Build Date
1924
Boat Builder
D. Darroch and Sons
Length
71.6 Feet
Beam
22 Feet
The Last of NZ’s Scows
Owhiti would become the second to last commercial scow to ever be built in New Zealand. She was built by D. Darroch and Sons at Stanley Bay, Auckland as a topsail, ketch-rigged deck scow. Darroch used a different bow design on his last three scows (including Ngahau and Alwin G/Success) which made them more durable and gave them better lines. This could have helped Owhiti become a particularly safe vessel, with only one reported incident from launch until 1960. This was when she was stranded in the Hauraki Gulf in July 1936 with J.C.Ipen at the helm.
Alf Bryant became Owhiti’s first owner and he would keep her from 1924 until 1959. He used her to trade in the harbours, estuaries and rivers around Auckland and Northland. Her skipper in this time and later when she was sold to Bert Subritzky of Subritzky Shipping in 1960 was Bill Goodall or ‘Owhiti Bill’. Subritzky continued using Owhiti to trade out of Auckland. This included dredging and trips to Great Barrier Island, dredging the town basin at Mahurangi to prepare for starting regular runs transporting phosphate to Mahurangi and returning to Auckland with butter from Te Hana dairy factory. She was also used to transport tonalite (Coromandel granite) in large blocks from Paritu Bay to Auckland. This was used for construction, gravestones and some was even exported to Australia.
Around 1975 Owhiti was sold to David Skyrme. He completed a refit returning her to her original design without a wheelhouse. Skyrme used Owhiti for coastal construction work including pile driving and building wharves.
Draught
3.8 Feet
Weight
49.94 GT / 9 NT
Official Number
152178
Owhiti’s Movie Careeer
In 1982 Owhiti transported 25 tons of cargo to the Cook Islands for the filming of Savage Islands and The Silent One. Her trip home was a stressful one though as she was leaking badly and her her bilge pumps were going continuously. Owhiti was also used in the filming for Savage Islands that took place around Urupukapuka Island in the Bay of Islands. For her role Owhiti was renamed Rona.
This may not have been the end of Owhiti’s movie career as there were plans to use her as a stand in for the scow Moa in a movie about the escape of Count Von Luckner and his men from Motuihe Island prison during World War One.
On one of her more normal work trips to Whangaroa Harbour Owhiti was left for a few days and took on water. She rolled over and sunk in the shallow water. Although she was refloated, Owhiti couldn’t continue being a work boat. In 1999, Owhiti was at Skyrme’s home near the Waikare Inlet in the Bay of Islands. She has been run up on the beach with the tide flowing through her hull twice a day. Restoring her was considered with the National Maritime Museum taking a look but they decided she was too damaged to be restored now and instead would build a new vessel. This boat would be the Ted Ashby whose design was based on Owhiti.
Although in disrepair Owhiti lives on in museum collections with photos and an original inventory held at the New Zealand Maritime Museum and technical drawings and a half block model at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.
References
To research Owhiti we used the book A History of New Zealand Scows and their Trades by David Langdon.
Related Posts
Southern Isle – 92ft scow built by D.M. Darroch in 1901 and used for trade in Nelson.
Ngahau – One of last Darroch scows to be built.
Alwin G/Success – The last scow to be built in NZ.
Jane Gifford – 67ft trading scow built by Davey Darroch.