
PAIKEA
photo ex Fraser Chapman
While Paikea has appeared on ww a couple of times (nearly 2 years ago), the above 1970’s photo emailed to me by Ken Ricketts was just too good to just add to one of the existing posts, so here she is looking very voom voom. Harold Kidd has advised that in her day she was good for 20 knots, read below.
Harold Kidd Input
PAIKEA was built by Collings & Bell for A.H. Court and launched on 26th January 1921. She was fitted with a 120-150hp Model M Van Blerck 6 cylinder petrol engine (not a straight-eight Packard as is often said). PAIKEA had Chas. Collings’ “concave-convex” type of hard chine design which he made famous with his various FLEETWINGS and whale-chasers. Indeed she was a refinement of the FLEETWING whose image appears in the Collings & Bell section of WW.
PAIKEA was good for 20 knots and can still do it with her present big Iveco/Fiat, as I experienced not long ago at Sandspit. She goes like hell and stable with it.
Alf Court sold her to Hec Marler in 1925 and he sold her to R B & S S Wilson just prior WW2. She was in NAPS during WW2 as Z17.
Hec Marler had great taste in boats – having once owned the 1905 Arch Logan yacht Rawhiti, one of NZ’s most stunning classic yachts.
You can view a gallery of historical Paikea photos here https://waitematawoodys.com/2013/09/16/paikea-2/