Dr Finlay's Boatshed, 2011

Back in the 1940s, Dr Colin Finlay, an Auckland dentist, built a brick house at the extreme southern end of Marine Parade South. He was not a good sailor, but he teamed up with the surf club members and they used his boat to go fishing. The Hazel Irene, named after his wife, was the first powered boat to go out off Piha beach. The boat was built by Coulthard at Onehunga especially for Piha conditions and boasted an eight-horse-power air-cooled motor but with a speed of only six or seven knots it was fast enough to out-run the Piha waves.

There were not a few occasions when the little boat tipped out on the way in providing considerable drama.

Finlay built a boat-shed in Puaotetai Bay figuring that launching the boat from further out to sea would help. However, in the first season the doors were ripped off the boatshed by the surf and it was never really used for the intended purpose.

Miraculously, the roof pf the boatshed has withstood 70 years of ferocious attack by the oceon and still stands as a mysterious relic of  the past.