie-Fin

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Carrie-Fin

CARRIE-FIN

story & photo ex Harold Kidd

Built by Collings & Bell for the wealthy American sportsman Eastham Guild who lived in Tahiti.
She was commissioned as a direct result of Zane Grey commissioning FRANGIPANI from Collings & Bell and which motored up to Tahiti in March 1933.
CARRIE-FIN was named after Guild’s wife whose pen-name in gamefishing magazines was Carrie-Fin.
She was launched in January 1932 and was shipped to Tahiti on the MAKURA after a spot of gamefishing off Cape Brett.
She was 36’x8’4” and had twin 40-50hp Redwings.
Collings built lovely hulls, but that cabintop………………………….

Avalon

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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.

Paikea

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PAIKEA

Helped take Trinidad last Sunday to the Sandspit boat shed of Greg Lee Boatbuilder’s last Sunday, spied this classic – Paikea – moored just off the wharf at Sandspit. Can anyone shed some  light on her? Poor photos, facing into the sun.

On the trip north passed 4 different large pods of dolphins, the biggest pod was mooching around the moored boats at Sandspit. Photo (iphone) is of one of the smaller dolphins that kept us company for a while off Tiritir.

Harold Kidd Update

PAIKEA was built by Collings & Bell for A.H. Court and launched on 26th January 1921. She was fitted with a 120-150hp Model M Van Blerck 6 cylinder petrol engine (not a straight-eight Packard as is often said). PAIKEA had Chas. Collings’ “concave-convex” type of hard chine design which he made famous with his various FLEETWINGS and whale-chasers. Indeed she was a refinement of the FLEETWING whose image appears in the Collings & Bell section of WW.

PAIKEA was good for 20 knots and can still do it with her present big Iveco/Fiat, as I experienced not long ago at Sandspit. She goes like hell and stable with it.

Alf Court sold her to Hec Marler in 1925 and he sold her to R B & S S Wilson  just pre-WW2. She was in NAPS during WW2 as Z17. .

 

Charles (Chas) Collings – Designer / Boat Builder

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Charles (Chas) Collings – Designer / Boat Builder

The story below on Charles Collings’ approach to design in the immediate post-WW1 period has been penned by Harold Kidd.

Charles Collings emerged from World War I with a massive reputation for fast craft. In late 1914, when the war was just a distant rumble in France, he had built the 21ft restricted racer FLEETWING with which he raced and beat the Christchurch boat DISTURBER on the Waitemata in April 1915 at exactly the time of the landings at Gallipoli. He developed his “concave-convex” hull design where the chine hull had a convex (hollow) entry and progressively transitioned though straight to convex at the stern. He was by no means the originator of the idea, but certainly grabbed it as his own through decades of successful planing hulls he built for racing, fast cruising and whale chasing.
There is no doubt that he was well ahead of his time in a local context, although Major Lane was close behind.
By war’s end in 1918 Charles Collings had been a notable war effort contributor as a pal of local motorboat guru Charles Palmer (see ADELAIDE on this site), had lost his partner Alf Bell who had gone to the Walsh Brothers helping them build flying boats at Kohimarama for their flying school (and did not welcome him back afterwards), and was preparing for the post-war boom in large launch building that was inevitably coming, during which he built MARGUERITE, PAIKEA and RUAMANO amongst many others.
I have had a chip at his aesthetics from time to time but, to be fair to the man, he did not have the hindsight we have on the way launch design went and could not know what looks good to us today.
Faced with the design of a fast cruiser, only 32ft loa by 8ft 6in beam, and the desire for headroom in the main cabin, he came up with his second motorboat called FLEETWING (by now a brand for him). She was an extension of the ideas in the 1915 ADELAIDE.
I think, with this second FLEETWING, Collings’ first training as a civil engineer shows through more than his secondary training with Robert Logan Sr. as a shipwright. To obtain headroom he carried the tramtop/clerestory concept to the point IMHO of ugliness, using the parameters of the railway carriage, the electric tram and the motor bus of the time, abandoning completely the parameters of the yacht, even a token attention to which had kept launches aesthetically pleasing until now.
Anyway, see what you think of this image of the second FLEETWING which I have taken from one of Collings’ own glass plates, very decayed, but an amazing insight into the goings on in St Mary’s Bay in late 1920. Collings & Bell’s yard is out of picture to the left, so we see the yards of Dick Lang and Leon Warne close up.
This launch was on TradeMe at Picton recently, erroneously called MISS FLEETWING.

Update: Charles Collings was a very good amateur photographer with excellent gear. After his death in 1946 his glass plates got scattered around in the workshop, many were used for skipping across the Bay, most were smashed one way or another. A very few survived, most cracked or with their emulsion badly decayed. I have a handful more of which a couple are excellent and the definitive shots of his 26ft mullet boat CORONA after her launching in 1936.

PS Leon Warne took over the shed on the right in 1916 from Henry Barton who left for the US with his family because of his anti-war convictions (and had a shocking time on the way). Warne had served his time with Collings & Bell. He painted up the shed very nicely as you can see but was building in St.Mary’s Bay only until c1924 when he and his brother set up in Russell, building and chartering game fishing launches.

The Collings and Bell bridgedeckers

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MAKURA, KAWHITI, TAMAROA
 
story & photos from Russell Ward + details & photos from Harold Kidd
 
In the early ’50s –1951 or so, Collings and Bell built Makura, Kawhiti & Tamaroa. They were nicely lined and all the angles were right (for a change).
 
MAKURA
She was built in 1949 for W D C  & C H Leighton and fitted with a 6 cylinder Chrysler Crown. They sold her to Phil Seabrook of Seabrook & Fowlds in 1957. He fitted the Nordberg a year or so later. Phil Seabrook had Billy Rogers design and build LADY DIANA for him in 1950 and fitted her with the Austin Skipper from new, replacing it with a 155hp Nordberg sleeve-valve engine in 1956 shortly before he sold LADY DIANA to Monte Winter and bought MAKURA.
 
 
Later owners were V F Adams (1966) and W G Boughtwood (1973). She’s now in Picton.
The photo of Makura I took in ’61. Fine looking ship. Note the four scuttles to stb unlike the recent pix posted of Kawhiti. Ahead of her you can see one of what I think is the Shipbuilders boats that were produced when Roy Steadman was OC. Also shown is a photo of Makura as built from the July 1951 edition of Sea Spray. Very like Tamaroa.
 
KAWHITI was built in 1952 for D A Wilkie, later owners J M Simpson of Beach Road, Howick (1958). Terry McAvinue owned her from 1968 to 1997 when Harold Kidd took the above colour image of her in Matiatia.
Kawhiti seems to be for sale just now and has a Ford diesel. She has a screen fitted and a flying bridge. The studious will note that the fwd screen is a three piece. The pic of Kawhiti shows her to be a straight front. Also, if I use my imagination, I can read her name.
 
TAMAROA was built in 1953 for A E Fisher of Whangarei with a 100hp Austin. I guess that was the 4 litre truck engine that was so refined in the Austin Sheerline.  She was sold to Dell of Whangarei and came back to Auckland in the late 90s when Harold Kidd took the above colour image in Woody Bay. Eric Stevens bought her in the late 1990’s  and the picture of her in Squadron Bay (?) c.1996 is before he did a major makeover.
 
Makura & Kawhiti differed in the line of the cabin tops:  Kawhiti’s had rather more camber and was sharply brought down to the coaming sides.Kawhiti had a slightly shorter raised deck fwd and has one fewer scuttle than her two sister. It was a bit clumsier than Makura’s IMOH. The picture of Makura behind the 17′ Millie II shows how this scuttle opens into the deck space behind the break in the gunwale and was thus put in purely for style to make them good looking. The guy that designed those three ships (not Alex Collings) had a good aesthetic sense. They were cool!
 
It was an old trick to put that extra scuttle in to give better looks –Lady Karita has the same effect. Her aft scuttle is also sham –it opens into the deck space beside the wheelhouse.
 
In my youth, Kawhiti was painted cream on the tops, Makura blue. Both had bright finished coamings.
 
Harold Kidd Update

It’s sadly true that Alex Collings had little skill in designing superstructures and did not appear to have much of a sense of humour or a sense of aesthetics (nor did his father IMHO). Are these launches too early for Peter Peel? Dave Jackson will know.

HK Update 2:

Dave Jackson was unimpressed with my slur on Alex Collings’ sense of aesthetics. Dave worked on TAMAROA and was familiar with all three of these Collings & Bell bridgedeckers. He categorically states that they are 100% Alex Collings’ designs. Peter Peel may have done some drafting work but had no hand in their design. Dave also worked on the 1957 43ft flushdecker MATIRA for N S Hopwood, again 100% Alex Collings.

 

 
 
 

St Marys Bay Auckland

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A view of St Marys Bay with the wharf (left), several boats and boatsheds, premises of Collings and Bell, boatbuilders in St Marys Bay Road (left) and residences in Ponsonby overlooking the bay. An interesting collection of photos, same area but taken at different times. The ‘aerial’ one of all the boats stowed in the valley is fun – last boat out is the first one in for the summer.

Input from Harold Kidd (to photo A)

At the end of the wharf is the Ponsonby Cruising Club’s premises before the second storey and balcony was added. Collings & Bell’s original shed is directly behind. To the left of the PCC is the small building in which various things happened like Collings had his test tank, George Murphy lived when he was fishing with ETHEL which tied up alongside the jetty, and Des Donovan did some clinker work post WW2 with Fred Steele as “20th Century Boats”. I may have conflated some of these functions.
To the right of C&B’s slipway is the shed of Peter A. Smith, the engineer who was agent for Alpha marine engines (Danish-made I think) and who commissioned many launches from people like Dick Lang and Tom Le Huquet for customers fitting Alphas. He also traded in boats. Next right is the yard of Peter Barton who did repairs and hired out small boats, later joined by his son Phil, a true gentleman. Dick Lang and later Sam Ford were here and I think used Smith’s premises. I was born in London Street, just out of frame to the left (not terribly much after this image!) by which time the PCC was fully built up and C&B had built a large half-round shed at the back.
It really was the centre of the known universe.