Nereid.
The sea nymph
A Thornycroft launch owned by the Hobbs family of Perth.
A look at her restoration.
Please note that this page is under development and when new information is available to me,
I will endeavour to correct or embellish the pages.
A little of her history and that of the Hobbs family.
Nereid.
Well named by Talbot Hobbs, this Thornycroft designed boat was bought on a visit to London in the 1924 and shipped out to Australia to become the river boat that would serve him and his family for the next 90 years or so.
The name Nereid is taken from the Greek name for the number of sea nymphs that were daughters of Poseidon/Neptune/Nereus. You can assume that the boat wasn’t named for one of the moons of the planet Neptune with a slightly more eccentric orbit than most.
Tally Hobbs or more correctly, Joseph John Talbot Hobbs was born in London in 1864 and migrated to Western Australia in November 1886, landing in Fremantle in February 1887. At this stage he was a young man with only the essential skills gained by his employment with his mentor family the Hursts, a family of building contractors; but within a number of years he was in practise as an architect/draftsman and was running a brisk business in the growing city of Perth.
This was not his first motor launch, that was also a Thornycroft design, but built by Tommy Hill on the Perth water front with the name Hermes and she served the family for 12 years until 1919. But on a visit to a boat show in London, with his son Athol at hand, Nereid was purchased and fitted into a freighter at Tilbury Docks to be sent to West Australia. Since then Nereid has dwelt in the Hobbs’ boat shed built next to the Royal Freshwater Bay yacht club while carrying out her conveyancing duties to the Hobbs family for generations.
The story doesn’t end here though and it was deemed by the family that a restoration project should be put underway to give the launch a new life and under the eye of Talbot Hobbs' grandson Michael Hobbs and his family, Nereid is now undergoing a thorough refurbishment in the hands of Fremantle Shipwrights. Shipwrights Sean and Jeff have been working on the hull for three or four months now and the top of the hull has been stripped bare with the damaged original timbers taken away, and a new two ply hull being rebuilt around the old frame.
As Jeff has explained, the need has been to keep as much of the original timber as possible and to be faithful to the design. The hull has provided good service and has been maintained well, but as everyone knows after the age of eighty you can expect that some things require replacing. Even the heart of the launch, the motor is up for renewal and the drive train and steering will be attended to with luck.
Nereid.
Well named by Talbot Hobbs, this Thornycroft designed boat was bought on a visit to London in the 1924 and shipped out to Australia to become the river boat that would serve him and his family for the next 90 years or so.
The name Nereid is taken from the Greek name for the number of sea nymphs that were daughters of Poseidon/Neptune/Nereus. You can assume that the boat wasn’t named for one of the moons of the planet Neptune with a slightly more eccentric orbit than most.
Tally Hobbs or more correctly, Joseph John Talbot Hobbs was born in London in 1864 and migrated to Western Australia in November 1886, landing in Fremantle in February 1887. At this stage he was a young man with only the essential skills gained by his employment with his mentor family the Hursts, a family of building contractors; but within a number of years he was in practise as an architect/draftsman and was running a brisk business in the growing city of Perth.
This was not his first motor launch, that was also a Thornycroft design, but built by Tommy Hill on the Perth water front with the name Hermes and she served the family for 12 years until 1919. But on a visit to a boat show in London, with his son Athol at hand, Nereid was purchased and fitted into a freighter at Tilbury Docks to be sent to West Australia. Since then Nereid has dwelt in the Hobbs’ boat shed built next to the Royal Freshwater Bay yacht club while carrying out her conveyancing duties to the Hobbs family for generations.
The story doesn’t end here though and it was deemed by the family that a restoration project should be put underway to give the launch a new life and under the eye of Talbot Hobbs' grandson Michael Hobbs and his family, Nereid is now undergoing a thorough refurbishment in the hands of Fremantle Shipwrights. Shipwrights Sean and Jeff have been working on the hull for three or four months now and the top of the hull has been stripped bare with the damaged original timbers taken away, and a new two ply hull being rebuilt around the old frame.
As Jeff has explained, the need has been to keep as much of the original timber as possible and to be faithful to the design. The hull has provided good service and has been maintained well, but as everyone knows after the age of eighty you can expect that some things require replacing. Even the heart of the launch, the motor is up for renewal and the drive train and steering will be attended to with luck.