Build Date Circa 1935 Build Date Claude and Ronnie Wells Length 24 Feet Beam 6ft 6 inches Building Lochiel/Lynette Built for French Pass farmer Wallace Webber Lochiel/Lynette is believed to be the last speedboat built by Claude Wells at Wakatahuri though he completed the build with his son Ronnie wells. The date she was built […]
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Build Date Circa 1929 Boat Builder Claude Wells Length 30 Feet Beam 7.5 Feet Nautilus’s First Owners Nautilus was built at Wakatahuri in around 1929 but it is not known who commissioned her build. By the 1940s Nautilus was owned by Alexander Don. Don was a schoolteacher. He moored her on the mudflats in Nelson
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Build Date 1925 Boat Builder Claude Wells Length 44 Feet Beam 12 Feet Building Tawa Claude Wells was commissioned by his cousin Rod Wells to build Tawa up to the gunwales at his boatyard at Wakatahuri. After this Tawa was towed to Punga for Rod to winch her his shed to finish the build. This
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Build Date Around 1919-1920 Boat Builder Claude Wells Length 36 feet Beam 7 feet Everything We Know About Otaki Claude Wells built Otaki for his brother-in-law Thomas McManaway of Hikoekoea Bay in the Marlborough Sounds. It is believed Claude Built his part of Otaki in 3 months and then the McManaway’s finished the job. She
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Build Date Circa 1915-16 Boat Builder Claude Wells Length 28 Feet Beam 6 Feet Everything We Know About Luna Luna was built out of double skin kahikatea by Claude Wells at Wakatahuri. Claude Wells nephew Alan McManaway owned Luna in the late 1920s and ran a 4 cylinder Chev Petrol engine in her. McManaway used
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Build Date Circa 1914 Boat Builder Claude Wells Length 30 Feet Beam 6.5 Feet Kelp and Olof Nielson Kelp was built by Claude Wells at Wakatahuri in around 1914. He used kauri timber to build her with a double skin and low open cabin. She was installed with a 5hp Standard petrol engine. Olof (Alf)
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Build Date 1906-1910 Boat Builder Claude Wells Length 32 Feet Beam 6 Feet Building Nora Thought to be built out of kahikatea. Nora was one of a few boats built by Claude Wells at Little Bay in the Marlborough Sounds. It is unknown who Claude built Nora for, but by 1920 Fredrick Ward of Forsyth
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Build Date 1906 Boat Builder Claude Wells Length 32 Feet Beam 6 Feet Building the Tanekaha One of only seven boats built by Claude Wells at Little Bay on the Northeast side of Canoe Bay in 1906. This was where Claude started his boat building business before he moved his family to Wakatahuri. At this
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Build Date 1935 Boat Builder Claude Wells and Bernard Wells Length 45 feet / 13.4 m Beam 12 feet Building Wakanui Wakanui was built by Claude Wells and his son Bernard Wells. She was built for Bernard and they launched Wakanui on the day Bernard’s second son Pat was born in 1935. At the time
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Whareatea: The Only Steam Powered Boat Built By Claude Wells Build Date Circa 1917 Boat Builder Claude Wells Length 42ft Beam 10ft Building the Whareatea At the time Whareatea was the largest launch Claude Wells had ever built. It was so large he had to extend the boat shed at Wakatahuri to fit it in.
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