The question of the day – is LA ROSA the best priced classic wooden launch currently on the market, at $8k . Yeap that isn’t a typo -the asking price is $8,000 ono. Now I haven’t been on board in a long time but as the architects say the bones are there of a fine looking classic. It could either be used as is or brought back to finery that she has been in the past. At 40’ that a lot of boat for the money.
Built in 1926 by Ernie Harvey , and rebuilt totally in 1965 and had a overhauled Lister JP3 (electric start) installed approx 15 years ago.
Todays WW photos are a mix from her past and recent – the last one show casing her in her finest. Her tme listing (thanks Ian McDonald) states the sale is due to poor health and the price is for a quick sale – if your interested get on tme asap , it won’t last long at the price. BUT – spend the money on an out of water survey, it will be the best investment you make – you will either end up with a good To Do List for the future OR saved yourself from having to mortgage the home 🙂
AN INSIGHT INTO NZ’S UNIQUE MARINE ENGINES – Part Seven Todays WW story follows on from earlier stories – link below to Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six As per pervious stories in the series the content has been pulled together by Ken Ricketts and ‘polished’ byPatrica and Ken’s daughter Corinne Pettersen. As always we have endeavoured to be as factual as possible but there will always by matters others will either know more about or be able to correct errors – so woodys do not hold back in commenting.
THETIS with her twin Graymarine 4 stroke 6cyl diesel engines
These are a very rare model of the Graymarine range, that was originally produced in WWII for the US military. All Graymarine diesel engines for general and normal marine use worldwide, including NZ, are based on the GM Detroit two-stroke engine, marinized by Graymarine. I believe the THETIS engines were the only two that ever came to NZ and were specially imported by Jack Butland for his 1955 Lane Motorboat built launch, THETIS. Here is a copy of previous comments I made regarding these engines, on Woodys.
“Ken Ricketts reports that having recently spoken with Thetis’s owner that the 2 in line, 6 cyl, 4-cycle, 120hp Gray Marine engines, installed in 1960 (still there today) are a very rare model & type. They were manufactured during WWII for the American forces & could possibly be the only 2 in NZ. The owner believes her original owner Jack Butland in the later 1950’s probably reconditioned, & war surplus imported them.”
BELOW IS A REPRINT OF THE HERCULES SETION IN PART 2 WITH ADDED TEXT I HAVE TAKEN THE LIBERTY OF REPRINTING IN THE CIRCS.
HERCULES 6 CYL c100HP DIESEL ENGINE AS FITTED TO THE FAYE
HERCULES 275 HP DIESEL ENGINE, SIMIALAR TO THAT PREVIOUSLY IN THE RAKANOA
FAYE WITH HER 6 CYL HERCULES HOME MARINISED DIESEL ENGIINE
RAKANOA WITH HER 275 HP 6 CYL. MARINE/HOME MARINISED DIESEL ENGINE
Hercules was a manufacturer and supplier of a large number of basic engines to many marine engine companies for marinization by each company to its own specifications. This included names such as Kermath, Chrysler, Graymarine, Scripps, Chris Craft, and many more. However, engines sold under the Hercules name, based on my research, are comparatively very small compared to their total manufactured units.
There are two boats I know of in New Zealand that have engines both labelled under the Hercules name and are diesel engines. One is the FAYE, which is equipped with a home-marinized C100P 6-cylinder Hercules diesel engine. This engine replaced her original Willys Jeep petrol engine when she was about 4 or 5 years old. FAYE’s details are noted in her Willys Jeep listing in part 2 of this post.
The other is the beautiful 56-foot RAKANOA, built in 1946–47, which had a 6-cylinder 250HP Hercules diesel fitted after she had been in the water for one year. This engine replaced her original GM Detroit 165HP 6-71 diesel.
Her original owner, Stan Parker, was a brilliant engineer and owned a very large precision engineering business.
I am not sure if the Hercules engine was factory or home-marinized, as he would certainly have had the ability and equipment to do this. Stan, the original owner of RAKANOA, owned a large heavy engineering factory in Auckland. This business passed to Ross when his father passed away in 1961. RAKANOA retained this engine until 1981. Ross told me, after he inherited her many years ago, that they had always had trouble starting the Hercules engine, especially when hot. Many years after he inherited her, he eventually replaced the Hercules with a Gardner 6L3 diesel engine, which she still has to this day.
The Hercules engine was fitted because original owner Stan P., could not tolerate the very loud high pitched geartrain noise of the Rootes blower, combined with a loudish exhaust noise, she had with the G.M. Detroit
Unfortunately, I have not been able to find on research to date, any images of the 250 HP marinised version of the Hercules engine, however I have found what may be an unmarinised version, of RAKANOA’s engine.
RUSTON HORSNBY DIESEL ENGINES.
HAIMONA ex MANGA, WITH HER ORIGINAL TWIN 6 cyl, FODEN DIESEL ENGINES
RUSTON HORNSBY TWIN CYLINDER MARINE DIESEL ENGINE AS USED IN THE MANOWAI
HMNZS MANGA AS ORIGINAL.
HAIMONA IN HER PLEASSURE CRAFT GARB WITH HER 2 RUSTON HORNSBY DIESEL 200HP ENGINES, ON THE KAIPARA HARBOUR
MANOWAI IN HER RUSTON HORNSBY DIESEL ERA, AT HERALD ISLAND
There are only two of these I know of in New Zealand in pleasure boats. One was in the 32 ft MANOWAI, during the second part of Claude Atherton’s era, from 1949 until at least the 1960s; it was a twin-cylinder version of the engines.
The other boat was HAIMONA, formerly HDML MANGA, which was based in the Kaipara Harbour. Eventually, after a few years there, the only slip she was able to use for maintenance became unavailable, and she deteriorated badly before being destroyed by her last owners.
When they bought her, a massive coaming structure was added, and they also replaced her original Foden engines with twin 200 HP 6-cylinder Ruston Hornsby diesels, which they removed prior to dismantling her.
FORD FALCON 4.1 LTRE 6 CYL. PETROL ENGINES
FORD FALCON 4.1 LTRE 6 CYL. PETROL MARINE ENGINE
VALSAN CHRISTMAS 1948 IN HER PRE-FORD-FALCON, PETROL ENGINE ERA
The 1938 Roy Lidgard-built VALSAN was bought by Arnold Baldwin around 1947, complete with her original engines, which were 2 x 100 hp flathead Graymarine petrol engines. He owned her for many years, and the time eventually came, after many of those years, when they had to be replaced, around 1970.
I was amazed that he chose 2 x Ford Falcon 4.1 L petrol engines as replacements, as these were engines usually associated with small day boats or runabouts, often equipped with stern drives or jet units. There were a total number of such engines unknown to me, and she is still the only launch I have ever heard of with these engines.
Things have, of course, moved on since then, and the last I heard, she had 2 x 4-cylinder Mitsubishi diesel engines post 2000.
CHRYSLER-MITSUBISHI CN-55TI 200HP 6CYL. IN LINE MARINE DIESEL ENGINES
THE CHRYSLER-MITSUBISHI CN-55TI 6 CYL. DIESEL ENGINES PRODUCING 200hp @ 3150 RPM INSTALLED IN ALIBI
ALIBI’s 2 “STERN POWER” STERN DRIVE UNITS, & NOTE BOTH ENGINES EXHAUST OUT THE SAME SIDE AT THE TUCK
As readers of this series may recall, ALIBI made a cameo appearance in part 2 when I was seeking information related to her sistership, which I now know is or was called CRESCENDO, seen below on launching day, as I have seen the two V8 Chrysler-branded diesels CRESCENDO had when new.
Thanks to the input of others, I have now also discovered that these engines were manufactured by another company, and simply sold under the Chrysler label, which seems to me to be a continuation of Tony Mason’s apparent tendency to use engines with the Chrysler label, as in ALIBI.
However, since the previous cameo appearance of ALIBI, I now have full details of her engines, thanks to a lady named Juliet Hindman, who is very knowledgeable about the Mason Clipper range of boats.
Her family has owned one of the two only 33-foot versions of the Mason Clipper, and she has now contacted me.
As a result, and with the information she has provided, ALIBI now definitely falls into the “Unique” class of engines category, as specified above, as far as I’m concerned, and she now has her place in the group in her own right.
ALIBI’S two CHRYSLER-MITSUBISHI CN-55TI DIESEL ENGINES, producing 200 HP at 3150 RPM, are driven through Warner gearboxes to “Stern Power” make, cream-painted counter-rotating outdrives. While the engines and gearboxes are both left-handed with a 1-to-1 ratio, outward turning counter-rotation of the propellers has been achieved by the gearing system in the stern drive units, which are also acting as reduction gears with a 1.5-to-1 ratio, driving Volvo 16 x 17-inch propellers.
I feel the engine-to-stern-drive setup with these engines, is superior to many others, in that the engines are obviously primarily produced for conventional drives, having the gearboxes attached to and as part of the engines, but can still be used either way, for stern drive units, or conventional drives, with the stern drives simply providing the drive to the propellers.
Many manufacturers combine the gearbox and stern drive into one unit, which makes them much more complex and quite possibly much more expensive to maintain.
Additionally, the combination drive/gearbox units are often very “clunky” and jerky when selecting forward or reverse, whereas there would not be this clunk with the smoothness of hydraulic engine-attached gearboxes.
I have spent a great deal of time, trying to source a good clear image of these engines, but they seem to have disappeared from historical public databases, and the only image I have been able to source, is of ALIBI’S own engines installed in her.
It is, however, wonderful that she still has these original engines after all these years since she was built in the later 1970s. A great testimony to Mitsubishi. Here are her details as received from Juliet H.:
“Released in 1979, the Clipper 42 was 12.8m x 3.7m with a draft of 900mm and, fully laden, displaced around 9 tonnes. Alibi was the prototype, built with a sandwich construction of strip-planked cedar, fiberglass on both sides. A mould was taken off the prototype so that all future boats could be full GRP with a balsa core. However, Crescendo was the only boat ever pulled from the mould.”
I would recommend that readers revisit ALIBI’S cameo appearance in part 2 of the series to see some wonderful images of her exquisite finishing and interior.
A final note re CRESCENDO. – She has been seen reasonably recently, in the South Island, I have been told, so any further help with information about her in any way, would be much appreciated.
LISTER MARINE DIESEL ENGINES
I had considered including LISTER MARINE DIESEL ENGINES in the group, however, there are quite a good number of these engines that are or have been in use in NZ., in many work boats, fishing boats, tugs, & a few pleasure craft, & in the end I decided they fell just outside the scope of what I was about, so will just make a general mention of them, with a few images of the odd pleasure craft, all of which had these engines installed by Roy L.
Roy Lidgard used quite a number of them in various types of craft, the 1940s & 1950s, mostly 4 cylinder, & also had a 4cyl version of the Lister Diesel driving the Smeltinghouse Bay Kawau island sawmill, he set up & ran on his property, in the later 1940s & 50s, the remains of which are still there today.
As just a brief mention, he installed Lister diesels, in the ROSE, (2 CYL) (later LA ROSA) Clive Power’s WAINUNU, (4 CYL) & TAWHIRI, a lovely sedan topper R Lidgard built in the mid/later 1940s (4 cyl)
THE ROSE (NOW LA ROSA)
TAWHIRI BUILT BY R LIDGARD 1940s WITH 4 CYL LISTER MARINE DIESEL AS ORIGINAL
WAINUNU WITH CLIVE POWER AT THE HELM, WITH HER 4 CYL LISTER DIESEL, WITH THE EXHAUST OUT THE TOP OF THE MAST. c1940s
Screenshot
ROY LIDGARD’S SAWMILL, SMELTINGHOUSE, BAY KAWAU ISLAND c. LATER1940s
LISTER 1940s 3 CYL MARINE DIESEL ENGNE AS AN EXAMPLE OF THAT ERA
EPILOG:
Well, readers, we have come to the end of this seven-part journey, and I can only say that for me, it has been a wonderful ride, to share with all of you who have taken the time to share the ride with me, and to follow the seven parts of what I’ve learned throughout my lifetime.
So often, you know as much, if not more, than I do. While some may have learned a little from me, I have, in turn, learned much from many of you, as we have shared this journey together, & I thank you all, for the opportunity to gain this new knowledge from you.
I especially want to express my humility and gratitude, for the kind words of thanks and appreciation, in some of your comments directed towards me personally.
I have done this most of all, to encourage us all, to share and record publicly, what we know about our New Zealand-based boats, with each other, and most importantly, to provide a public record, for the benefit of the boaties of the future. Those who will come after we old wrinklies have all gone, & will become the stewards of tomorrow. As a result of what we all write now, they will hopefully have the chance to understand what has gone before in all or many aspects of what will become their boats, the majority of which will surely live on long after we are not here.
HAPPY DAYS (Te Toa) The photo above ex Baden Pascoe shows the launch Happy Days, moored on the Manukau Harbour. At the time she was owned by Ward House, who bought her off Merv Young. Before that she was used as a log tug pulling a barge from Matakana Island to the Tauranga Town Wharf.
Ward these days owns – La Rosa, the 1923 Ernie Harvey built launch. Photo below taken last week moored in the Brian (‘cockney’ slang for the Tamaki River) You can see and read more on La Rosa at this WW link https://waitematawoodys.com/2021/01/04/la-rosa-flashback/
At some stage Happy Days was renamed Te Toa, keen to uncover more about her and what became of her.
13-05-2021 Update date ex Ray Morey – I drove “Happy Days” when she was owned by “Leonard & Seon of Mt Maunganui , when they were logging on Matakana Island and supplying Tuck & Watkins mill on Sulphur Point. Previous to this she had been a net fisher up towards Kati Kati and owned by a maori family. The “D” front of the cabin is original but Eddie Fitzgerald at the old Alf Walling slipway, built the more modern cabin over the large open cockpit, and closed the after deck in. My F.i.L. Alan Harris and Gary Leonard installed a 130 hp. A.E.C. tank engine with a gearbox from one of Charlie Faulkner’s spare “Hercules” engines (ex Aotearoa spares) I seldom towed barges, the logs were rafted from up Tuckers Creek on Matakana on one tide, anchored off Otemoetai then picked up on the next tide and taken around to Sulphur Point Mill. She was a good little tug for the job and was sold off when the logging cut out. I did see her in later years moored up the Tamaki river. I have often wondered about her fate. I believe she was one of five 26 ft motor mullet boats built in Auckland and they mostly had names with “light” in them. (moonlight-starlight etc.) H.D.K. where are you please??
I just love opening the WW email inbox, particularly when out of the blue you get a treasure trove of photos on a boat that you know but do not have much content from her past.The other day Alan Duckworth contacted me to say he came across the WW site while searching for new photos of the 1923, Ernie Harvey built launch – La Rosa. Bob King, who owned the vessel for 50 odd years and significantly modified the ketch, was Alan’s grandfather.
The above gallery of old photos are from Bob King’s ownership period. Alan recalls that the motor was a Lister, compression start, that could run for hours on bugger all fuel.
They were made from 1936 and 1954 apparently (haven’t been able to confirm), so it would be interesting to see if the owner knows the age of the engine.
Like all of the old Lister / Petter water cooled range of engines, the JP2M is built so big and heavy and runs so slowly that if properly serviced, maintained and used, it should never wear out in marine use 😁 “
Todays story so needed to be done, and woodys, John Bullivant is a legend for grabbing his camera and heading out on our behalf. I’ll let John tell his story 🙂
“Thought it was about time I got a few photos on the Tamaki River boats before they disappear, (and they are going fast by the look of some). There are only a fraction of the numbers of wooden boats that were moored there in the 1960s and 1970s and as I previously mentioned, living on the waterfront at Bucklands Beach for around 25yrs I had seen most of them go by (was like Queen St on Friday nights most summer weekends) I did 2 trips down from Orewa and took pics from Panmure Boat Club and up to and under the new Panmure Bridge, end of Gabadore Pl (off Carbine Rd), the old Panmure Marina, (going with many houses from Panmure to Pakuranga Town centre, to make way for new highway widening), along the Tamaki River walkway for about 4km (Rotary Walk,- starts at the old Panmure Marina and goes all the way to Gills Rd in Howick, for those who like walking), Half Moon Bay and Bucklands Beach.
I also went down to the 1960s site of the private ex RNZAF W1 haul-out ramp below the old Alright property (well covered in bush now and a near vertical climb down a 30ft bank), – lost a bit of blood but well worth it for me, as I last stood on that spot 50yrs ago when we sneaked on board W1 to have a look around while she was up there. Original ramp and haul-out dolly is still there (see pics) although time has taken its toll. I’m amazed, looking at the crude set-up today, how Mr Alright got a 64ft boat weighing many tons, sitting on rubber tyred dollies (which ran in grooved concrete) lined up and hauled out with a winch and by the looks of it, the large tree in line with the ramp, not to mention getting it back out again (I’m assuming he must have winched it back out somehow). Massive effort not only to build the ramp on mud, (all by hand, no concrete pumping trucks) but to be able to use it.
Hope these photos are of interest to people who may be able to identify some of the mystery boats (especially the light blue launch with the chrome ventilators and light, (looks ex RNZAF ?). The yacht hidden near the big boatshed is around 45ft looks very old and has been there for many years, as has poor old Imatra, a once grand yacht which is in a very sad state and in urgent need of care (must have been there 30 yrs odd now). I have included a few other launches and yachts to show the sad state of many good looking (and once expensive) boats on the river crying out for attention, but I guess many people have other priorities and sadly their dreams are just floating slowly into oblivion. It’s pretty hard to get rid of a rusty rotten hulk, so there they will stay till it’s “business time” (flight of the Conchords) for the 20 ton digger.
I may have some of the boats names wrong as I was using a telephoto lens for most of the pics and with enhancing colour, contrast etc was as near as I could get. I’m sure someone will correct any if wrong.”
NOTE: With the photos that John has named, I have tagged the photos with those names. Scroll over the photos to view the names 😉
I could have used the individual images on WW over an extended period, but they need to be together in one spot. Enjoy 🙂
The above photo was taken 2 weeks ago at Auckland’s Maritime Museum, La Rosa & John Dory had just returned from the CYA launch cruise to the Riverhead hotel & according to Baden Pascoe they all rafted up alongside Kelvin for afternoon tea, I suspect the word ‘tea’ covered a wide selection of beverages 😉
How lets see how clever you woodys are – these 3 vessels share one connection – who will the first to ID it. And it goes without saying that Ward House, Baden Pascoe & David (Davie) Jones are excluded 🙂
Two of the CYA ‘s launch fleet have been getting some late summer TLC
La Rosa
Ward House & Bob Stevenson had their 1923 Ernie Harvey launch out recenty at Tamaki to take her underwater surface back to bare wood & treated with Chem Bar (the Altex equivalent of International Primercon), the topsides received a splash of paint as well- looking very sharp for a 90 year old.
Update 23-12-2019 La Rosa hauled out for some TLC, interesting to note the no growth of marine animals what so ever around metallic parts after being in the tide for 3 plus years. Note, no propspeed as well. Baden Pascoe supplied the photos and commented that if she had anodes she would have needed a tow to the slip.
Castaway
Chris Leech’s 1947 Dick Lang launch seen here on the slip at the Devonport Yacht Club. Once a familiar sight on the harbour, lately its rare to see her away from her marina, Chris has almost earned the ‘floating man bach’ award 🙂 Hopefully this work will mean she is out & about more.
La Rosa, built by Ernie Harvey shortly after he sold out to Percy Vos and
moved to Thames. Its thought her first name was Colville Marie and she used to run
mail and light goods from Thames down the coast. Very typical of a Harvey
boat. Now powered by a nicely restored JP 3. Owned by Ward House and brother
in-law Bob.
Update 24-05-2020 Relaunched after some TLC. Photo ex Baden Pascoe
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