Hauraki pirates get double feature (+video)

Matt Whelan as Richard Davis in the movie 3 Mile Limit.

The pirate history of Radio Hauraki is apparently such a local legend, it's getting not one but two different screen versions in the coming months.

3 Mile Limit, a feature film on the station's late 1960s beginnings when it started broadcasting rock'n'roll from The Tiri, a converted coastal trader moored in the then international waters of the Hauraki Gulf, opens at cinemas on March 6.

TVNZ is also due to screen the feature-length docu-drama, Pirates of the Airwaves later in the year. New Zealand On Air has backed that production with $900,000 from its Platinum Fund. It has been made by Lippy Pictures, the company behind 2012's Tangiwai.

Hauraki's founders like Dave Gapes, Ian Magan and Derek Lowe appear as interviewees as well as having their younger selves portrayed by some familiar faces in the programme's dramatisations.

View the trailer for Pirates of the Airwaves:

The movie 3 Mile Limit stars Matt Whelan (of Go Girls fame ) as the lead role of "Richard Davis".

His character appears to be a composite of some of those involved in the station's maritime beginnings and the battle against government control of the airwaves.

The film, helmed by first-time director Craig Newland was funded by private investors and was shot in late 2012.

The film's production history can be found on its Facebook page.

View the trailer for 3 Mile Limit: