Venture: 46ft Scow From Awaroa Inlet

Build Date

1906

Boat Builder

Hadfield family of Awaroa

Length

46 feet

Beam

14 feet

Building Venture

The Venture was built by the Hadfield family of Awaroa close to where her remains are today. William Welby Hadfield was part of this build. He was a farmer and boat builder in Awaroa. He also worked in Port Nelson in 1900 where he built a 17 feet motor boat for Messrs Moore & Healy. This became the first motor boat in Nelson and was powered by a motor cycle engine from Moore’s motor cycle dealership in Nelson.

Roy Hadfield recalls the Venture being under construction when he went home for Christmas in 1903. He helped his father and uncles Fred and Darcy to find timbers for the Venture’s construction. The timber for Venture came from around Awaroa and Totaranui. They used Rata roots from Totranui for the bends and knees, 14 feet long birch logs for the 6×6 deck beams and white pine from the swamp at Little River was used for the masts and spars. Roy recalls spending his twelfth birthday using manpower with his family to get the timber to the harbour at high tide and then floating them down to Awaroa.

Buying Orakei To Fund Venture’s Build

When the Venture was a third of the way complete the Hadfield’s ran out of money and had to stop the build. But they were not discouraged and hatched an entrepreneurial plan. They heard about a scow for sale in Puponga called Orakei. The catch was it had been holed and sunk but the good news was this made the boat very cheap. So, Fred Hadfield and his brother-in-law Bill Winter set off for Puponga in their old workhorse boat they called the Old Tub. They found Orakei in better condition than they thought and brought her for £5. They had to re-float Orakei and make some quick repairs before sailing her back to Awaroa at high tide. At Awaroa they discovered the keel was almost eaten through by worm so they replaced it with a rimu tree that had fallen down on their farm and made all the other repairs needed. When Orakei was finished they sold her for either 300 or 400 pounds depending on your source. Either way it was a good return on their investment, and they now had enough money to complete the Venture.

Black and white image of the boat venture being launched

Draft

3 feet

Weight

19 tonnes

Black and white image of the boat Venture moored at Little River

Completing the Venture

They completed the build of the Venture in 1906, four years after they started. She was launched in Awaroa with a large audience of locals. Roy Hadfield recalls the population in Awaroa being the highest it had ever been and everyone wanted to be there for the launch of the Venture.

At this time Awaroa had a fair amount of industry as timber, flax and birch bark were shipped from Awaroa to Nelson and Motueka on the Transit owned by Ricketts Bros.

The Venture was registered on the 17^th January 1906 as a 19 ton ketch that was 46 feet long. She traded in Tasman Bay until the First World War. Sadly the development of motor transport and the building of the Otira tunnel put the Venture out of business. This changed the whole way of life for families in the region as sailing cargo was no longer a feasible business. The Venture was beached in Awaroa Inlet and slowly decayed. For a long time walkers on the Abel Tasman track could see her wreck in the inlet.

References

To research the Venture we used Port Māpua Maritime Museum and The Journal of the Nelson and Marlbrough Histotical Societies, Volume 2, Issue 3, 1989.

Old Jack II – 1867 Blind Bay Hooker built out of Kauri in Port Underwood.

Comet – 48ft Trading vessel built in 1883 and used in the Nelson/Tasman area.

Southern Isle – 92 ft scow built by D.M. Darroch in 1901

Orakei – 69ft schooner deck rigged scow built in 1892.