Evans Bay, New Zealand

Evans Bay, along with Lambton Harbour one of the two large bays within Wellington Harbour, includes sub-features such as Balaena Bay and Shelly Bay. Evans Bay as an unofficial Wellington suburb nestles between Hataitai, Kilbirnie and Rongotai. Evans Bay Intermediate School takes its name from the general area.

Evans Bay functioned as the preferred flying-boat alighting area in Wellington Harbour during the 1930s, and local officials promoted it through the decade as such. Visits from Imperial Airways aircraft took place in 1938 as well as from Pan American types. In 1940 Tasman Empire Airways Limited (TEAL) flew one of their two Short Empire flying boats to Evans Bay with dignitaries who attended the nearby New Zealand Centennial Exhibition located at Rongotai.[1]

Although RNZAF Short Sunderland and Consolidated Catalina flying-boat operations flew intermittently through the 1940s from their seaplane base at Shelly Bay located on the western side of the Miramar Peninsula, it was not until 1950 that TEAL (the forerunner to the national airline Air New Zealand), operated a permanent overseas service to Australia from Evans Bay.

Located on the sheltered western end of the bay beneath Hataitai Point, next to the Evans Bay ship-maintenance patent slip, a temporary terminal was provided by using roadside parking-garages along Evans Bay Parade until a more substantial terminal facility was constructed on reclaimed land in 1951. A "Braby" pontoon dock was installed to allow easier boarding and light maintenance of the Short Solent flying boats that TEAL used at the time. Evans Bay could become quite rough in unfavourable weather-conditions and at least one Solent was damaged during alighting, needing substantial repairs.[2]

Services to the Chatham Islands also operated from Evans Bay, using aircraft from TEAL and Ansett Airways as well as the RNZAF. A proposal for a peak-time domestic service to Auckland by National Airways Corporation in 1949 using Short Sandringham flying boats to make up for the 1947 closure of Rongotai Airport was turned down as uneconomic compared to DC-3 operations 56 kilometres (35 mi) away at the present-day Kapiti Coast airport.

Nearby Rongotai airfield provided air-traffic control for the alighting area. As advances in aviation overtook the flying-boat concept, TEAL switched to landplane operations and the Evans Bay terminal closed in 1956. Also at the time, Rongotai airfield started undergoing total redevelopment into today's Wellington International Airport, which opened in 1959. An original concept involved developing a joint landbase and flying-boat airport, but this did not come to fruition.[3]