Sign In / Register
While many of us spent the covid lockdowns on group video chats or movie marathons, retired boat builder Bill Townson was on a different journey, using the time to get to work on an 11-metre timber motor launch.
Five-and-a-half years later, the vessel emerged from Townson’s massive corrugated iron “shed” on his Scotts Landing property, a remarkable example of his boat building and engineering skills.
Named Songbird by his wife Mona after the Eva Cassidy ditty, it was launched on the Mahurangi River behind the Warkworth Cement Works with some fanfare, in front of friends, family and neighbours on November 26. Now 82, Townson began his labour of love in March 2020, and said the decision to undertake the project was a “no brainer”.
“The first lockdown came, and I had the choice of building a boat or doing house maintenance, so I built the launch and the house has been suffering ever since,” he joked.
Songbird is the 12th boat he has built for Mona and himself, but the first motor boat after a succession of yachts. The couple plans to use it for coastal trips as far south as Tauranga and up to Whangaroa in the north.
Townson began designing the launch after the pair had spent a year searching unsuccessfully for one they liked.
And while lockdown afforded him the opportunity to build the boat, it was a difficult time to source materials, so he relied on the generosity of his neighbours.
“In this community, there’s so many people that are so helpful,” he said.
One neighbour supplied him with Alaskan yellow cedar, which Townson used for the hull.
“I’d never used it before, but it was absolutely brilliant stuff. I’d choose it over a kauri again, especially with how scarce kauri is now.”
The distinctive colour of hull has its own story.
The couple had struggled to find the right shade of green until they saw broadcaster Hilary Barry wearing a forest green outfit on Seven Sharp and emailed her.
Barry told Mahurangi Matters, “We let them know where it was from, they contacted the designer Kate Sylvester, she sent them a swatch of fabric, and the paint was made from that.”
After the email, she followed up with the Townsons for a Seven Sharp human-interest piece, which was rounded out by the launch.
Barry added, “I do feel a very special connection to this boat. And, of course, to Bill and Mona – they’re such a lovely couple and they’re really inspiring because here he is in lockdown building a boat and here it is complete, and he’s not a young man.
“He’d better get to work on the house now. I suspect they’ll be cruising up and down the river too much, though.”
