Not sure what these are called, but I was very surprised and impressed early this year while anchored off Matthew Town at Great Inagua at the southern end of the Bahamas to see these Haitian trading vessels sailing in and docking in the tight basin, all with no auxiliary power.

Well, its on again this year, on Friday 31st of October with four local boats being offered to visitors to compete against a Port Phillip crew. There will be a slight change in 2025 with Melbourne owners being aboard their yachts during the racing rather than watching (heart in mouth) from the comfort of the MARGARET PEARL as per last year.

Wooden Boat and related news from around the world.

Initially we chose four things to spend money on, to make the cruising we intended to do, more enjoyable. In this video we explain what we have done and try to provide the rationale around our choices.

The film explores where Bob’s drive to go on expeditions comes from, why he has been willing to forego a stable home life and financial security in order to pursue difficult and often unattainable objectives.

News from around the traditional boat world this week.

Fifty five years ago the biggest rock band in the world, the Rolling Stones, had a tax problem. Their solution was to flee to the South of France. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor were joined by a young photographer, Dominique Tarlé

“… through sheer know-how and a diligence that is seldom observed, Jock Sturrock and the gallant crew of the yacht Gretel emerged as possibly the most formidable contender in the history of the quest for the America’s Cup.”

A round up of Traditional Maritime News that we have stumbled across during the last week.

She’s had a number of different lives. When new in 1920, she took parties out sailing and for picnics from Sorrento Pier on Port Phillip, something many couta boats did alongside, or as an alternative to, fishing. In 1923 SEA HAWK began her professional fishing career

MATILDA’s shakedown passage from Le Lavandou to Corsica in 20-30 knots. Loving and learning along the way.

The real test, of course, came when their boat sank from under them between Panama and the Galapagos. Maurice, having worked so meticulously to prepare the boat, at once saw its loss as a huge failure on his part. He was certain they were now doomed and plotted ways they might kill themselves to forestall their suffering. Maralyn, meanwhile, could not conceive of not surviving

Things started to unfold about an hour later when a single passenger standing port side abreast of the mainmast heard a noise from aloft but dismissed the noise as normal for a wooden vessel and did not discuss the sounds with any other passenger or crewmember.

A round up of news from this week…

It’s about time we settled on a name for this page. I’ve found over the last few months that we come across many interesting snippets and links that might be of interest to the readers, but probably aren’t worth a full, stand alone article. So we started a news page, rounding up wooden boat and related stories from the past few days.

Last week, the Classic Yacht Association of Australia learned that it had secured support from the Joe White Bequest to run the 19th Cup Regatta in 2025. This is the second year in a row that the event has benefitted from the Bequest and hopefully it’s just the start of a long and fruitful relationship.

Wood and steel hulls in old boats can be managed relatively easily through established recycling routes, as can other metal and wood components on a boat. This is not the case for FRP, which doesn’t easily decompose, though it does physically break down over time. Research undertaken at the University of Brighton has shown that boats made of FRP which are left in the water release microscopic fibres.

A raid on the north-east England island monastery of Lindisfarne in 793 – the first documented attack in the west – was probably launched from Norway. Its precise targeting suggests the raiders were well-informed about their destination, and no doubt attracted by stories of the riches held there. Writing afterwards, York cleric Alcuin described how the church had been “spattered with the blood of the priests of God, stripped of all its furnishing, exposed to the plundering of pagans”.

The text was short and to the point. “My late father fresh out of the Navy after WWII, courting my mother by taking her sailing on a 90ft wooden schooner on the coast of Maine.”

It was a little tense but not unpleasant sailing and after a few hours we popped out of the murk to a starlit sky and a building North Easter. We could just lay the Ile Pomegues off Marseille and the 1970’s S&S design began to live up to her reputation as a windward wizard