You look out onto the vistas of forests, or plains or desert and absorb their stillness and beauty, taking it all into your heart and mind. This is made easier if you are horseback or in the company of a good dog.

HOANA, like most old wooden boats, has a tenuous monetary value. Humanity's notions of progress place little value on the thousand-year-old particles in her veins, even less on her vanished forest ancestry.

“A laser is focused inside a droplet that locally hardens in the focal spot of the laser,” said researcher Daniela Kraft. “By moving the laser through the droplet in a controlled way, we can write the swimmer shape that we want.”

A heritage craft is considered to be viable if there are sufficient craftspeople to transmit the craft skills to the next generation. The four categories are “Extinct in the UK”, “Critically Endangered”, “Endangered” and “Currently Viable”

Brooks’ research in Japan focuses on the techniques and design secrets of the craft. These techniques have been passed from master to apprentice with almost no written record.

This is your last chance to get your hands on a copy of Andrew’s old school, analogue (!) Calendar for 2024, featuring his photographs of Australia’s wooden craft.

This week we seem to have accumulated a locker full of small items that we thought we should clear out, by putting them all into one big news post.

A few motorised tourist junks with fixed sails still confuse the credulous but – much like other endlessly recycled Hong Kong clichés – the obsolete sailing junk icon is decades beyond having any genuine symbolic purpose.

Long ago, beyond the mists of history, even before the Hobie Cat, an idea was born. It was found to be good and so it moved upon the face of the waters, at least in Southern California.

Many of those isolated hamlets are most easily accessible by boat rather than car, so in 1959, a group of librarians secured government funding to launch a waterborne library service with a special emphasis on children’s literature.

“Without their regular feasts, the faithful are unstrung from the calendar, awash in a sea of days that are all the same.”
― Hilary Mantel,

Maritime and terrestrial navigation requires two-dimensional coordinates. Once in the air a third coordinate comes into play — altitude. It was Gatty’s research and practical application that led to a solution to many of the complex problems associated with three-dimensional navigation.

Their core business seems to be in the small fishing boat market, with a side line in jet skis (now rebranded as PWCs), and devices for holding a plastic chardonnay glass stable, while towing a donut loaded with screaming kids.

Andrew has produced an old school, analogue (!) Calendars for 2024 featuring his photographs of some of Australia’s wooden craft, and he has kindly made a small quantity available to SWS readers.

After almost two weeks of uncertainty, and six months' worth of mud drying on the weary paddle wheeler's hull, Longreach tourism company Outback Pioneers revealed the boat would not be able to cruise again.

In 1923 Adolphe and his family opened the cash only Bar Nautic with its tables and balcony to take in the view and they lived there quietly for 20 years until World War II had its way and the family found itself on a train to Dachau.

So began a number of new practices. One was the balloon chase, a large field described by buoys and I unleashed balloons upwind across the water. Popped balloons were not to be counted in the final tally and you can imagine the mayhem that occurred.

With the goal of preserving traditional boat-building techniques and a great understanding of their relevance in contemporary times, his presence at the festival would be certain to captivate and inspire boat enthusiasts, historians, and sustainability advocates alike.

Emiliano Marino states categorically that, “Flat is faster and less powerful, Full is slower and more powerful.” I understand this to be a simplified description of the aerodynamics of sails made by a master sailmaker.

A cold night sleeping on the stretcher, breakfast was great then all hands on deck. Tug alongside, pass out the towline, a heavy rope thicker than my forearm. Lines brought on board walked out along the deck, coiled on palettes.