History of MV Kaselehlia

Ownership History


I am still working through the details of who owned the boat and when, and I still have a few gaps to fill. This is what I know so far.

1920 Reginald Gerald Dawkins senior. Port Gore
1930 Reg Dawkins junior. Picton
1950 Erick Smith. Picton

1975 John and Pam Nichols and Ivan and Dulcie Lyttle
1979 Tom Willis. Blenheim
1985 Leo Gilchrist. Linkwater
1991 Foss Leach and Atholl Anderson
1993 Foss Leach

History of Refits


1920 Boat built by Earnie Lane. Open cockpit, steering wheel, 10 HP standard engine with flywheel, magneto, and generator on the flywheel for charging the battery.

1946 1946: Refit for paying passengers. Cabin built. 10 HP standard motor continued, rack and pinion steering and wheel fitted.

? date. Crysler Crown petrol motor fitted

1979. Crysler Crown petrol engine replaced with 50 HP Ford diesel engine.

1992 Refit. Topsides covered in marine ply and fibreglassed. New hatch and skylight installed on foredeck. Wide belting installed. Boarding platform fitted, including SS fold down ladder. Aft deck closed in with transom. New aft decking and hatch. 30 litre SS diesel tank installed. SS pipe railings fore and aft. Hydraulic steering installed. Re-caulked hull and two new planks installed. New marine toilet installed. Stripped and repainted with reaction lacquer. Re-named vessel from Calm to Kaselehlia.

1997 Refit. Interior flooring and bulkheads removed and replaced with 1.25 inch planking. old ribs re-fastened, and ribs doubled up and fastened. Old caulking removed and re-caulked. Anchor winch fitted. Double fairlead fitted. Old anchors replaced with Bruce anchor and pick hot-galvanised. New engine fitted, Fiat Iveco 120 HP, and Borgewarner hydraulic gearbox fitted including single arm morse controller. New exhaust system fitted. Stern tube replaced. New 2.5 inch SS shaft installed. Propellor resized. New SS rudder fitted. SSB radio fitted with 5m antenna. Furuno sounder fitted. GPS fitted. Solar panel battery charger fitted. New interior fittings. Inside and out stripped and repainted. Fitted tuna poles. Moved sacrificial anode to convenient place under transom. Installed compressor and freezer chest

2005 Repainted hull, fore and aft-decks. Repair small leaks under tuna poles with new roofing timber and fibreglass over and repaint. Rewire earthing system throughout. Hydraulic steering system strengthened. Boarding platform brackets replaced with 316 SS.

Early Photos of Vessel 1927 to 1946


The earliest known photo of Calm, as she was then named, was taken in 1927, seven years after she was built by Earnie Lane of Picton.

On the mooring in Picton c. 1938.

Queen Charlotte Sound 1938 Skipper asleep

Fishing in Queen Charlotte Sound c. 1938.

At the Picton wharf c. 1938.

In Picton harbour c. 1938.

A day's fishing at Perano Head c. 1938.

Fishing expedition to Grove Arm c. 1938.

Calm was registered for passengers c. 1946.

1991 - Recent History


A colleague and I purchased the original boat which was then named `Calm' in December 1991 at Havelock at the head of Pelorus Sound. Our inquiries about the boat's history revealed rather little at the time, but we have learned a lot more since. A number of boats with similar lines are known to be Lanes' boats. The boat for many years was a farm boat at Port Gore and regularly made trips to Picton and back from there. When we bought the boat it was in private ownership and had been an active participant in Pelorus Boating Club activities, such as jaunts around D'Urville Island.

1991 to 1993 - Family Outings Pelorus Sound


The two families (Andersons and Leachs) had many outings in the boat with young family around all parts of Pelorus Sound, the Chetwode Islands and around the eastern side of D'Urville Island. In heavy rain the roof was inclined to leak but we had a lot of fun. The Andersons moved to Australia in 1993, and we purchased their share of the boat. The boat was kept in the marine at Havelock.

1993 - First Stage of Restoration


The original boat had an old four cylinder Ford Trader motor and crash gearbox, and an oversized propellor with bronze shaft. The topsides were painted over canvas with kauri planking underneath. The hull was made of inch and a quarter kauri plank, but the caulking was in poor shape and two ribs were cracked and had to be replaced. Because the hull was otherwise in excellent shape and especially because it was kauri, we felt that the boat was worth restoring.

We decided to do the restoration in two stages, mainly because of the cost involved. We decided to leave the interior of the boat to the second stage. We envisaged that this would involve removing most of the interior cabin woodwork, and put in a new engine, gearbox, shaft etc. But in the first stage, we would to attend to the outside woodwork, and this took place in 1992. The Boat Builder was Alan Stanford in Havelock. The transom of the boat that time only came up to the level of the deck and there was a safety chain across the stern - not very safe for children.

The entire topsides of the boat was stripped down and covered with marine ply and then fibre-glassed over.

The sloping sides of the boat were filled in and then extended back to the transom. This closed in the aft-deck area. The aft-deck was also covered with marine ply and a hatch made into the hold for storage.

A boarding platform was added to the transom, and a wide belting was added to the sides of the boat to make it easier to get to and from the front of the boat.

All fibre-glassed area were painted with two pot reaction lacquer, alpine white with light grey trims topside and royal blue strips along the sides of the hull. The decking areas were painted light grey with silicon sand anti- skid patches. Finally, stainless steel railings were installed on the boat, and she was ready for family outings again.

1996 to 1997 - Second Stage of Restoration


We took the boat across Cook Strait to Wellington 15 February 1996. That was something of an adventure because the weather closed in and the crossing was fairly rough. It went on the hard at Evans Bay and work was started there. The flooring, bunks and lockers were removed and the entire hull was re-fastened. Ribs were doubled up throughout most of the vessel for additional strength. The inside of the hull was thoughly cleaned and painted, and flooring, bunks and lockers replaced temporarily. The outside of the hull was stripped down, re- caulked, and painted . We had use of the vessel from May to October when the boat-builders shed was free for the next stage. The old engine, gearbox and shaft were removed and replaced with a brand new Iveco Fiat 120 HP diesel motor and Borgwarner gearbox and new SS shaft and new stern tube. A new SS rudder was installed. The flooring was replaced with inch and quarter kauri planks, and all lockers were remade with marine ply. A chest freezer was installed with the compressor run by dual belts from the front of the motor. This is thermostatically controlled with a magnetic clutch. An anchor winch was also installed. The boat was put back in the water 14 January 1997.

It was necessary to re-size the propellor, as we could not get the new motor to reach rated RPM under load, and was running at about 50% efficiency. We re- sized the diameter and pitch twice until we were satisfied. The original propellor was 21 x 18 inches. The first re-sizing brought it down to 20 x 16. This resulted in improved performance, but still not good enough. The second re-sizing brought the propellor down to 19.5 x 14, and this resulted in excellent characteristics (75-80% efficient oiver the full RPM range). The final top speed was 10.5 knots at 2800 RP. Several experimental seal trials were carried out using the calibrated nautical mile in Wellington Harbour until we were satisfied with performance. Cruising speed is 8 knots at 2000 RPM.

We installed GPS, and two depth sounders. The main unit is a Furuno 8 inch colour sounder Model FCV582, dual frequency (50, 200 KHz), water temperature, paddle wheel knot meter, and equipped for navigation input. Latitude/Longitude appears on screen from the GPS unit. The secondary depth sounder is a Humminbird LCR400 with the fold-down display mounted on the roof just inside the main door to the wheelhouse. This provides useful information while fishing from the aft deck. A SS podium was installed on the roof of the wheelhouse to take radio and GPS antennae, radar (not yet installed), tuna trolling poles, and a solar panel for trickle charging the batteries when the boat is on the mooring for long periods.

1997-2005 - Marine Research & Family Outings


The boat came back across Cook Strait to the Marlborough Sounds 17 November 1997 and was placed on a swing mooring at Ngakuta Bay in Queen Charlotte Sound. Because we intended to use MV Kaselehlia for marine research it was brought up to the standards required under the Government Safe Ship Management scheme with installation of all safety equipment required. The requisite annual surveys and certification of radio, GPS, fire extinguishers, engine shaft etc. were carried out until we retired July 2002.

The marine survey work carried out did not involve extensive travelling, and from 1998 to 2005, Kaselehlia has not been outside Queen Charlotte Sound, and has built up only 100 engine hours per annum; that includes family outings. Current engine reads 744 hours. The motor has been fully serviced by a professional diesel engineer regularly since new.

In October 2005, the vessel was taken out of the water for full maintanence checks and repainting. Only a small amount of caulking needed attending to. Some patches of worm boring were present in the garboard and about 2 metres of the hardwood strip was replaced. Other than that the hull is still in excellent order.

Return to the Home web page