Leofleda (Leda for Short)
Following last weeks piece on the death of John Young, we were contacted by Andy Bullock telling us about his boat LEDA and the connection with John.
‘Leda’ was built in Adelaide by the founder of the Wooden Boat Centre in Franklin, John Young, together with skilled woodworker Dave Kew, and launched in November 1973. She was previously named Leofleda, after a sailing barge John had crewed aboard in England. The 23ft 6in boat's lines have fishing boat heritage, rather than yacht lineage. She is a slightly lengthened version of a South Australian fishing boat that her designer, Leigh Anderson, had fished with under sail, without use of an auxiliary motor, one of the last SA fishing boats to do this. Her beam is 8 feet and draft 3ft 6in. The firm bilges and significant displacement make her feel like a small ship. Although sturdily constructed the finish is of a working boat rather than yacht standard. The planking below the waterline is jarrah, on Australian hardwood timbers, with Queensland maple topsides. She was rigged as a gaff sloop at her launching.
After sea trials on St Vincent's Gulf, John, then an academic in history at Adelaide University, obtained a grant to undertake research in the Lau group of islands of eastern Fiji. The boat was trucked to Sydney then loaded onto a ship to Tonga. In Tonga, John met legendary single-hander Mike Bales who taught him the art of celestial navigation. John, his wife Ruth, and two of their children, then sailed 260 nautical miles westward to the Lau group. They narrowly escaped shipwreck when the keel struck the edge of a coral reef as they entered a passage through the reef to the island where they had made landfall.
With the trade wind on her beam, ‘Leofleda’ cruised along the island chain for three months while John conducted his research, the family, together with a Fijian child, sharing the small cabin as their living quarters, often trading with the islanders for ship's provisions. On completion of the studies, the family sailed the boat onward to Suva, on the main island of Fiji, where she was lifted onto another ship for the return trip to Australia.
Back in Adelaide waters, the boat was moored in the Port River and cruised extensively in St Vincent's Gulf and Spencer Gulf, including trips to Kangaroo Island, Port Lincoln and the Sir Joseph Banks Islands. She was pooped once running before a big sea, but survived in spite of the cockpit not being self-draining.
In the 1990s, the Young family moved to Tasmania, to establish the Wooden Boat School. Leofleda was again lifted onto the deck of a ship, to be transported to the island state. She was moored for many years off South Franklin, or in summer in Randalls Bay, and participated in earlier Australian Wooden Boat Festivals and ‘Raids’ with the Living Boat Trust, another organisation John helped establish.
I bought the boat in April 2017 and John sailed aboard her for the last time when he helped me sail from Franklin through the channel between the Egg Islands to a temporary mooring on the east side of the Huon, before I sailed her around to her new home mooring at Port Cygnet. I subsequently spent time refurbishing the boat (with her name shortened to ‘Leda’), replacing the mission brown paintwork with lighter and brighter colours, renewed the standing rigging, reshaped the rudder profile to reduce weather helm, fitted bronze sheet winches, new forward ports, new mainsheet horse, improved anchor set-up, overhauled the engine, replaced the cabin lighting and electrical wiring, etc, etc.
To enable quicker and easier reduction in sail area when the wind suddenly strengthens, the rig was changed from gaff sloop to gaff cutter, with the jib set on a traditional Wykeham Martin roller furler. Leda has cruised the beautiful waters of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and Huon estuary, and raced in several of Port Cygnet Sailing Club’s annual regattas. She was a participant in the 2019 and 2025 Australian Wooden Boat Festivals, making the passage to and from Hobart in company with other Cygnet wooden boats also taking part in the AWBF. This week she will sail back to Franklin to be present there for the memorial service for her builder and long-term owner, John Young.
