March Wooden Boat Madness

What a busy month March has been for the wooden boat world. With festivals and celebrations right across the country and across the ditch! Hear our wrap up reports from the Auckland Wooden Boat Festival, Paynesville Classic Boat Rally, Geelong Wooden Boat Festival, and the Bass & Flinders Maritime Museum’s 250th Matthew Flinders Celebration.

The AWBF Festival Director, Paul Stephanus attended the first ever inaugural Auckland Wooden Boat Festival. Hear his wrap up of events below.

Auckland Wooden Boat Festival 1st – 3rd March 2024

The inaugural Auckland Wooden Boat Festival was a huge success. With over 10,000 visitors to the event across three days, it is clear that New Zealand’s wooden boat community is energetic and enthusiastic. And with all the right ingredients in place, this event is poised to become much larger in the coming years and decades.

It has long been evident to me that these wooden boat festivals are not really about the boats, but about the stories of the people who have owned, maintained, sailed, loved, and wrestled with these vessels. One such formidable individual is Richard Allen of SV Ranui, a 60′ ketch on display at the event. Richard has voyaged with Ranui across the Pacific, largely in Vanuatu, and his cabin is full of artworks and artefacts from the archipelago. He is back and forth to the islands fairly regularly to oversee a charity he started there to help distribute food and medicine, and to encourage sustainable economic enterprises. But his adventures in the Pacific don’t stop there. In 2010 he captained Ranui as the mother ship as part of a waka voyage around the Pacific, with vessels from Tahiti, New Zealand, and Fiji. And before Ranui met Richard, she had plenty of adventures of her own with other skippers, including as a spy vessel in WWII and as the Royal Yacht for the Tongan Queen. The indefatigable Captain Richard has been threatening to sail Ranui to our 2025 Festival, and she would certainly be a most welcome guest in our docks.

Speaking of great stories, perhaps my favourite wooden boat story of all time is that of Johnny Wray and Ngataki. In the late 1920’s, Johnny conjured up the boat of his dreams, transposed that dream into a wooden half model, and got to work in a makeshift corrugated iron shed in his parents’ backyard in suburban Auckland. Over the next few years Johnny taught himself blacksmithing, carpentry, ropework, and all the other skills you need to build a boat. He salvaged Kauri logs from nearby beaches and scraped together a bit of money and help where he could find it. Eventually he had himself a boat, the completed dream. In the years that followed, he and his crew sailed throughout the South Pacific in a series of adventures chronicled masterfully in his book South Sea Vagabonds (which I highly recommend). Ngataki was yet another quality vessel featured at the 2025 Auckland Festival, fully restored by the The Tino Rawa Trust in a practical and straightforward way that Johnny Wary would have approved of. And we might soon see this vessel on our shores before long – in 1934 Ngataki competed against Tasmania’s recently restored Te Rapunga as the only two competitors in the inaugural Trans-Tasman. Ngataki lost that race, but now with both vessels restored to their former glory, a rematch on the River Derwent between the two must surely be on the cards. 

One thing I hoped I would see at the Festival were the sleek and beautiful Logan and Baileys racing yachts from the early 1900’s, and I was not disappointed. These were represented at the Festival in force – including the famed Waitangi and Thelma. Many were owned and maintained by the Classic Yacht Charitable Trust, which restores these vessels and passes them on to skippers and crew who keep them active on water, competing in the many classic boat regattas in the country. This is a model of boat restoration, ownership and use that we might do well to mimic here across the ditch. It spreads the cost of maintenance and restoration to a wider group of individuals, creating a sense of shared ownership which can only benefit the vessels.

I met many more interesting people and admired many more story-laden vessels during the Festival, but perhaps the most ambitious project I encountered during my stay was off the Festival site, in a construction yard on the side of a busy highway – a large ongoing restoration project of Steam Ferry Toroa. This is the final surviving classic wooden ferry from Auckland Harbour. A propellor on both its stern and…other stern, she plied the waters between Auckland and Devonport for years before being decommissioned. She’s old-fashioned, with a smoking room and a lady’s quarters. I love old boats; I love steam engines; I love ferries. So, you can imagine how I felt about this specimen. However, Mark Chew of Southern Wooden Boat Sailing has already written an article about our visit, so I will point you to his eloquent article HERE – “Meeting Toroa”. It really is worth a read.

The Auckland Festival is a great addition to the calendar of maritime culture events in the antipodes. While I was there I had the same feeling I have walking around the docks at our Australian Wooden Boat Festival. I am amazed by the degree of commitment, passion, effort and expertise that go into maintaining the formidable armada of wooden boats that gather in our docks. There is an energy in the air.

People always have been (and will always be) attracted to the tactile joy of taking care of a wooden boat, to the adrenaline of adventure on the seas, to the freedom of exploration, to the peace and solitude of isolated anchorages, and to learning the many skills necessary to be a good boat owner. Wooden boat culture is thriving.  It is thriving in Hobart, in Auckland, and across Australia and New Zealand. And it will continue to thrive.

A collection of images from Mark Chew (Southern Woodenboat Sailing).

Boat Manager, Roscoe Barnett, was lucky enough to head to Paynesville Classic Boat Rally, Geelong Wooden Boat Festival and the Bass & Flinders Maritime Museum’s celebration of Matthew Flinders’ 250th Birthday.

Paynesville Classic Boat Rally 2nd & 3rd March 2024

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.

Wooden Boat Festival Geelong 9th – 11th March 2024

This festival is on the weekend after Paynesville, I’m not sure who was first but that doesn’t matter. When you’re coming from Hobart, you might as well have two weekends of boat porn in a row! It’s a long drive from Paynesville to Geelong however, if one takes the South Gippsland Highway and drops in to Foster, it’s just a quick drive to the beautiful Wilsons Promontory National Park. Well worth the visit, Roscoe and his co-pilot Cheryl highly recommend it.

The festival is held in the Royal Geelong Yacht Club grounds, great spot, right on Eastern Beach on Corio Bay. They clear the hard stand area for festival trailer boats and numerous marquees with trade displays, shipwrights, craft people and some food. There is a lovely grassy area with chairs and umbrellas in front of the club house with a stage set up for entertainment, speeches and prize giving. In front of that is the very extensive marina and Wangim Walk which is a wave attenuator protecting the rest of the marina. The larger vessels are all moored on the marina area in front of the clubhouse.

On the Friday vessels from Melbourne make their way to Portarlington approximately 32 nm, stay overnight there and in the morning race to the RGYC approximately 15nm. The festival starts at 0900, however the larger yachts don’t arrive until midday-ish, which is a bit of a draw back for the early visitors to the festival. There also could have been a few more vessels on the hard stand, however, the organising team and the hard-working people in the office deserve credit for all the work the did. Owing to various matters planning the festival was late starting and according to those in power it won’t happen next time in 2026.

The weather was absolutely awful, it was so hot, Saturday 39, Sunday 40 and Monday was back to a beautiful 38. The club management closed down the trade marquees mid-afternoon because of the heat, which was fair enough. Far too hot for people to be wandering around in the sun admiring beautiful boats. It was such a pity after all the work that had been done. The saving grace was the airconditioned club house bar area and those lovely cold beers!

Saturday evening there was entertainment and a cocktail party on board the Enterprize for the hoy-poy-loy only trouble was it was still so hot outside the event was held in the airconditioned club house, however later in the evening we all took a short walk to the Enterprize, where people were seen swimming alongside the moored vessels, cooling off! Shock horror, one of the AWBF’s board members whose name shall remain nameless, was one of them. He and his son had sailed the little engineless Tumlaren Yvonne from Melbourne to the festival. What a team!

The tall ship Enterprize wasn’t the only larger vessel in attendance, both Goolara and tall ship Coral Trekker who had been at Paynesville had steamed down to Geelong for the wooden boat weekend.

All in all, it was a great weekend, just a pity about the weather, but the weather doesn’t always need to be good to appreciate beautiful wooden boats. The next festival will be in 2026 and will be called the Wooden Boat Festival of Victoria.

Head to the Wooden Boat Festival of Geelong’s Facebook here to see more images from the weekend.

Matthew Flinders 250th Birthday Weekend 16th & 17th March 2024

Matthew Flinders 250th birthday weekend was held at the Bass & Flinders Maritime Museum in George Town… Where else would you celebrate?

Roscoe and co-pilot thought it would be a good idea to wave the AWBF flag at this important event, seeing as it was on the way, more or less, back to Hobart from our Victorian sojourn. We left the AWBF dinghy in safe hands in George Town and we returned bright eyed, and bushy tailed to George Town the following Saturday. Three wooden boat weekends in a row and I must give credit to the co-pilot for her endurance! The Pier Hotel had very kindly given the Museum permission to use their hotel lawns to display dinghies on trailers. What a lovely spot on the banks of the River Tamar.

If you haven’t been to the museum you should make the effort to visit. It houses the replica vessel Norfolk (along with many other vessels) that retraced Matthew Flinders voyage round Tasmania. Bass and Flinders voyage took place in 1798-99 circumnavigating Tasmania proving the existence of Bass Strait. In 1998-99 Bern Cuthbertson OAM from Sandy Bay, Tasmania, re-enacted all of Norfolk’s journeys in a replica vessel, constructed of Tasmania Huon and Celery Top pines. The replica Norfolk is now on display inside The Bass and Flinders Maritime Museum in George Town on the River Tamar.

Images from the Bass & Flinders Maritime Museum Facebook page.

There were plenty of other things happening. Some of the ’98-99 Norfolk crew were interviewed and there was a 45-minute documentary on Flinders. The highlight of the afternoon was a live link to Donnington in the UK (Flinders’ home town) to cut birthday cakes and to also see the church where his remains are to be re-buried in August this year.

And to top it all off, if you didn’t wish to hear and see all the historic stuff the Julie Burgess was doing sailings to Beauty Point and for the less adventurous, on-board inspections. There were more talks and interviews on Sunday however, mid-morning team Roscoe headed back to Hobart for a well-earned rest.

Great event, great little, well it’s not that little a museum, make a point of calling in next time you’re up that way.

If you know of another wooden boat celebration we might like, please let us know here!