The Roaring Season

bob homewood wrote:Bill Stevenson from W.Stevensons is right ,bit more of a blast from the past there ,I worked with Rex Henry for a couple of years at Lees Marine ,and was in turn involved with Ivan Boyce ,when I worked for the Keith Tulloch ,could add a lot more on this era when I moonlighted on the marine side of things ,building and dynoing engines etc ,but I will get my hand smacked for straying off the main subject

Neville Milne wrote:It seems to me, to be hard to think of 'Tru Jen' and the Masport Cup, without remembering Southward's 'Red Head'.
Certainly, Southward dominated the Masport Cup for a decade, as a fair and generous competitor.
Many of the race boats ( and cars) of that era, were built using surplus WWll materials, an area in which Len Southward ( later 'Sir' Leonard ) was very familiar. Along with Gillies and some others, Southward purchased tons and tons of surplus war materials...especially aircraft engines, which he would dismantle to recover scarce and precious metals....these providing the wherwithal to develop his first attempt at a seamless tube manufacturing machine.
The time I first met him, all of his rather random and eclectic collection of vintage ephemera was stored in an adjunct to a factory in the Petone area. he had approached the company I worked for to see if we could assist with providing or manufacturing replacement big end bearings for the GM-Allison V-1710 that resided in Red Head.
We could not, but we did look at machining the existing bearings. pinning them to the rods and then using inserts from, ISTR, a Ford Thames Trader Diesel. Finally, I believe, we signed an authorization in order that he could secure an Import Lic. to procure the correct replacements. I don't think, though, it was his intention to ever actually race Red Head again....possible he wanted to have the engine as a 'runner' for display purposes.
BTW..as I recall Bill Stevenson and/or his company, was closely associated with Slip Ray and Mystic Miss...and probably others since then.

Apologies for the digression(s)
neville Milne

rf84 wrote:Another well known hydro was a craft (I think) named "Elray"? or similar. The name Jock Appleton comes to mind. It featured in a "Gillette" razor advertisement on TV in the mid to late 60's.
A colorful Hastings identity Morrie Dunn was killed in the boat while trying to set a new speed record around the Auckland area (Bottletop Bay?).
Dunn raced solo speedway bikes in the UK League but on his return visits to NZ in the off-season he would compete here. Dunn had a cat which would happily sit on the fuel tank of his solo bike and go for a ride. I can recall seeing this at one of our Raureka primary school galas in the late 50's when Morrie did a number of laps of the playing fields with the cat riding on the bike.

rf84 wrote:Thanks bry. After a little more research I learned it was in fact Jock Appleton which is reassuring-my memory is still OK and not suffering too much from CRAFT yet.
He won the Masport Cup with Elray in 1960 and again with Elray 2 in 1965.
Maurice (Morry) Dunn was killed in Elray 2 in 1965 while attempting to break the Australasian water speed record. Can anyone supply a date or venue?

Record ID 34737
Source Auckland Scrapbook, February 1965 – July 1965 p 218
Location ARC Microfiche ASK AT DESK,

Abstract Maurice Dunn, of Auckland, is killed in a hydroplane, during an attempt on the Australasian water speed record.

Notes Includes illustration.

bry3500 wrote:Elray