Who owned these 1920s launch photos?

the second picture has a different boat - it looks like it has a hotel name on the top but I can't make out the name on top - Hong Kong Hotel?

Indeed two different boats. Paula is fascinating in that she has two funnels. The probability is that one or both are a conceit. Only the aft one would have been a boiler uptake IF she was a steam launch - at that date probable but not certain. It is vanishingly unlikely that a vessel of that size would have had two boilers.

However, closer review of both photos suggests a solution. In the upper photo she has a very modern, hard chine speedboat (Chris Craft sort of design) on chocks on the starboard side of the saloon coachroof - so definitely 1920s. However the lower photo of her on the slipway shows her with two, conventional ship's boats. Looking closely at that lower photo she is NOT being built but refitted. You can see from the pattern of the nail/screw head marks that this isn't a new build - there's been some replanking and, at a guess, a complete new bulwark. It looks like recaulking of the seams has just been completed. The bottom has had a paint job and isn't coppered (we can see the run of the planking), but the topsides have yet to have an undercoat. It also looks as though she's been given a new rudder. The three yard workers around the starboard quarter, with one crouched down at the aft end of the deadwood (a notorious place for rot) are not inspecting a new build, I'd guess, but reviewing what needs doing. So my hunch is that, since in the slipway photo there are no funnels at all, during this refurbishment she may have had her old steam engine taken out and an internal combustion engine fitted instead. The two funnels then became largely decorative, possibly the after one carrying an insulated dry exhaust pipe, though there is no obvious cooling water outlet on the starboard side (it as often as not went out on the port side - haven't a clue why).

So a hunch would be that the launch was bought second hand and taken to A King's for a refurbishment. Later one of the old boats was disposed of and the fancy new Chris Craft type speedboat fitted in its stead.

I don't think there is a yard list for A King - I suspect that once established, they would have had such a list (usually yard number, identity of vessel (40' steam launch), name of owner, price), but what happened to it, who knows - tragically, since it is an inestimable loss.

Clearly American. The 'D' pendant is interesting. It is being worn in the American fashion as a house flag on the jackstaff in both photos where it can be descried. That would argue, as you say, that EITHER the owners had a surname beginning with D, OR that the launch doubled as the family vessel and a company vessel and that the flag was he company house flag. My bet would be on the former since both 'owners' are wearing yachting caps, the centres of the badge of which appear to repeat the crossed, twin flag motif.

Paula could be the launches original name or that of the lady or a daughter (the last very common). Would there be a list of US residents in the 1920s that anyone knows of?

Best,

Stephen D

My sense - no hard evidence bar as below (!) - is that we're looking at something like a history of the boat. The new pic is clearly a boat being built, but I sense that the chap in the picture with his son (? - see below - is the lad Chinese?) and dog is NOT the chap in the picture with the lady and that datewise this is maybe just post-WW1 or possibly pre-WW1 (?). The chap seems to me to be wearing a solar topee, so maybe a Brit rather than an American.

I can't evaluate the curves bar saying that the general form of the aft end of the hull is consistent with the fully planked up vessel, though there is still something about the picture of the boat on the slip that seems to say she's up for repair/maintenance rather than awaiting a topcoat or six before launch.

I can't entirely put my finger on it - it has something to do with the way the chaps are positioned - as if two of them are inspecting work being done by the sitting chap low around the deadwood. The propeller is also off, from what I can make out at this resolution. It's as if the boat has dinged something, possibly damaging deadwood, prop and rudder and whilst that's being fixed, the topsides are being given a good going over.

I also think that if the boat had not yet had her topsides completed, it would be unlikely that both ship's boats would be in position on the deckhouse. 

The killer, as it were, is the very clear slipway carriage beneath the complete boat - exactly what one would expect for a haul-out, and the complete absence of anything like it in the framed up shot, which would again be as expected because building ways are not the same as a patent slip.

The deckhouse saloon conformity is identical with the boat on the slip and the Paula at anchor, so they're clearly the same boat. The number of pillars supporting the quarterdeck canpy are also the same (4), although in the picture of the boat at anchor harder to count because of the side screen awning.

So my hunch is:

pic 1: proud first owner (whoever he was) and son (maybe (if you look closely it might be arguable the lad is Chinese)) (plus dog) at the completion of the framing up of the Paula when she was first built

pic 2: Paula brought in for refurbishment, perhaps when new owner buys her and pays to get her hauled out and fixed up, perhaps following a period of neglect, perhaps following a whoopsie (or typhoon damage)

pic 3: Paula under new ownership at anchor in her new glory with old fashioned ship's boats disposed of and snappy new hard chine runabout in the place of at least one of them

pic 4: the proud new owners.

Something like that - maybe covering something like a 10+ year period say, 1919-1929+. I have wondered whether the first pic may be pre-WW1, but my knowledge of changing men's fashions isn't up to the challenge!

Stephen

David,

I hadn't realized the album was such a cornucopia. The construction photos are marvellous.

I take absolutely your points about the people possibly having no connections other than at some stage being involved with Paula.

I do however wonder whether the lady and gentleman sitting with the boy behind them above may not be the very same lady and gent, a decade or more later, who are photographed on the top of the saloon deckhouse of the revamped Paula. Age does interesting things. I've juxtaposed just the two faces and - perhaps to an unspohisticated eye like mine - there does seem to me a resemblance. The lady has put on weight with the years, as have I, but hers seems to me possibly the same face - I debate with my mirror about mine.

The boatboy in his US Navy lookalike rig is splendid...and you agree Repulse Bay with Stanley Mound in the background?

Best,

Stephen