Fairlie, population 900, is perhaps best known as a farming hub, as well as a destination for skiers and holiday makers heading further south to the Mackenzie Country lakes and beyond, writes Tom Fraser.
But local resident Dick Guard, now aged 89, remembers a time when the town, more than 60km inland from Timaru, was a busy boatbuilding hub – where a small factory buzzed with the sounds of men painstakingly crafting vessels ranging from just a couple of metres to over 18m in length.
Few people know the story of Fairlie’s short but remarkable period as a boatbuilding mecca in the late 1940s and early 1950s, nor the links between the people there and the CWF Hamilton team further up the road at Irishman Creek Station, which was the base for the fledgling Hamilton Jet empire.
Dick’s father, Stan Guard, was a boatbuilder from Pelorus Sound in the Marlborough Sounds who moved to Fairlie in the 1930s to marry and work as a sawmiller and then as a linen flax engineer during the war years. But word of Stan’s boatbuilding background spread, and he was asked to build a clinker dinghy for a mate who worked in the local munitions factory. The dinghy was launched in the lily pond at the Fairlie Domain.
“On seeing that Stan Jones, the owner of the local garage Jones Motors, asked for one to be built, so Dad built him one as well – all from his shed at home in the township,” Dick says.
At the end of the war the munitions factory closed, but Stan Jones and Stan Guard figured they’d use the skilled workforce to build radio cabinets under contract for Philips Radio. But, as word of the boatbuilding prowess continued to spread, orders came in, and Jomo Craft, a subsidiary of Jones Motors, was created.
About 130 vessels would subsequently be built on the small premises – but no radio cabinet was ever produced. The largest vessel, the 60ft Linora, went to a customer in Auckland and the last large vessel was the Mount Maury, which went to Fiordland Travel. It was used to transport tourists across Lake Te Anau to visit the glowworm caves but is now privately-owned and operating out of Riverton.
Dick himself started work in 1948 as a 15-year-old boatbuilding apprentice and has many fond memories of the halcyon days of Fairlie boatbuilding.
“Our staff consisted of a joiner, a milkman, farmers and various labourers, but the only qualified boatbuilder was my father. But jeepers, we produced some wonderful vessels. They were a fantastic group of jokers and when a boat was launched at Caroline Bay in Timaru, everybody got a trip to town so they could help lift powerlines and do all the hard work. Most of the motors were started up here in Fairlie to check that everything was operating as it should and when we got to Caroline Bay we’d simply back the boat into the water and off it would float.”
It was an incredibly busy, happy factory, he says.
Dick recalls that his father would confer with the client about their vessel’s requirements and the next step would be him creating a ‘half-inch to the foot’ model out of a block of wood. He’d then make some drawings and then draught it up full size on the floor of the factory.
“And, just like that, away we’d go,” Dick recalls.
“I read back my mother’s diary and see that in one year alone we had orders for three large boats, which is pretty good going. Bear in mind that all the finishing was done by hand, something which I’m still incredibly proud of.
“We had a big bandsaw, a thicknesser for dressing the planks, a six-inch buzzer, table saw, disc sander and a few electric drills, but everything else was done with axes and adzes and other assorted hand tools.”
One of the most amusing parts of construction was getting rid of the wood shavings and off-cuts, Dick says. All the shavings from the planer would be swept onto the roadside and one of the factory staff would add some turps, flick a match and the waste would disappear in a cloud of smoke – much to the disdain of passing motorists.
As well as the larger vessels, there were “heaps and heaps” of clinker dinghies, as well as repair work, and Jomo Craft was also the agency for a small boat called a Falcon.
“This was a kitset boat that they’d send down from Auckland and we’d put them together,” Dick says.
Other vessels included Mistral – built for Alec Black, the Commissioner of Sea Scouts – and a pleasure launch for the well-known Christchurch photographer Ian Little to use in the Marlborough Sounds.
“My father was great mates with Bill and Peggy Hamilton and had a wonderful story that Bill, along with Stan Jones and another mate, would often go up to Lake Tekapo at the weekend to race their boats against one another over a measured mile. And, sure enough, on a Sunday afternoon one of them was calling into Dad to ask for some modifications to make their own boat go that little bit quicker.”
But, being so far from the coast had its limitations and when other boat builders started up in Timaru and further afield in the 1950s, it became too hard to compete, Dick recalls. So, factory staff turned to joinery and building.
“My father and the firm put the first dome on the Mt John Observatory, while prior to that, myself and one of the other lads built the first experimental shed that was placed up there to see if the location was going to be any good to view the stars.”
Astronomers and the thousands of star-gazing tourists alike who flock to Mt John every year to view our celestial backyard would likely agree the Guards chose a great spot.
“In 1970 a mate and I went out on our own building, and work across the Mackenzie Country was our bread and butter. This included homes for some of the sheep stations and a lot of time up at Irishman Creek doing building and maintenance work there.”
Dick remains immensely proud of the Jomo Craft that were produced by such a small and talented group of people in rural South Canterbury. And, the Jomo Craft story does in fact continue – the factory is now the Fairlie Heritage Museum, in the town centre. It’s well worth a visit. The vessel Malibu is there on display.
Some Jomo Craft vessels
The 30ft Malibu (build no. L138) left Jomo Craft in mid-winter 1947 and was towed to Lake Wanaka behind a tractor, a trip that took two days, Dick says.
The vessel was commissioned by Colin Tapley of Dunedin, one of New Zealand’s first Hollywood actors, who achieved success in the United States and Britain and whose most notable role was starring as Dr William Glanville in the movie The Dam Busters.
In 1946, after his successful film career and having served in the RAF as a flight instructor, Tapley returned to New Zealand. He and his English wife, Patsy, with their two children lived at Eely Point at Lake Wanaka and ordered the launch with a capacity of 25 passengers for the tourist trade, naming her Malibu after his days in California.
In about 1950 they moved back to the UK, selling Malibu to Graham West who carried on with the tourist cruises. After some years West replaced Malibu with a bigger boat, also named Malibu.
Malibu then had a variety of owners including some time as a passenger ferry on Otago Harbour. She also went through a name change to become Molyneux, spending some time on Lake Wakatipu. In 2000 she was purchased by the Power family and brought back to Lake Wanaka, moving again in 2011 to Lake Benmore. In 2018 Malibu was donated to the Fairlie Museum by the Power family. She remains there on display.
Joy (build no. L.145) was a 40ft carvel fishing trawler for Jock McKenzie of Timaru. She was launched off the sand of Caroline Bay in November 1947 where two local fishing boats pulled the transport trailer out to sea until Joy could be floated off. She was then towed to the wharf where a GM diesel engine was installed and fit-out completed.
Miss Te Maru was a 48ft single-screw, square-stern vessel (build no. L.188) built for George Nicholson of Timaru. Originally intended as a pleasure boat, she had the ability to be adapted as a commercial fishing boat. She had a round bilge carvel kauri hull over hardwood ribs. Due to height limitations in the Fairlie boatshed, the wheelhouse was built separately and lifted onto the hull with the crane at the railway station. Miss Te Maru was then transported by road to Timaru.
Mount Maury (build no. L.199) was commissioned by Wilson Campbell for his company Fiordland Travel Ltd. It was a 46ft bridge-deck cruising launch licensed to carry 90 passengers on Lake Te Anau. Costing £4,500 to build, it had a round bilge displacement hull, square stern and was planked with totara over hardwood frames. Shortly after launching on Lake Te Anau in April 1952 the owners were retrofitting navigation equipment and accidently drove the vessel into a cliff above the lake, damaging the bow. Jomo Craft builders were dispatched back to Te Anau to repair the damage.
