Tag Archives: Lotus

WHAT BECAME OF THE CLASSIC LAUNCH – OK

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WHAT BECAME OF THE CLASSIC LAUNCH – OK

During the week WW was contacted by Maxine Dignan a descendant of the Sanderson family from Whangaroa, Northland.  Maxine advised she was currently writing a history of the family. During the research process she came across the photo above of a launch named – OK, pictured in Whangaroa Harbour, with Eric Sanderson at the helm.The photo was in her great-aunt’s album, but sadly with nothing more than the name the boat name and skipper.

Maxine commented that she had also found on WW mention of Eric Sanderson, most often about the launch MANAAKI. She also has links to him re the HAZEL and his brother Alan ( who was the Whangaroa Harbourmaster) on the LOTUS, and apparently Alan also owned the CONDETTE and the  RIO. Eric’s son Jim, grandson Bruce and his sons have all carried on the family commercial fishing business.

With that distinctive bow pattern / caving she must be a Bailey & Lowe boat. And with a very memorable name like OK, we must be able to tell Maxine more about the vessel. So woodys what can we share with Maxine.

INPUT ex HAROLD KIDD – she is Te Whara built by Bailey & Lowe (obviously) in late 1916 for TL and N Drummond of Whangarei. The only local O.K was built by James Reid in 1909 as a passenger launch for Capt Stentiford. Misnamed in the caption I think.

JUST NEED TO FIND THE 8MM MOVIE PROJECTOR IN THE STORAGE LOCKUP 


One of the Friday night gang is an antique dealer and travels the country sourcing goods, these days mainly ‘old’ gold.During the week at one location he spotted a stack of old 8mm movies, on closer inspection one to him may have had appeal to me (note I’m being very PC). Titled ‘Nautical Nudes’ , filmed c.1960 – for the sensitive WW readers I have edited the cover photo, when and if its viewed I will report back 😉

Lotus + Next Woody Event Details

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IMG_5898

LOTUS

The photo above of the launch – Lotus comes to us from ‘Whangaroa County Old Photos’ (Gaylene Harrison) via Lew Redwood.
And that woodys is all we know – but I’m confident we will be able to shed some more light on the launch and her skipper – Alan Sanderson.
Input and photos below from Cameron Pollard – Cameron used to work on Lotus when she was owned by Grahme Kenyon. She was a longliner down in the viaduct. Fished for years by Vern Mcaw.
Input from Harold Kidd
This LOTUS was possibly the one owned by D Astwood in Auckland in 1935 and sold to V J Judd of Maungaturoto for use on the Kaipara in 1935. It certainly is the launch owned by Alan Sanderson, of the well-known Sanderson family of Totara North who used her for big game fishing out of Whangaroa from early 1946 on.
ITS BEEN TOO LONG BETWEEN DRINKS
Get the diary out woodys and circle Sunday 28th June for the next Woody Classics Weekend (#5) – we are off up the creek to The Riverhead, for a long overdue catch up and pub lunch. Flyer below.
Be a polite woody and RSVP with boat name and est. crew numbers so we can warn the tavern. Always a great trip, so rug up and give the boat a long over-due run.
Woody Classics Weekend #5 Riverhead

Wynyards (Lushington’s) Bay + Wirihana 1

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Wynyards (Lushington’s) Bay
photo ex Mac Taylor Collection

Now I’m sure to some / most of you the bay in the above photo will be very familiar but not to me. I have a good hunch but I’ll let you all chip in. Remember you can click on the image to enlarge & if you click again on the enlarged photo it will zoom in even more.

Wirihana 1
The 2nd part of today’s post is a great photo, below, I found in Mac Taylor’s album, the launch is the first Wirihana (1) – there is a great story found at the link below concerning Wirihana (1), which most likely became Lady Gay (1) + how Wirihana (2) & Lady Gay (2) fitted into the scene. Great reading & a fine example of the ww blog really working.

Wirihana Who ‘Built’ Her?

Update

Seems everyone is right on the button with ID’ing the location – Harold Kidd sent me a link to the Henry Winkelmann photos (post card) ex the Auckland Museum collection below, taken in 1899. It is ‘Rodmershaw’ the residence of Mr Lushington.

I’m very familiar with the location as early one morning during a Mahurangi Regatta weekend, I had to retrieve my #1 kauri clinker dinghy from the beach after it went walkies in the night & washed up there, undamaged. The gods were smiling on me that weekend 🙂

Update from Harold Kidd
The photo below, ex Auckland Museum collection,  shows Mrs Lushington sitting on the ballast of her husband’s Robert Logan-built yacht MURITAI in 1899 at the property.
The 22ft mullet boat on the beach behind MURITAI is the 22 footer BELLE built by Hewson & Melville in 1883 also owned by Lushington. BELLE was converted to a deadwood keel yacht & later renamed LOTUS.

Muritai & Belle (Lotus) c1899

Pam Cundy Input

Pam sent me the photo below of of her partner, George Emtage, grandfather Captain George Samuel Emtage. They lived in a bay just around the corner from the bay shown above and worked for the Lushingtons and the Chandlers on Motuora. The excerpt from the book Jade River tells the story of how George’s family inherited Motuora island.