Bill Couldrey and his wife Gladys were living in a house he designed and built at 24 Richmond Road, Northcote, a property that had been owned by his uncle Hector George when he died aboard the keel yacht Victory while racing with Lady Jellicoe aboard in 1924. Their second son, Graham John Couldrey, was born on March 14, 1937. Bill continued to rent the yard on Sulphur Beach, Northcote, a few hundred metres away, from boat-builder Bob Brown’s widow.
As we saw last month, Bill launched the new-style Arthur C. Robb-designed keel yacht Tamatea in January 1937 for the Newcomb brothers. The remainder of 1937 he devoted to the construction of the superb launch Tiromoana with the centre-boarders Mamaru and Sonoma to follow.
Once was in the water, Bill started building the bridge-decker (sometimes misspelt ) he had designed for a syndicate headed by
