MAFALDA-a death sentence commuted.
When we wrote about the MAFALDA in July last year, we created a bit of interest, but didn’t solve the problem of her on going custodianship.
MAFALDA was built on the banks of the Swan River in East Fremantle in 1926 as a cray fishing sail boat and remained cray fishing until 1970, including a stint in the Abrohlos Islands in the 1960’s. She is 30’ LOA x 8 1/2’ Beam and has a draft of 2 ½’ She is gaff rigged with a Volvo D130 30HP Motor .The hull is NZ kari with jarrah keel and ribs.
Needing substantial, but not complete restoration, just as she was about the be dismantled, three years short of her 100th birthday, a final desperate round of emails produced an outcome, with a small group of enthusiasts establishing a not for profit entity to manage the restoration, crowd funding campaign and ongoing operations on a subscription model with subscribers paying an annual fee which will contribute to ongoing costs.
One of this group of saviours, Josephine Buontempo has written to SWS explaining the recent developments and inviting those who are interested to attend the launch of the restoration project.
