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Lady Dianna

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Lady Dianna

LADY DIANNA

photos & details ex Ken Ricketts

Lady Dianna, 36ft., was built by McGeady in his premises at 1A Summer St Ponsonby for Colin Lannam, a furniture manufacturer of Pakuranga c.1949.

Mr Lannam finished the interior himself at his business premises & did a superb job.

Ken & his parents were friends of the Lannams & Ken was on L.D. several times. He took the above photo in Mansion House Bay, Christmas 1949.

LD more recently belonged to a lawyer, who Ken thinks kept her in Thames, post 2000 & she was powered with a Ford Diesel.

Harold Kidd Update

LADY DIANNA and LADY DIANA got thoroughly confused in yacht registers, club lists and so on.
Colin Lannam was a cabinetmaker and lived in Lemington Road, Westmere. He finished the interior after McGeady built her. Lannam didn’t keep her long as she was owned by S.L. Wallath of Okahu St, Orakei by 1953. Later owners include H.C. Thomas of Inga Rd, Milford in 1973 when her dimensions were given as 36’x35’x11’x3’6″, her engine as a 100hp Ford diesel.and her build year as 1948 in her APYMBA record card.
According to Capt. Barry Thompson’s book “Deeds Not Words” on the Coastguard service, Trevor Kelly owned LADY DIANNA around 1985, but that’s probably a typo for LADY DIANA.

27/02/2015 – ex Karen Moren

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I’m back

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I'm back

Well I’m back – I hope the sudden absence of ww posts was not too much of an issue. I’ll make it up in the next few days., I have a couple of monty tales to share with you. I was enjoying a non boating holiday at a place called Akitio, a coastal settlement on the lower east cape (Nth Island). Other than some tarsal on a few of the roads it has remained almost untouched in the last 100+ years. The photo above, taken by our host David Plummer, shows how wild & otherworldly at can be. A special place that delivered on my holiday wish list – dog friendly, beach walks, open fire, driftwood to collect, great food & nice company.

Went to an amazing country hotel , the Pongaroa Hotel, we missed the local ‘Hunt’ by a day, but I have included below a photo of a previous year. They get 800+ hunters entered & the main street is just lined with the kill. Not a good event for the vegetarians out there 🙂

The 9 1/2 hr drive was draining but it does keep the day trippers away 🙂

ps For Baden Pascoe, I include a photo of a Lister engine that was center stage at the pub.

Gone Fishing

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Gone Fishing

Gone Fishing

I’m off for a few days to a spot that is completely off the air – so WW might be on hold for a few days.

If you are reading this & thinking that there will be a big whole in your life (yeah right) – a few suggestions:

1. Use the WW Search box to check out your favorite designer, builder, period, location – there are over 700 posts in the WW library. Even easier is using the categories & tag sections on the right hand side of the WW page, by clicking on a word/s you can search by any topic & see a summary of articles linked to that topic.
Only last week someone in Ireland over a 24hr period viewed all 700+ of them 🙂

2. If you are not using the WW ‘Follow’ tool – do it today – all you have to do is click on the ‘Follow’ tab that appears at the bottom of you computer screen on the right when you have the waitematawoodys page open. You then enter your email address in the box that appears & then you will be able to:
(a) receive an email advising you when new articles have been posted or updated. Means you no longer have to check in all the time.
(b) allows you to make comments on articles that have been posted.
It astounds me the number of regular, high frequency visitors to WW that are not using the ‘Follow’ tool.

3. Lastly – have a hunt thru your photo albums for any wooden boating shots, then email them to waitematawoodys@gmail.com

Have a great Easter, travel well, be safe & I hope the Easter Bunny finds you.

Cheers Alan Houghton

p.s. I have a great series of posts coming up on the rebuild / restoration of Dick Fisher’s Akarana

Bayswater In Its Prime

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Bayswater In Its Prime

Bayswater In Its Prime

Not sure of the year but most likely when the Takapuna Boating Club used to haul members’ boats on the northern land that is now a park (of sorts). Russell Ward says it was a lovely little place to work on boats and he hauled a few there before the Bayswater Marina developer and Takapuna City Council conned TBC out of it.

Speaking of being conned, do not start me on the control TBC has over the building on the foreshore, that is a con job 😦

Harold Kidd Update

The building has an interesting history. The Takapuna Boating Club was formed in 1914 to promote mainly centre board sailing in Shoal Bay and, of course, made its mark on New Zealand yachting history by commissioning Bob Brown to produce the design of the “Takapuna” 12ft 6in monotype “flattie” for competition by boys and girls, which became the “Zeddie”. About 1920 the club’s members secured the lease of the site at Bayswater and bought a tannery building at Panmure which they transported by barge and rebuilt into a magnificent three-storeyed clubhouse.
Very popular dances were held on the street-level floor every Saturday night. During my youth Benny Levin was the bandleader but rock and roll wrecked the music/dancing scene in the late fifties. I did get to sub on string bass with the band from time to time and it was a swinging group, mainly using stock orchestrations.
Later the dancefloor was taken over by Shore Sails as a loft.

Luana

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Luana

LUANA

photo ex Harold Kidd

The above photo of Luana shows her with one of the most famous warships of all time, HMS Hood. In 1924 Hood visited Auckland with another battleship, HMS Repulse as part of a 38000 mile circumnavigation. HMS Hood is seen at Princes Wharf.

At 860 ft she was for many years the largest & most prestigious warship in the world, with a top speed of 31 knots what a sight she must have been.

Sadly on the 24th May 1941 she came 2nd in one of the most famous surface engagements of WW2 – the German battleship Bismarck sank Hood in 3 minutes with only 3 of the 1418 men onboard surviving.
There was at the time much controversy into the speed of her demise & the exact cause of the loss of Hood still remains a subject for debate. Whether a shell from Bismarck king hit Hoods armory or a fire detonated her own torpedoes will never be know.

On a happier note Luana is still with us & a quick entry in the woodys search box will reward you with some great photos.

Aotearoa II

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Aotearoa II

AOTEAROA II

details & photo ex Ken Ricketts

Aotearoa was the ‘night launch’ for many years before the Harbour Bridge, which used to take North Shore folk home through the night from the launch steps in town, after the ferry services stopped around midnight, & was operated by Eric Harrison, who after the Harbour Bridge went in to service, moved Aotearoa to Kawau. There she became part of the ferry services to the Sandspit & also did Auckland to Kawau trips. She was bought off Harrison & owned for a short period by Rick Brown, who onsold her to Gordon Brown, (no relation as far as Ken knows). Gordon Brown also ran her as ferry service to Kawau fo a few years & was ultimately squeezed out by Harry Julian who tried to totally control Kawau logistics for a number of years.

She was originally powered by 2 x 100hp 6cyl. naturally aspirated Fords which were later replaced by Eric Harrison with 2 x 6 cyl. turbo 165hp Volvos.

Ken suspects she may have been built by R Lidgard, can anyone add to this or confirm?

Anyone able to ID the launch?

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Anyone able to ID the launch?

Mary E Taylor Painting

Image ex John Burland

Painted in 1990 by Devonport painter Mary Taylor, titled ‘Houses & Boats’.
Anyone able to ID the launch, bottom left. Looks a little like my girl – Raindance – but not her.

14/04/2014 Some feedback (ex Rod Marler) from the artist, Mary Taylor.

“Re: the launch in the art piece. This pic is based loosely on a launch I saw that day. I don’t know what its name was but the boats I selected for my pic were based on craft that I liked the look of. They appeared in reality in a bit of a jumble, so the challenge was to place them into a pleasing composition and to simplify what was there.

I was in the Torpedo Bay area looking back to the land”

Anodes – yes/no ?

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Anodes - yes/no ?

Anodes – yes/no ?

If you wanted some visual proof that some form of anode protection is desirable on some vessels (covering my ass here……..) – look no further than the above photo. I’m told the sump was worse.

Usual story – boat left on mooring unattended, bilge pump not working, a ‘wee’ bit of water in the bilge & as James Mobberley at Moon Engines said when I showed him the photo, the engine was performing the role of anode 😦

Timeless / Daphne Dee

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Timeless

TIMELESS

photo & info ex Baden Pascoe

The new owner (Peter Clausen) of Timeless, a 44′ launch based in Nelson is looking for any history on her. They have been told she is (possibly) a Laurent Giles design.

The details passed on were that it was built in Auckland by Eric Gibson a local boatbuilder over a number of years and launched 1998. She is kauri planked and her design looks to be from the 50s or 60s. The builder died soon after it was launched, then it was fitted out in Tauranga,. She has been in Havelock for the past 8 years.

Can anyone add to or clarify the above?

10/02/2015 Update
Peter has advised that the launch was renamed Timeless in about 2002 when the builder sold her. Prior to this she was named ‘Daphne Dee’.
I have attached below a couple of photos passed on from the previous owner taken around 2002 of the boat.
Peter can be contacted on email manaroa11@gmail.com

01-04-2020 Further Input from Peter Clasen – Being the present owners of Timeless I can now provide a bit more history on this boat, we posted the enquiry back in 2014 for information on her and have since got a bit more of her history.
She was built in Te Atatu Auckland by Eric Gibson a boat builder and his wife Daphne in their back yard.
The build was started around 1960 but due to poor health in the 70s and 80s he was not able to complete topsides. In 1998 hull and decks were taken to Colin Silby boat builders were the wheelhouse was fitted and other finishing work done.
She was launched 1998 as Daphne Gee and sold onto Craig Littlejohn and Jenny Peace from Tauranga after Eric passed away 2002, they extended the wheelhouse and fitted out the interior.
We purchased her from Walter Elsey in 2014 and keep her in the Nelson Mariner.
In 2016 we circumnavigated South Island and 2019 the North Island.
She is said to be a Laurent Giles design, 44ft LOA , is planked in 1 5/8 inch Kauri, powered by 6 Cylinder 120 hp Ford 2715e. She cruises at around 7 knots at 1500rpm burning about 7 LPH, reduction is 3:1. Displacement 18 tons.

New Weather Website

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New Weather Website

New (to me anyway) Weather Website

Two ww posts today 🙂

I was alerted to this weather website by CYA member Angus Rogers (MV Mahanui), it really is a cracker & amazingly it works – it predicted (correctly) a fine weekend for the CYA Waiheke Cruise while all local forecasters predicted rain. It also predicted and showed accurately the track of the cyclone that cancelled the CYA Yacht Regatta and predicted correctly the max wind speed in the Auckland area of about 30 knots.

It uses satellite imagery and ocean buoys downloaded into a massive computer program in the States to predict weather for the next week and provides animation of barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, and then if you go into the specific local zones they give even more detailed predictions as well as giving tides.

Check it out at this link http://www.marineweather.co.nz/pressure