These boats have an inherent integrity because they are are shaped by the vernacular of their allotted challenging task. Even as the pilot cutters of Western England (or the Couta boats of Port Phillip) have become pleasure craft, they have carried with them an honesty of design that is missing from boats shaped purely by the need for speed, or more recently, three double cabins and two heads.

It is, of course, inevitable that the conduct of offshore racing will adopt new communications technology. But by dispensing with the radio relay vessel and the traditional position reporting system the Sydney-Hobart will lose an important component of the sense of community and comradeship that has helped make the event unique.

Bassett was a forceful and decisive character who found it hard to tolerate foolishness, but was forgiving of ignorance. The uninformed he set out to educate, lucidly and patiently. He had an uncanny knack of grasping the salient problems and of solving them at the outset.

A court has ordered anti-whaling activist and environmentalist Paul Watson to remain in detention in Greenland, as authorities consider a request from Japan to extradite him on charges dating back more than a decade.

No single museum can offer what Maritime Museums of Victoria can – eighteen museum sites with something for everyone, from detailed exhibits and restored vessels to entire villages with amazing lightshows.

It cost more money, and took longer to complete, than I could have ever imagined.  That’s a story as old as Job.  At times, I wondered if I would ever escape back to sea.  From Monday to Friday, I’d get up at 5.30 am, row my dory across the river from Dangar Island to Brooklyn, after a quick breakfast, catch the 6.35 am train to work, and get back to my boatshed at 7 pm.   Then I’d have to get up early every Saturday and Sunday, row across the river again, and go to work on Mudshark.

When most people arrive at the Kent group of islands - about halfway between Wilsons Promontory and Flinders Island - the last thing on their mind is art.

The son of a fisherman, and an accomplished sailor himself, Pedersen was passionate about the magazine's subject matter. As a result, his design was as evocative as the bracing smell of creosote mixed with wood varnish and brine.

“How do I get to the chandlery?” is a transactional ‘survival’ question and hence straightforward to answer. Where as, “Why do I love my husband?” if answered convincingly, is almost impossible to articulate without trivialising.

And so begins the stories of the AUSTRALIAN WOODEN BOAT FESTIVAL 2025! With the program officially launched check out the poster that is the combination of two legendary Aotearoa/New Zealand artists -Tony Blake and Michael Tuffery.

What I really like is the inclusion of an IOR Division that is open to any yacht that has a launch date after 1975 and prior to 1991 and has competed in a Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. This brings new purpose to a whole style of racer that has been left floundering in the wake of rule changes over the last three decades.

And we had to find the “right” people. They had to have experience of competitive yacht racing, but also an appreciation for timber craft, and above all an understanding that the wellbeing of the crews and craft must be placed well ahead of a desire to win. And without wanting to sound boastful…. we nailed it!

Two very different but equally interesting films have landed on the desk (laptop) at SWS this week. One from The heart of East Coast US wooden boat land, Maine. The other from Pacific North West.

Seventy beautiful and unique Wooden Boats assembled at the RMYC Broken Bay for a great weekend of festivities and displays. The RMYC Festival now in its 23rd year is Sydney’s only annual celebration of classic wooden boats.

“Eet’s the end of summer,” said the taxi driver, en route from the airport to Barcelona, partly because he’d just learned to say it on Duolingo, but mostly because of the heavy rain and great bolts of fork lightning in the sky above the Catalonian capital.

Under the decks many family members had written personal notes about their favourite AFL team and other notes intended to never see the light of day! Another story goes that the boat was near completion when Max realised, he had run out of materials for the centreboard. No problems for the creative Max and a quick visit to his mother’s (and Stuart’s Grandmother) house in Geelong and the removal of her bedroom door while she was out provided the necessary wood for the centreboard!

How do you quantify the feeling of six 40 plus ft craft, meters apart, with a combined age of 400 years, storming close-hauled through the Port Phillip chop towards a start line?

Doug has entered PICCOLO in the Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2025 in Hobart. Sadly he didn’t get to sail his beautiful yacht but the Derwent sailors will bring her up the river next February to honour Doug.

They set sail from Sao Vicente, bound for Recife, on 9 December 1970, meaning they would be at sea that year for Christmas.  Vertue Carina was reaching fast in gusty conditions, with the occasional wave breaking over the deck and filling the cockpit, often soaking the washed nappies and other items they were attempting to dry in the sun. 

There was little indication of what was to come over the next few weeks. The swell was so high that the treacherous, unrelenting waves were smashing onto the coast providing no access to the foreshore. The AMAZON wreckage was swept 60 metres to the east where it settled but over the next few weeks, in the bed of the eastern outlet of Wreck Creek it ‘slid’ a further 7 metres where it is now partially imbedded