CLASSIC WOODEN BOAT –  MALIBU II

Todays photo popped up recently on one of the social media fb streams and shows the launch MALIBU II coming to the rescue of a submerged run-about just visible in the bottom right corner of the photo.

A gent named Graham Hill commented that MALIBU II was assisting the chopper (owned at the time by Alexander Helicopters) to attach strops from the chopper to the run-about, to left it out of the water. Would have been an ‘interesting’ lift, one would assume they allowed for the dead weight of the water. 

There was chat that the photo would have been from the early 1968 > Nov 1971 period, but based on HDK’s comment below it must have been in early 1968.

Back in Sept 2019 we learnt in a previous WW story from Harold Kidd that she was built by Shipbuilders in 1952 for Graham West and shipped down via Dunedin by WAIPIATA in 1955. She operated on Wanaka until December 1968 when she was relocated to Stewart Island. Her dims were 40′ x 12′ x 3′ and she had a Perkins 6 cylinder diesel. 2nd photo above from this story.

Do we know what became of MALIBU II – given the lift rafts visible in both photos, safe to assume she was in charter / tourism use.