Backyard Boaties Our Yellow Submarine!

'Sometimes, Silly Ideas Work'

- Lynley Ward

He has never sailed to sea – in fact, he dreads putting his head under water – but Marton man Keith Lovelock has created a piece of maritime magic, building his very own yellow submarine!

Floating above the ground on a quiet rural property in the Rangitikei District, the sunny-coloured sub fashioned from an old grain silo is not what you’d expect to find.

But for Keith (64) the labour of love gave him a chance to let loose his imagination and accomplish something he’d wanted to do since he was a boy. “I just returned to my childhood with the creativity,” enthuses the DIY builder. “It turned out so much better than what we first imagined.”

The idea for the novel structure, which was completed in September last year, came to him three years ago as he sat drinking coffee in Wellington.

“I just had one of those lightbulb moments,” he recalls. “I was in a poky café, crammed from wall to wall, and I said, ‘This is so claustrophobic, it feels like a yellow submarine!’ When I got home, I told my wife Jen, and then forgot about it until she saw a silo while travelling home from work and started looking for one to buy online.”

They found a cheap disused fibreglass silo in a matter of days, and the quirky structure became the retired radio technician’s hobby project over the next 12 months. Parts were cobbled together – including a discarded spa pool sitting upturned in a paddock that became the sub’s distinct conning tower – to create a multi-themed interior filled with endless surprises from the minute guests step inside.