Tag Archives: Roy Lidgard

Marie – A call for help – Sailing Sunday

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Marie L2 – Lipton Cup Jan 1933
Marie L2 – Lipton Cup Jan 1934

MARIE – A Call for help
photos from PapersPast – NZ Herald

There are very few yachts that so clearly reflect the essence of our kiwi yachting roots, that evoke the memory of days gone by & that rekindle the desire to relive ones past as does the ‘Mullety’ . There iconic yachts are unique in that even today there is a strong active fleet & they are still competitively sailed. The Lipton Cup is one of the events on the sailing calendar & in 2012 will celebrates its centenary.

The purpose of todays post is to plant a seed in the minds of our classic boating community, that hopefully will result in this rather famous mullet boat being on the start line of the 100th Lipton Cup.
How will this happen?  by someone – an individual, a group of enthusiasts & or a corporate sponsor stepping up to the mark & taking custodianship of Marie. Lets be very clear, we are looking for a genuine restorer no dreamers, no gunners i.e. “I was gunner do it but now its in the shed”.

I’ll let Harold Kidd tell her story

“Errol Fensom has done a great deal to foster and preserve old mullet boats. He still owns the 24 footer MARERE (I1) but, some years ago rescued the 22 footer MARIE (L2) and preserved her for restoration.
Errol reckons it’s time to pass MARIE on to an energetic restorer or syndicate of restorers, so she’s available for free to a good home.
Her history is impeccable.
Roy Lidgard built her in 1918 on his return from WW1. He was working at Lane Motor Boat Co at the time and built her in their yard in Mechanics Bay. She was an instant success, eventually winning the Lipton Cup 5 times, 1923-5 and 1930-1. Her owners over the years have included Roy, Fred and Vic Lidgard, Ashton and Berridge Spencer, Milton Wood, Gordon Kells, L.R. Matthews and R.H. Wood, A.L. Barker and several others more recently, all sounding like a Who’s Who of Auckland yachting.
She’s had a strake or two added and the centreboard removed, although the case remains. A lead deadwood has been added of considerable weight and that goes with the yacht, almost enough to recast and provide the 1 ton of internal ballast required by the Restrictions, usually a major outlay. There is no rig.

This is a great opportunity to restore an authentic and important 22ft mullet boat in time for the centennial Lipton Cup race in 2021 which the Ponsonby Cruising Club will most certainly promote widely.

Contact Harold Kidd or Alan Houghton for more information.”

Harold@hklaw.co.nz      or     waitematawoodys@gmail.com

 

As always ww is interested in more photos & details so if you have any – send them in.

Update & photo from Dennis Rule
I believe I owned this boat in the early 1970’s, approx. 1973 – 1978, although she was then named Vagabond. I was told by her previous owner that she was Marie and the racing history he supplied supported that theory. She was certainly relatively narrow in the beam which I believe was a point of difference in Marie. She had been built up, cabinised, and her rig shortened by then and had a Ford 100E petrol engine with no reverse. The centrecase leaked like a sieve (recall that 1,000 pumps at a pint a stroke was the daily routine when sailing her). I shudder to think that I took my wife and two infants all over the Gulf in her in that condition with floorboards often floating. When I sold her to buy a Southerly 23 I thought she was a gonner, so it is fantastic to know she may have another chance.. I kept her on a mooring at Bucklands Beach (the pics are at BBYC hardstand).
Incidentally my brother Arnold Rule and his son Alan have owned the 26′ mulletty Bluestreak since 1973. I believe there is a story there.
I would love to know if the boat I owned is the Marie.

Ngaro 4sale

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Ngaro CP GH 2014
Ngaro 2014 @ GH
Ngaro 2104 @ GH
Ngaro 2014 @ GH
Prior to 2014

NGARO

Ngaro was designed /built in 1952 & launched in 1953 by Roy Lidgard (Lidgard Ship Yard) in Smelting House Bay Kawau Island. She is 14.78m LOA / 3.88m beam & draws 1.4m.. She is a solid old girl with double diagonal 1/2″ kauri & 1″ longitudinal planks & bronze riveted.  Powered by twin Ford 120hp Lemman’s that were installed in 1965.

Her ‘newish’ owners returned Ngaro to the water last week at Gulf Harbour after a new coat of paint, top & bottom. They only had good things to say about Mike Vitali & his team at One10 Painters, the finished job looks very sharp.
While a few of us classic owners are a little gun shy of travel lifts, the boys at Gulf Harbour would be one of the best operators around, they used four slings on Ngaro. As further proof of their skill – the Tino Rawa Trust has recently hauled out half its classic fleet at Gulf Harbour.

Now back to Ngaro – The owners would like to know more about her past & view any photos that might be out there. So woodys what do you know?

The b/w photos (below) are the only early (possibly launch day) photos they have.

I have featured Ngaro before on ww – she is rather nice – click the link below to be wow’ed 🙂

Ngaro 4sale

Update 24-08-2018 Ngaro out again for some TLC at Gulf Harbour

A Brief history of the Kawau ferry transport 1946 -1990

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KAWAU ISLE NORTH HARBOUR KAWAU ISLAND 1970s
MAIRIE 1954 MANSION HOUSE FERRY Builder Roy Lidgard
KAWAU ISLE MANSION HOUSE BAY WHARF 1962
KAWAU ISLE SANDSPIT 19.9.90
Ken Ricketts sculling towards Kororo
FRED LADD MANSION HOUSE BAY 1950’s
Kawau Isle berthed at Maritime Museum
Kawau Isle 60th Anniversary Skippers
Kawau Isle 60th Anniversary at Bon Accord
Kawau Isle
Kawau Isle at Riverhead Hotel

A Brief history of the Kawau ferry transport 1946 -1990

photos & details ex Ken Ricketts

MAIRIE

Purpose built in the early 1950’s by Roy Lidgard, in his boatbuilding shed in Smelting House Bay Kawau Island, for Alan Horsfall owner of the Mansion House, in Mansion House Bay, Kawau, for the carriage of passengers & freight, to & from the Mansion House, to the Sandspit at Warkworth, which was the embarkation point, for the vast majority of the guests, & virtually all freight, food, & most importantly, for boaties, grog, during Mansion House’s time as a hotel /guest house, which was up until about September 1967, at which time it was bought by the Government of the day & turned in to a historic place, under the Historic Places Trust.

A few lucky commuters travelled in style, by amphibious aircraft from the 1950’s onwards, — a Grumman Widgeon, piloted by a the famous, Freddie Ladd,  a delightful, colourful, extroverted, & very learned, & tremendously skilled, pilot,  see pic on the beach of Mansion House Bay, c.1954, (this photo along with the one of Mairie was scanned by Ken from 8 mm movie footage shot from his families launch, Juliana, c.1953-55, thence the poor quality). Ladd usually had Christmas dinner on Juliana, & later Gay Dawn, an entertained the Ricketts family with his seemingly endless supply, of real life anecdotes.

Mairie was approx 42 feet long & powered by a 4 cyl Kelvin diesel & served the Island & Mansion House for many years. In her later years such was the demand for her services that Lidgards built (1952) another boat for Mr. Horsfall, called Kawau Isle, slightly bigger & powered by a 6LW Gardner diesel, which in later years, took over most of the passenger load & left Mairie to do the donkey work, with the freight side of the logistics. The 6LW I understand, has fairly recently been replaced by a newer 6LX Gardner in Kawau Isle.

KAWAU ISLE

Kawau Isle is a traditional kauri timber motor vessel built in 1952 by Roy Lidgard at Smelt House Bay, Bon Accord Harbour. She is 45 feet in length, powered with a 6LW Gardner diesel engine and cruises at 7.5 knots.

For around 30 years the Kawau Isle operated a ferry service between Sandspit and Kawau Island. More recently she worked from Half Moon Bay as a charter boat and then Whangarei as a school ferry. She currently plys her trade ferrying day trippers to & from the Riverhead Hotel, on the upper reaches of the Waitemata Harbour.

In the bow on photo with the ‘Riverhead Ferry’ logo, the men on the bow are all past and preasent skippers of Kawau Isle. This photo was taken at Kawau Island, Bon Accord Harbour November 2012 during a cruise to celebrate the 60th anniversary to the launching of the ferry.

Note : Mairie & Kawau Isle replaced the ‘Nancibel’ – (may have been Nancibelle), which was powered with a 4 cyl 4-53 GM Detroit & ‘Kororo’ which was powered with a P6 or 6-354 6 cyl Perkins. Both of these boats were painted bottle green & given there appearance probably built in the later part, of the early 1900s. You can see the Maritana stern on, behind Kawau Isle in the 1962 pic at Mansion House Bay wharf. The back end of Kororo can be seen in the photo of a young Ken Ricketts sculling the dinghy.

A question ex Don Macleod

Refer below article / photos that appeared in DIVE Magazine Vol 11 No3, of 1972.

Is this the same launch, Nancibel, that serviced Kawau Island. (click photo to enlarge)

Nancibel _ DIVE Magazine

Update from Don 02/12:

The divers got into real trouble that weekend at the 20 fathom reef, Mayor Island, 3 cases of the bends, one of which died (Henry Liason).

There was another boat that hit a Mayor Island rock that weekend. It was the Edward G which flooded its engine room at the time

that Henry Liason was surfacing from a very deep dive.

Tauranga divers went out and salvaged the Gardner engine from the Nancibel the week after she sank.

 

Tawhiri

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TAWHIRI

photos & details below ex Ken Ricketts

Built c.1946 by Roy Lidgard in their shed, at Smelting House Bay, Kawau Island. Note similarities to Ted Coopers Awarua. Tawhiri is a little shorter at approx. 36ft. & AWARUA 37ft. Unsure who she was built for, Harold Kidd might be able to help here?

Tawhiri originally had a 4 cyl Lister diesel, (painted bottle green) installed in a box which formed the table in the middle of the main cabin area. Roy Lidgard installed Listers in quite a few boats of that era, another went into the Wainunu for Clive Power, to which Kens father later fitted an electric self starter system for Clive c.1949-50.

At one stage she belonged to a Euan Berger, ex Air NZ cabin crew, whom Ken knew in the1970s-80s. Berger replaced the Lister with a 6 cyl. Ford diesel, (after which she floated about 6 inches higher in the water in the bow, the Lister must have weighed a thousand tons) Tim Lees may have done the engine change.

Ken last saw Tawhiri a couple of years ago, in a scoria & building merchants yard in Karapiro Drive at Whangaparaoa, where she sat for a few months.

Ken took the photo in the water at Christmas 1948, in Mansion House Bay, Kawau Island. The other was taken on a slip, adjacent to the Panmure Yacht Club, by the look of the background, (which Ken can identify well with, as his father was commodore of that club), Ken recalls the photo was sent to him for I.D. , possibly by Harold Kidd & is not sure when it was taken but it was long time ago as the area is quite different there now.

Ken is interested to hear if anyone knows anything more of Tawhiri’s life.

Harold Kidd Update

Lloyd’s Yacht Register says she was built by Lidgards Shipyards in 1947 and was named TAWHIRI II. However I think 1946 is right as because her first owner,  Jim Inkster, registered her with the Squadron in the 1945-46 year. Jim Inkster had owned the yachts DAISY, SCOUT and had the 38 footer TANGAROA built by Percy Vos in 1936, so TAWHIRI was TANGAROA’s postwar replacement. Her original engine was a 1945-built 3 cylinder 30hp Lister diesel, about all you could get at the time, and that stayed in her until at least 1964. Her official APYMBA dimensions were 35’x33’x10’6″x2’9″ which vary from the Thames Measurement dimensions given in the LYR entry. In 1964 Stuart Clark registered her as a British Registered Ship under #191807 from which I have drawn her engine details.

Jim Inkster sold her to A.J. Noakes in 1950-51. Later owners I know of were D.D. Brown (1962), Stuart G. Clark (1964) and Muir (later Sir Muir) Chilwell QC (1970). Berger must have been after Muir.

Ngaro 4sale

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NGARO – 4sale
This fastidiously restored classic was built by Roy Lidgard (at the Hamer St yard) in 1953 for Mr H.S. White of Auckland, an avid boater with 40 years experience whose flourishing motor cycle business enabled him to build one of the most luxurious of her day. Built from 3 skin NZ Kauri with 2 inch planking thickness there is a permanence and strength about her that has held her in good stead.