“We have an opportunity to secure two important boats for our archive of sailing dinghies. They are the Falcons 3 and 4, 12 sq meter Heavyweight Sharpies, one used by Rolly Tasker and Huck Scott to win the silver medal at the 1956 Olympics.”

The voyage of one hundred and twenty sea miles begins at Recherche Bay, the southern most anchorage in Australia, and the scene of an extraordinary cultural exchange in 1793 between the Lyluequonny people and the explorers from revolutionary France whose discoveries fuelled the European enlightenment.'

150 years ago, the SS Gothenburg - a sturdy coastal steamship - left the Port of Darwin in the Northern Territory on its final tragic voyage. When the ship hit Old Reef off Townsville in cyclonic conditions, over 100 people died. Just 22 survived. The disaster devastated the fledgling community of Darwin (then called Palmerston). Judges, doctors, bureaucrats, prisoners, women and children were all lost. It was said that every house in the northern colony lost a loved one. 

I have no desire to turn SWS into a free Trading Post (remember the Trading Post?) for odds and ends from the shed… But these look like they need to be holding a boat together while pounding through Bass Strait… not sitting on someones workshop bench!

It happened in the early hours during darkness. Graham was below trying to sleep. They'd had little rest for three days and he'd just done 6 ½ hours on the helm. The first indication anything was wrong was when the seas suddenly changed, becoming very steep, and FORTUNA felt different. 

The forecast looks good and there should be no excuses for not turning up for a 'Celebration of Sail' of Classic Yachts. We are expecting some Coutas and Rangers from the Harbour to join the Pittwater Coutas for a Gaffers Division and I am hopeful that we could have a mixed Metre Boat division on the Saturday ( 5.5M, 6M & 8M )…….. plus other Bermudians!

The ABC picked up on our story from last week. The aforementioned rowlocks are still sitting beside my computer as I write. Surely there true custodians can be tracked down!

"We're moving quickly to get her back into a situation where we can find out what, on this occasion, went wrong and then we'll continue to move forward with a plan that we have to restore it."

The idea was, that the two fully restored boats would go out on the Derwent and sail a short course in company. There would be a start boat to see them on their way, and then they would cruise sedately beside each other providing opportunities for photographs.

Well that wasn’t going to happen! On an overcast day with a 15 knot South Easterly blowing, the fog horn sounded, signalling the start ,and it was on for young and old!

Derwent Class World Champs. The winds are light but the banter, high. A ‘D’ sails up to the transom of the start boat. Is it a sign on? Nuh. ‘Have you got any Panadol?’  Almost 100 years after the first ‘D’, IMP, rolled out of Percy Coverdale’s yard at Battery Point, did anyone imagine the boats would still be racing in 2025?

SOS HELP US FIND THE ROWLOCK LADY! We both stared at the ROWLOCKS in her hands imagining how we could murder our husbands with a short bronze stick and a bit of bronzy horse shoe. Interesting. Turns out I’m rather imaginative.

It is dark, but the sky is clear enough to see the moon bearing true north. The navigator, crusty old salt, informs the skipper they will arrive at the Rip at the flood slack and they can sail straight in. No tide tables were on board. How did the navigator know?

Here are four brand new wooden boat designs that will be entering the new yacht market in 2025

In attempting to find something positive in her demise, I can only think that coming to grief on a reef in Western Australia is preferable to a slow death in a marina from lack of maintenance.

The brain uses this positional disparity automatically in everyday life to gain a depth of perception. Measuring distance by the rule of thumb relies on leveraging the known dimensions of the outstretched arm and the distance between the eyes. Your arm is typically 10 times as long as the distance between your eyes.

The crew of 1958 pilot cutter Goondooloo called police at 3:45pm on Wednesday after the vessel experienced a mechanical failure in D'Entrecasteaux Channel, in the state's south.

Mr Palin approached the Wooden Boats Centre in the Huon Valley in Southern Tasmania to create five buoys out of wood, to be dropped into Antarctica's icy waters later this month.

According to the most recent data from the Marine strike log maintained by the MMAG, over 50% of all collisions reported result in damage to either the vessel and/or its crew, as well as possible injury or death to marine life.

So what better way to learn a little of the history and philosophy of this seminal craft than to chat with the legendary Peter Shipway, who sailed aboard her in every one of the early races and is involved with the program to this very day.

“For the amount of work in the six-month time frame, it was very tricky. We worked every day, some very long days, to get Mermaid ready for relaunch at the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in February.”