There is a growing awareness that focusing on tragedy and despair in our daily news cycle is not only an empirically unbalanced representation of the truth, but it is also harmful to the prospects of solving the problems we do actually face by creating despondency and a sense of zero agency.

So when you learn that here in little old Melbourne, there is a fully restored Fife 8m for sale, with immaculate provenance and a practical set up, for much less than the cost of a twenty year old, questionably constructed, production fiberglass floating caravan, then you should sit up and take notice.

Graham had raced with the who’s who of Australia’s golden age of racing. His skills were sought out by the great yacht designer, Olin Stephens from New York. Known colloquially as The Yacht Doctor, the boats Graham had tuned for success stand as a litany of that age; Vittoria, Ragamuffin, Love & War, Stormy Petrel, Salacia II, Mark Twain. Queequeg.

“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.”

“I’d like to live to be 100 and die at sea,” Peter Mounsey says. The way he's going he'll live well beyond that. And why isn't he a “National Living Treasure” I ask?

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”

Just in case you enjoyed Part One, a reminder that part two is now out! In this episode they take delivery of a lovely piece of oak and make the keel. They also make the stem and put all together on the strongback and the GoPro starts to develop a mind of its own.

SALACIA II was commissioned by Arthur William Byrne, the Australian businessman, philanthropist, and founder of B&D Roll-a-Door. The brief at the time to her designer, Olin Stephens, was to match the dominance of Syd Fischer's RAGAMUFFIN on the water

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.

There seems to be a long tradition in the telling of maritime adventures of, let’s call it….embellishment. I personally find a note of inauthenticity in perhaps the most revered early circumnavigator, Slocum. Some people like Tristan Jones, just blatantly made stuff up! Even writers like Jonny Wray and Erling Tambs who I enjoy enormously, are prone to gloss over the emotionally and politically difficult issues. But Robinson doesn’t shy away from telling us of his fears, his unfettered delights and his opinions of all manor of human and physical discoveries as he sailed around the world.

The latest edition of “Sailing La Vagabond” had 340,000 views in the first 24 hours, earning its creators around $7000 USD in addition to the income from blatant product spruiking, which make Lou Richards’ Bertocchi Ham promos look genuine. But they have 1.9 million subscribers… so my cynicism is rightly trampled under the feet of the madding crowd.

In about twelve days time the oldest yacht in Australia will either have an appointment with a chainsaw or become the subject of one of the bravest rescue missions seen in the last decade. Crazy things have been going on in the wooden boat market recently. Let’s hope it’s the latter!

Whether you are custodian of a much loved family dinghy, have just finished building your first kayak, are restoring a traditional Tassie cray boat, or are mad for sailing among other timber boats, this is your weekend to head down to the beautiful D'Entrecasteaux Channel on, or with, your wooden boat.

The Ocean Photographer of the Year exhibition features over 100 photographs of beautiful and thought-provoking imagery from some of the world’s best ocean photographers.

Each of these boats has an inter-generational story to tell. They were handcrafted in a time when we still made things with our hands. Some carried across oceans some were traders serving communities up and down our coasts. They were our transport and our recreation.

Imagine discovering a log that had just floated down a Tasmanian River in a storm and building an ocean going yacht out of it. Not just any log, but a rare Huon Pine log, felled 40 years earlier from a tree estimated at 1,000 years old.

Now almost five years later, the School‘s Lead Boatbuilding instructor, Sean Koomen, has been invited back to be a guest instructor at the Wooden Boat Centre in Tasmania, Australia. He will lead students in constructing two wood sailing dinghies during a three-month course beginning November 2024. 

The trio of rafts travelled 14,000 kilometres across the Pacific Ocean from Ecuador to eventually and accidentally arrive at Ballina on Australia's east coast.

The complete absence of parental coaching from small craft on the water, which appears so prevalent today.