LITTLE HONEY – 1955 CLASSIC WOODEN RUNABOUT.

Back inlet Dec 2024 James McConnell won one of the WW quiz’s and in correspondence commented that he owned a 1955 17’ Mason Marlin, named LITTLE HONEY (not her original name). 

He also mentioned that he was restoring her for the 2nd time in 12mths, now that pricked my ears up, there had to be a good (or sad) story there – so woodys it goes like this, told by James –

“I’ll send a link to some pics of ‘Little Honey’.  No indication of her original name. I believe. I bought the runabout in secret as a surprise for my wife and family in Feb 2024 and had put hundreds of hours into a functional referb to make her a family run about for delivery at Christmas.

It’s not a boat builder quality job but a labour of love with a hard timeline and a fantastic learning curve assisted by the professional English and American wooden boat builders on youtube. It’s all International Yacht Paint products, 5 coats of colour on the hull and roof + 1 coat of varnish and every other varnished surface has 8 coats of Gold Spar original. At some stage in her past life she was converted to outboard power.

All was going well until on her 2nd voyage on the Rangataiki River I hit a submerged log and dislodged the transom.  Good news is I get to tinker for longer and can now engage my 3 boys in the task.

We’ll refresh the engine (Johnson 90 V4 2 stroke), glass the hull and repaint now that I can flip it over and work in daylight and change the prop to suit her better.”

We look forward to seeing photos of the repaired woody.