

Duchess – 1920 Bailey & Lowe – parked off Cowes Bay, Waiheke Island
WOODY WATCH
DUCHESS
The photos above of Duchess, appeared back in 2013, by mistake on a previous WW story on the Joe Slattery launch – Raiona. I have updated the Raiona story & included below details ex Harold Kidd & Nathan Herbert (who ID’ed the mix-up)
DUCHESS and RAIONA were remarkably similar, or rather MOLLIE/ALCESTIS/RAIONA was lengthened to 44ft and altered to look like remarkably like DUCHESS by Colin Wild in 1928.
The 40 footer DUCHESS was built in late 1920 by Bailey & Lowe for R.L. Stewart Sr.
The pic above shows DUCHESS on Eel Rock off Cowes Bay on 1st January 1934. She ran on the rock just after high tide and was refloated the next day with slight damage (2 planks stove in).
Stewart sold her to the Government in August 1935 as a tourist launch. In the Auckland Star of 10th August 1935 there’s a full description of her in the photos below, confirms her configuration is very close to RAIONA’s. She had a 3cylinder heavy duty Twigg engine.
I’m not terribly sure what happened to her after the Crown/PWD bought her.
Duchess
photo ex Geoff Steven
I was sent the above photo last week & while I know the name of the boat & the identity of the people in the photo, I don’t know the designer/builder/year – so woodys the first one that can correctly name the launch & her designer/builder & year of launch, will win a copy of the publication – ‘The Jack Brooke Story – A celebration of a New Zealand amateur yacht designer’. Published by the Tino Rawa Trust, with input from Harold Kidd & Robert Brooke.
Now some t&c’s
1. Winning entries details will be confirmed by HDK
2. The following are excluded – HDK, Nathan Herbert & Ken Rickets – just to give everyone a better a chance of winning 🙂
Once she has been ID’ed I will post more details on her but very keen to hear about what happened to her in later years & where she is now.
We have a winner , confirmed by HDK – Paul Drake – well done.
It is the Duchess built by Bailey & Lowe in 1920 for R.L. Stewart Sr. Harold commented that funnel puts you off as she looks like steamer but it’s only for her 3 cylinder Twigg petrol engine. I understand she even had a fireplace onboard – my kind of boar 🙂
The photo was sent to me by Geoff Steven whose uncle Graham (Snow) Steven owned her. He lived at BP Bay on Kawau Island and used to do work around the island on her. Geoff recalls that he dragged telegraph poles to the various Gulf islands at times. Graham was well known by boaties in the Gulf. The lads in the bow are Geoff’s brothers & Geoff took the photo.
Update 06-05-2019 – Photo below ex Bob Platt