If you are reading this then the chances are you are part of something that’s bigger than you imagine. The wooden boat world by nature self depreciatory. It’s an admirable characteristic to understate, to play down, in a world where the unjustified hyperbole often drowns out the the quiet achievers.

The first Rainbow to be built in Victoria in close to fifty years was officially launched at the Western Beach Boat Club, itself a hidden treasure tucked away at the western end of the Geelong waterfront. Rainbow class yachts first appealed to youngsters because they could build one themselves, they were fast and thrilling to sail, cheap to build, and safe with good buoyancy compartments.

The Regatta courses took participants to Manly for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday races. Each day, with a lot of east in the breeze and big tides, decisions taken on which side of the harbour to work shaped the results and helped a lot of others decide what they will do next time.

Owners have banded together to salvage, buy, restore, maintain and race the D’s, as they are called. They’ve found boats from as far afield as Burnie, Launceston, the Tasman Peninsula, even Sydney. They believe 18 still exist of the 26 or so that were built.

In the late 90s Jim decided that he wanted to get back into sailing mullet boats in which his family had great tradition.  He bought Tamatea and press ganged his sons and a couple of other likely starters as crew.

The Halvorsen brothers Magnus and Trygve competed in most of the Sydney Hobart Races from 1946 to 1965 in their own designed and built boats, and won the event on handicap five times with Solveig, Anitra V and Freya.

The vast Pacific Ocean covers one third of the world’s surface, and the story of its exploration and settlement is an epic tale of human endeavour. The three key speakers are a fascinating mix…

The Classic Yacht Association's annual Patio Bay Race saw tricky conditions after the start with a breeze yet to fill in. Forecast to come from the north it never arose, and instead filled in from the west giving those with running kites a chance to stretch their legs. Some great sights off Awawaroa with RAWHITI and ARIKI having a ding dong battle.

When they were about 60 miles off the port of Stad on Norway's west coast, they encountered rough conditions with waves of up to 15 feet. The crew sent a mayday at about 1800 hours Tuesday evening, according to Norwegian authorities, and a helicopter was dispatched to the scene. The aircrew found that the boat was not in distress and had issued a false alarm, according to Norwegian media. 

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.