Family devastated over loss of treasured boat

By ANGELA GREGORY

Alison Allnutt's heart sank when she read that her father's pride and joy, the "little launch Ruamano," was abandoned and lost at sea.

The 69-year-old daughter of Alf Court, the wealthy Auckland businessman who launched Ruamano from their family jetty 75 years ago, felt distraught.

Visiting Auckland from her Queensland home of seven years, Mrs Allnutt yesterday relayed her family's horror that the historic boat might be lost.

"We are devastated ... that that little launch with all its history could possibly go down. She's a big name in the maritime world."

Mrs Allnutt fondly recalls childhood trips on the Ruamano around the Hauraki Gulf in the late 1930s. But her biggest impression in later life was the courage of her father and his four friends, who took the boat on a two-month circumnavigation of New Zealand in 1925.

"There were no liferafts, no ship-to-shore, no GPS ... To take off on a journey of that magnitude and go into the unknown was a tremendous feat."

Mrs Allnutt could not fathom how the boat was now at the mercy of the elements.

"With the greatest respect, they had all the mod cons and look at what has happened to it."

Mrs Allnutt has followed the boat's progress since her family handed it over to the Navy in the Second World War to serve as a submarine spotter. It has had a few owners since, and she met every one, inspecting the boat each time.

An original crew member of the 1925 voyage was prominent Auckland lawyer Joseph Johnston, who in 1975 wrote a book on the adventure.

His son, 87-year-old Glen Johnston, who remembers many fishing trips on the Ruamano with his father, was yesterday philosophical about the boat's possible demise.

"If she had to go I would rather she was lost at sea than end up dismantled at a shipyard.

"She was a magnificent sea boat."