The mysterious disappearance of Ruptured Duckling: How a NZ museum lost a precious piece of maritime history

Sunday, 18 January 2026

A major New Zealand museum has lost, and probably destroyed, an important part of its collection - a famous boat. Mike White investigates what happened to Ruptured Duckling II, and how negligence and incompetence seem the only answers to the boat’s embarrassing disappearance.

The boat was light but strong, and took Tom Neale a year to build.

When he’d finished bending its flanks, stepping its mast, and hand-riveting its nails, the New Zealander stood back to admire his work.

It was an unprepossessing craft: flat-bottomed but functional, able to be sailed or rowed, 12’ long, and painted plain white.

But for Neale, the boat was much more than its stocky form: It was a means of escape.

Escape from a world of people and petrol fumes, work’s monotony, and life’s strictures.

The simple boat, named Ruptured Duckling, was Neale’s way to escape to his desert island.

An island to oneself

The boat’s name was actually Ruptured Duckling II.

Neale named it in memory of the canoe of a Tahitian friend he’d met while wandering the Pacific in the first half of the 20th century.

In 1952, Neale, originally from Timaru, made the dramatic decision to live on a remote Cook Islands atoll, Suwarrow (then known as Suvarov).

He took two cats for company, packed as many things as his meagre savings allowed, and was dropped on the atoll with its wide lagoon, 900km from Rarotonga.

Neale lived alone on Suwarrow for two years before being rescued after injuring his back.

But he returned in 1960, spending a further three years by himself on the island.

Between these stints, Neale built Ruptured Duckling in Rarotonga, after quitting his job as a storeman to complete the project.

It was actually his second Ruptured Duckling: During Neale’s first spell on Suwarrow, he discovered a damaged dinghy, abandoned by soldiers living on the atoll during WWII.

Neale fixed its hull, named it Ruptured Duckling after his friend’s canoe, and used it to sail the lagoon, and transfer soil to create a vegetable garden.

When planning his desert island return, Neale realised he needed a better boat, and built Ruptured Duckling II.

“I knew that somehow the building of that boat would bring me a step closer to Suvarov,” Neale wrote in his book, An Island to Oneself, which became an international bestseller.

The book was written after Neale’s second stay on Suwarrow, and doesn’t cover the final 10 years he lived there, from 1967, to six months before he died in November 1977, in Rarotonga.

During this time, Ruptured Duckling II was Neale’s means of travel and transport.

The boat came back with him to Rarotonga, where it was later put on display.

In 2001, Neale’s son, Arthur, realised the best place for it was a museum, so approached the New Zealand National Maritime Museum, on Auckland’s waterfront.

Museum chief executive Larry Robbins had visited Suwarrow while in the Navy, knew Neale’s remarkable story, and accepted the offer from Arthur and his sister, Stella, to donate Ruptured Duckling II.

A gifting certificate was signed, handing over the boat’s ownership, but stipulating that if it was disposed of, it would be offered first to the donors.

Arthur sent Ruptured Duckling II on a ship to New Zealand, where the museum put it on display.

And that’s the last thing anyone knows for sure.

All they know now is that Tom Neale’s precious boat, and a piece of New Zealand maritime history, has simply vanished.

All at sea

Bungling began soon after the boat’s arrival at the museum.

The boat’s exhibition label described it as the one left behind by coast-watchers during the war, which Neale repaired and used during his first time on Suwarrow.

But what was on display was its successor, Ruptured Duckling II, which Neale built later, and was larger than the original.

When the boat arrived at the museum following fumigation by Customs, two moths flew from it when it was unwrapped, according to current Maritime Museum head of collections Darryl Pike, who has spoken to staff there at the time.

The boat was re-wrapped, and re-treated for pests, Pike says.

Larry Robbins, the museum’s CEO at the time, remembers the relevant government department “said the bugs were nothing to be worried about”.

However, the boat was placed in a covered concourse area, and treated “with liberal amounts of fly spray, I would think - nothing too scientific”, says Robbins.

But beyond this, there are no records of what then happened to Tom Neale’s boat.

Robbins believes it would have been shifted from display into storage when a major exhibition, Blue Water Black Magic, a tribute to Sir Peter Blake, which opened in 2009, was being created.

However, despite clear museum protocols, and the fact the museum had systems for tracking objects, Pike says there is no information about where Ruptured Duckling II went.

The Sunday Star-Times has tried for nearly 18 months to obtain information from the Maritime Museum regarding the boat’s whereabouts.

At one point, the museum sent photos of an unidentified dinghy, asking whether it was Ruptured Duckling II, which is wasn’t.

On December 5 2025, Pike emailed the Star-Times, and Arthur and Stella Neale.

“We have now completed all known avenues for investigation in the museum’s records, inventoried holdings, and interviewed former staff and key volunteers.

“Unfortunately, Ruptured Duckling II appears to be estray (missing) from the collection.

“We believe it is highly likely that the dinghy deteriorated potentially from the pest infestation that was observed on its arrival at the museum despite fumigation treatment. A decision may have been taken to dispose of the dinghy due to this at some point in the late 2000s after transfer to storage, but this decision and action remain undocumented.

“We understand that this information will be distressing to learn, and the museum regrets that the probable disposal action was not shared at the time. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to ask.”

Moths or myths?

Arthur and Stella Neale have a lot of questions to ask.

Like, how on earth do you lose a boat?

Like, how can there be no record of Ruptured Duckling II in the Maritime Museum’s systems?

Like, why have they never been contacted about any of this, until the museum was pressed by the Star-Times to confront the issue?

“I just find it so unbelievable,” says Stella Neale, who remembers being rowed across Suwarrow’s lagoon in Ruptured Duckling II by her father.

She doesn’t buy the museum’s guess the craft was thrown out because of deterioration from pests.

“Why would a boat have to be destroyed because of a moth? It sounds made up.”

Nor does she accept Pike’s excuse that staffing pressures explain why the family was never contacted.

“To me, that’s pathetic.

“I’m full of regret that we trusted them with our father’s boat.

“We sent it to a place we thought was professional, where it would be looked after and kept in good conditions - because it’s a museum. And they didn’t look after it.”

Stella says she visited the museum with her children in the 2000s to see her father’s boat, and was told it had been moved to storage, but no mention was made of any deterioration.

If the museum didn’t want the boat, Stella says she would have taken it back to Rarotonga.

To be told in an email from Pike that the boat was lost, likely destroyed, with no apology offered, was simply unacceptable, she says.

“I want a face-to-face apology. For them to front up.”

Apart from Tom Neale’s Suwarrow diaries, now held by the Alexander Turnbull Library, Ruptured Duckling II was the last tangible link they had with their father, says Stella.

“I feel robbed.”

Arthur Neale says he couldn’t believe the news the museum had lost and likely disposed of his father’s boat.

“I was just so flabbergasted.

“What I can’t get over is just the lack of documentation and keeping of records, of an organisation such as a museum.”

The fact the museum had got the boat’s display information mixed up, made Arthur wonder how seriously it treated the gift, or whether it understood his father’s place in Kiwi and Pacific history.

The museum’s claim the boat had probably suffered a pest infestation related to two moths seen when it was unwrapped in Auckland, seemed made up, Arthur says.

The moths were probably coconut moths, prevalent in Rarotonga at the time he sent the boat, Arthur says, but they only attacked the flowers and leaves of coconut palms, and didn’t bore into wood.

“When I read that email, my feeling was, ‘No, you fellas don’t even know what you did with it.’

“If they just come out and say, ‘Sorry, we don’t know what happened,’ I would find that more acceptable than saying it’s been destroyed - because they don’t even know if that’s what took place.

“I think they’ve been kind of caught.”

Sunk without trace

When asked how embarrassing it was for the museum that part of New Zealand’s maritime history had been destroyed with no record, and without contacting the donors, Pike said the matter was “regrettable”.

“We just don’t know what happened, we do not know.”

However, Pike sticks to the theory Ruptured Duckling deteriorated due to pests, and was disposed of - despite being unable to provide any evidence of this, other than the recollection of two moths seen in 2001.

Pike admits the incident may affect others wanting to donate objects to the museum.

“Yes, there’s obviously reputational issues at stake.”

The museum is run by Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, Auckland Council’s events agency, which also operates the city’s zoo, town hall, and stadiums.

In a statement, Maritime Museum director Vincent Lipanovich said he would welcome the opportunity to meet the Neale family.

“The New Zealand Maritime Museum unreservedly apologises to the Neale family for the loss of the Ruptured Duckling II.

“After extensive investigation into our records, which are incomplete for this period, and where possible discussion with staff who worked at the museum between 2000-2011, we have not been able to trace the vessel beyond its removal from display in circa 2009.”

Lipanovich said the museum, which held more than 200 vessels in its collection, had improved its record keeping and storage practices since the early 2000s, “and we are very confident that this deeply regrettable situation would not arise again.”

Not on my watch

Pike suggests the likely time frame for Ruptured Duckling II’s disposal was 2009-2011.

But museum directors around this time have no knowledge of this, and insist there were cataloguing systems that should show what happened.

Larry Robbins, who headed the museum from 1999 to 2007, says he would remember if there were moves to “deacquisition” Ruptured Duckling, because he acquired it. Even if there had been, he would have been involved in any decisions.

Moreover, Robbins says the museum was digitising its collection records during his time, and he can’t understand why nothing shows the boat being put into storage.

Robbins’ successor, Craig Hobbs, has no recollection of what happened to the boat.

The museum had several storage facilities for items not on display, Hobbs told the Star-Times, “and there was certainly a record of what was in those. So I’m surprised there isn’t a record of it, to be honest.”

Paul Evans was the museum’s next CEO, between 2008 and 2010.

In that time, he had a strong collections team, and Evans remembers nothing of Ruptured Duckling II, let alone moves to dispose of it.

If there had been, he would have had to approve it, along with the museum’s board, and it would have been entered in the digital management system.

“Someone inadvertently disposing of something? I would be pretty bloody confident that just wouldn’t happen.”

During his time, Evans recalls one recommendation to remove an item from the collection, and this was turned down by the board.

“If a museum has decided to bring something into its collection, that’s because it’s got some historical significance, it’s important. By virtue of it being in your care, it’s got this mana associated with it. And you can’t just disregard that.”

Murray Reade, who was CEO after Evans for about two years, also says he has absolutely no recollection of Ruptured Duckling II.

The International Council of Museums code of ethics indicates how badly the Maritime Museum appears to have failed to follow correct procedure in its handling of Ruptured Duckling II.

It states museum documentation should include full identification of any object, its condition, treatment, and location, and these records should be kept in a secure environment permanently.

“Complete records must be kept of all deaccessioning decisions, the objects involved, and the disposal of the object.”

Where a museum acquired objects subject to conditions of disposal, such as was agreed with Arthur and Stella Neale, “the legal or other requirements and procedures must be complied with fully.”

Te Papa’s guidelines say removing an object from a collection and its destruction should be a last resort, and only occur after expert advice, sign-off from the museum’s board, and complete documentation, including photos.

“If processes are not transparent and accountable, there can be long-term impacts on the museum’s reputation in the community, and implications for the wider museum sector.”

Sarah Maguire, interim chief executive of Museums Aotearoa, which oversees public museums and galleries, says there are 45 million objects in New Zealand collections, with institutions facing significant constraints.

However, the loss of an item without any documentation, such as Ruptured Duckling II, shouldn’t happen.

“It’s a cautionary tale for the sector,” says Maguire.

“It doesn’t meet the public sniff test, and it’s fair that the family are upset.

“My heart goes out to the family.”