KERERU (Pamela)
photos & details ex Ken Ricketts, edited by Alan H.

According to her owner, Mike Rowe, Kereru was designed by Couldrey & built by Atkinson. She looks totally original, is  28′ & powered with a Perkins diesel. Rowe has owned her for 25 years.

She has amazing similarities to the Brin Wilson built Kereru, featured in an earlier ww post & seen on the front cover of the June edition of Sea Spray, back in 1960.

Anyone able to shed some light on her past & confirm the design/build?

09-05-2016 @ Gulf Harbour (Ken R photos)

10-05-2016 Harold Kidd Input

Interesting letter from Bill Longhurst’s son attached. I was rather flattered that he thought this was my site. Naturally I put him straight and copied to Alan.

“Hi Harold,  
Saw the photos of Kereru on your Wooden boat site.    Funny enough  I googled Bill longhurst, who was my father and  I see his name come up on Wooden boats, and I go into the site and the first photos come up of the Kereru……28 foot launch.

Just to put the record straight the 3 photos are definitely that of Dads launch the Pamela.
Built by Keith Atkinson, and designed by Bill Couldrey that happened to live in the same street in Northcote- Heath Avenue.

Dad owned the launch for only 4  years or so, and then sold it to a guy that lived in Picton I think, it  was road transported to Wellington and sailed to Picton.

Dad sold it due to poor health, he was a Art teacher at Northcote College for  26 years and retired at 55 years of age due to a heart condition, he had a hard life due to being a navagator in the Air force in World war 2, and died at the age of 62 from cancer.

I can tell by the photos that  you have that this is Dads boat  by the water deflecters he made, that look like boonarangs at the end of the cabin on both sides, and have photos that are identical to this.

I have since seen the boat on a pile mooring in the Weti river at Stillwater.

Amazing to see these photos of Pamela again………..

Hope some of this information has been helpful to you.

Regards Robb Longhurst.      

And yes the engine was a Perkins 4107 diesel- 60hp”

So there’s a “new” Couldrey launch for us.

09-12-2022 UPDATE – ex John Oates. I have reverted back to the as launched name of Pamela on my Couldrey designed and Atkinson built launch (photo below). The main reason being that I couldn’t get my head around the idea that a seagoing vessel should have a land bird name. It also helps that my Herreshoff SK (Stuart Knockabout) 28 day sailer is named Pam. I like that connection between them