Valmarie: The largest Boat Built at Wakatahuri
1951 -1960
Build Date
Francis Wells
Boat Builder
54 Feet
Length
17 Foot
Beam
Building the Valmarie
Built by Francis Wells in the boat shed at Wakatahuri. The Valmarie is the largest boat built at Wakatahuri at 54 feet long and 17 foot beam. Francis laid the keel in 1951 but it took him nine years to complete the build. Francis recalled the year he started the build in the boatshed at Wakatahuri because it coincided with the end of the 1951 waterfront lockout. He built the Valmarie out of double diagonal native kahikatea and finally launched her in 1960 with a name taken from an old coal hulk. Though she was maybe never really finished.
Like a lot of Wells built boats, the Valmarie items salvaged from other boats within her. This included a set of large chrome port and starboard direct engine controls taken from the fairmile Mana. This fairmile had been wrecked by Francis and Tom Wells Sounds Wrecking Company.
Building the Valmarie would prove to be very costly not just because of its size but also because he built it without an initial survey. Francis also chose to build a boat that did not adhere to marine department specifications so it would have been very hard to do a survey of the Valmarie after the build was complete. With no commercial survey Francis could not accept work contracts for his boat and the Valmarie became his private launch.
The Valmarie’s Engines
The Valmarie was initially built with two Gardner 8L3 marine diesel engines which were salvaged from a boat named MV Rannah in Rarotonga. Francis purchased MV Rannah as a wreck and travelled to Rarotonga to salvage the engines. He used the ships electric winches powered by one of the engines to remove the other engine. Through doing this he had a Gardner running throughout the whole salvage operation.
Captain Don Silk of Silk & Boyd Ltd., recalls in a 2009 edition of Marine News that Rarotongans still talk about the man who came over to salvage the engines. “I heard great stories about salvage of the engines.” “This guy came from New Zealand and lifted them out single-handed with the electric winches. Last to come out was the generating set, still running!”
After salvaging the engines and some fittings that could be transported to NZ, Francis sold the Rannah for £60. After transporting his new Gardner engines to New Zealand Francis reconditioned them before installing them in the Valmarie.
Cruising Speed
9.5 knots
Top Speed
11 Knots
The Sounds Wrecking Company
Although the Valmarie was never registered as a commercial vessel Francis did use her as his workhorse from time to time. On one occasion the Valmarie was used to take Francis and Davey Jones to Wellington to patch the fair mile Marilyn which they had purchased to wreck. They worked from 4am each day to patch Marilyn with plywood, tar, galvanised nails and canvas to make her seaworthy enough to tow to Wakatahuri. They were not supposed to take their purchase out of the marina until the harbourmaster had surveyed her and deemed her seaworthy. But they had other ideas and instead of notifying the authorities they set off at night.
This was not the only time Francis used the Valmarie to stealthily tow something out of Wellington harbour. Maybe this is why the Valmarie never had her name or registered port painted on her. This made her a semi-stealthy vessel. Although, the Martin Berthold recalls that whenever the Valmarie turned up in Wellington she would be berthed in an oddball place and people would know that something was about to be towed out the bay in the dead of night.
Fire on the Valmarie
On the 12th February 1973 the Valmarie caught fire after towing logs from Titirangi to Wakatahuri. The fire started at night and was discovered by Manny Collins who rushed to wake Francis up. Unable to use the deck hose because of the fire and with no other boats in the bay, they worked to put out the fire with buckets of sea water.
When they got the fire under control, they found the pilothouse was mostly destroyed but they had saved the hull. The damage was estimated to cost around $12,000 to $14,000. This was a lot of money for a boat that was not used commercially and was presumably uninsured. Francis struggled to make the repairs and Martin Berthold recalls that for the rest of Francis’s life the Valmarie was “substandard”. But Francis still used her up until his death in August 1981.
After Francis Wells
The estate of Francis Wells sold the Valmarie to Murray Harris of Nelson in August 1981.
Later the Valmarie was sold to Eric Jacobson. There is some discrepancies of the dates of this sale. Boats for a Lifetime states the purchase was in 1982 whereas Waitemata Woodys and the Marine News believes it was between 1985 and 1987. Either way Jacobsen is said to have taken the Valmarie from Picton to Auckland on 13 Sept 1987. He also renamed her, Evangeline and continued the repair work needed after the fire at Wakatahuri.
In May 1993 Jacobson sold the Valmarie to Brent Haslet and Carol Rush of Auckland. It was again sold on 6 September 2003 to Craig Burrow from West Auckland.
At some point the Evangeline was renamed back to the Valmarie and was listed for sale on Trademe in 2014. In 2023, it was confirmed the Valmarie was on the hard stand in Whangarei undergoing some repairs.
References
To research the Valmarie we used the book Boats For A Lifetime by Yvonne M Fell and the 2009 anniversary edition of Marine News which outlines the history of the Sounds Wrecking Company. For further information on the Valmarie we used the website Waitemata Woodys.
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As Francis’s daughter, I was on board for many of the trips in later years, including one of the last he made. Many of those trips left at night and I can tell you it was planned that way in order to travel with the tide, instead of punching against it; thus saving both time and fuel.
There was, also passenger and freight ferries, to avoid as dad disliked crossing or travelling in their wake.
You have the date Francis died wrong. It was August 1981. That may explain the confusion with the date that the Valmarie was sold. I recall that she sat on her mooring, for some time beforehand. Thus, I believe Boats for a Lifetime’s statement that the purchase was in 1982 is correct.
Waitemata Woodys and the Marine News 1985 – 1987, would then be correct as well. I know Eric had wanted the Valmarie, but for whatever reason did not purchase her at first. When she was put up for sale again, he was not about to miss out a second time. As far as I know, Eric did take the Valmarie from Picton to Auckland, however I could not confirm the date.