Southern Isles: Wells Built Pleasure Launch/Fishing Boat
1950
Build Date
Noble (Tom) Wells
Boat Builder
36ft
Length
10ft
Beam
Launching the Southern Isles
The Southern Isles was built by Noble Wells widely known as Tom (or Uncle Tom to those at Wakatahuri) to be his pleasure launch. Although the Southern Isles was also used for commercial fishing much like the other Wells built boats.
The Southern Isles was built in the boat shed at Wakatahuri and was launched in 1950 or 1952. When it was built the Southern Isles had two engines both of which were Lister’s.
The main engine was a 3 cylinder Lister which needed to be hand started and had a 10 gallon fuel tank above it. To keep this tank topped up fuel needed to be hand pumped through from the larger fuel tanks.
The second smaller side engine was a 2 cylinder Lister on the port side. The installing of two engines seems to be a Wells technique with several of their boats having auxiliary engines including the Orca and the Winsome.
Also much like many Wells boats the Southern Isles incorporated parts from the Matangi including the original skippers chair. The Matangi was a Nelson to Wellington Ferry which was acquired by the Sounds Wrecking Company and was taken to Wakatahuri for wrecking.
The raised bow deck provided space for the accommodation including a small galley and the Southern Isles even had a toilet built into a corner of the engine room.
Although Tom Wells used the Southern Isles for some commercial fishing including cray fishing in Fiordland, he also used the boat for fun. This included taking it for a cruise around the south island in the 1950s
In the 1960s Tom Wells and Davey Jones used their boats (Southerns Isles and Pat Marley) to begin selling Marlborough Sounds mussels in the North Island. Their work was referenced in the Carol Dawber book Lines in the Water; a history of Greenshell Mussel Farming in New Zealand.
They caught their mussels in Forsythe Reef and stored them in bags at the water mark until they had gathered a hundred bags of mussels. This amount fitted on the Southern Isles and she would set off for Paremata where the mussels were sold for between 10s and 1 pound per sack. They mostly sold their mussels to a man who filled up his truck and sold the mussels around the north island.
The only problem was the economics of the venture were not always on their side, as their customer would try to get a cheaper price and the time spent traveling to Paremata was time their weren’t fishing.
After Tom Wells
After Tom Wells death in 1986 the Southern Isles was sold to Eric Jacobson. He took the boat to Picton to paint it and make some repairs. Jacobson also installed two new engines. Both of these were Gardner’s
The Southern Isles was then sold to someone in Auckland. This is believed to be Ross Ashby who had the boat in Clevedon in 2017.
Today the Southern Isles is owned by Conor Wells a descendant of Tom Wells and is based in Havelock. He is making repairs to the Southern Isles and has taken the boat home to Wakatahuri for visits.
References
To research the Southern Isles we used the books Boats For A Lifetime by Yvonne M Fell and Lines in the Water by Carol Dawber. For further information on the Southern Isles we used the website Waitemata Woodys and this post on Waitemata Woodys about Tom Wells.
Related Posts
Majestic – A fishing boat come World War Two delivery boat and now a pleasure launch
Silver Dawn – Passenger launch that met an untimely end in 1962
Winsome – A Wells built pleasure launch
Valmarie – The largest boat built in the Wakatahuri boat shed
How excellent. I knew Tom and his boat well in the mid 70’s. Tom was a decent man and student of maritime history. I rather preferred Tom’s turquoise colour for the Southern Isles. I and my then girlfriend Dee, lived at Wakatahuri whilst rebuilding Francis and Elsbeths house. They accepted us and I felt honoured to know them.