Roscoe Barnett, from the Australian Wooden Boat Festival visited Paynesville earlier this month. Here is their report.

The reason it’s called the Paynesville Classic Boat Rally is because the majority of vessels are wood however, there are some fibreglass vessels in the mix, some of them are hard to tell from ‘proper’ boats, many with beautiful wood work on decks, cabins and fit outs. The rally was held over two days.

Roscoe has attended three previous rallies representing the AWBF displaying a small vessel of some sort and giving advice when asked by the organisers. As part of the AWBF’s charter we are ‘to develop relationships with organisations having similar objectives’. It’s a long drive from Hobart to Devonport, then to navigate the Spirit of Tasmania(!) over to Geelong, then a five-hour drive to Paynesville. But once there totally worth it…. nothing like a bit of Gippsland Lakes boat porn.

As the name suggests, the rally is held on the main waterfront of Paynesville on the edge of the beautiful Gippsland’s Lakes with McMillan Straight separating Paynesville from Raymond Island, a five-minute, 150m ferry ride away. Raymond Island has a famous koala colony to its name.

Getting back to the rally, the yacht club car park was filled with classic speed boats, putt-putts, rowing boats, small sailing vessels, some clinker, some ply and some stitch and glue. The yacht club lawns were filled with smaller vessels and a large assortment of rowing sculls. There are marina berths along the front of McMillan Straight and a larger marina further down to the ferry terminal, this whole area was filled with beautiful boats.

There were several vessels from interstate, a small half cabin launch from South Australia, a lovely launch from southern NSW and of course the little Australian cedar batten-seamed dinghy from the AWBF in Hobart. And there could have been more. But wait, there is more. The beautiful Goolara from Sydney had steamed down, along with Nand 5, the beautiful yacht Vittoria along with the Coral Trekker, a small ‘tall ship’. There were three large cruisers from Hobart, Barcarolle, Safari, and Amity. And in the yacht department there was Narani a ketch from Kettering, and Tere an auxiliary cutter ketch from Bruny Island.

There were awards for various categories of vessel, large and small, prettiest vessel, best restoration and so on. Roscoe was asked to be a judge for the second rally in a row, he accepted the challenge with his mate Chris however, he doesn’t believe it is such a good idea because in all wooden boat owners minds their vessel is the best and their restoration is always better than everyone else’s. It’s extremely difficult to make such decisions.

There were speed boat displays on the water and the Sail Past which just about everyone goes in, sailing, rowing and motoring down the McMillan Straight. What a great sight. Unfortunately, on the Sunday the weather was on the windy side and the Sail Past was reduced to a fraction of the Saturday fleet. On Saturday evening there was the usual fancy dress up dance at the yacht club with a local band that apparently rocked the whole of Paynesville. And, last but not least there was the good old Quick and Dirty, always good fun, even though it was windy the organisers found a relatively quiet spot for the final ‘race’. And to go on the record, no one sank!

A great weekend, I would recommend it to everyone. The next one is in 2026.