Australian Wooden Boat Festival: 7 - 10 February 2025

The 2025 Australian Wooden Boat Festival will be featuring the Pacific Ocean. Each category below will require additional support and assistance to attend the 2025 Festival.

An investment of $1000 - $5,000 towards each project will kick start us in bringing this extraordinary array of navigators, academics, craftspeople and adventurers to Hobart for 2025.

To make your invaluable contribution or to learn more about a project, please get in touch with Paul Stephanus - gm@awbf.org.au or call (03) 6223 3375.

Traditional Boatbuilding & Maritime Trades:

 

Mike Tavioni

Boatbuilder, artist, carver, traditional educator from the Cook Islands. With students will build a traditional vaka on site during the Festival, to donate to Tasmania. 

 

Justin John

Circumnavigated Papua New Guinea with his brother in a handmade traditional sailing canoe, now founding member of Pasana Group - school for traditional building and sailing.

 

Luke Vaikawi & Betty Delsi

Traditional sailmakers, and ropemakers from the Solomon Islands. Both play crucial roles in the Taumako project, sharing seafaring knowledge and voyaging histories. 

 

Alson Kelen

President of the WAM boatbuilding and sailing school in the Marshall Islands, conservator of culture and passing on the knowledge of traditional canoe building. 

Stars, Birds & Ocean Currents - Polynesian Navigation:

Pacific Project

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Hoturoa Kerr

Captain of the oceangoing vessel Haunui, navigator, and academic. Has sailed the Pacific for more than 35 years and has learnt everything he knows from his elders. A trustee of the Te Toki Voyaging Trust. 

Mimi George

Academic, anthropologist, and traditional boatbuilding proponent from Hawaii. Co-founder of the Pacific Traditions Society, Mimi directed the Vaka Taumajo Project in support of Solomon Islands masters of traditional navigation and boatbuilding.

Sounds of the Pacific:

Nga Matai Purua

Maori Kapa Haka group residing in Melbourne, will perform and share the vibrant heritage of Maori people. 

Europeans in the Pacific:

Dame Anne Salmond

Distinguished anthropologist, historian, and professor at the University of Auckland focussing on the intercultural understanding between Maori and European New Zealanders.

Michel Tuffery

Samoan visual artist based in New Zealand, with a diverse range of artistic skills, including printmaking, sculpture, and set design, focussing on early European exploration in the Pacific.

Marine Vallèe

An accomplished Tahitian academic with a focus on Tahitian maritime history and archaeology, currently acting as the assistant curator of the Museum of Tahiti and the Isles. 

Kate Fullager

An ACU historian with a particular focus on the British Empire's interactions with diverse Indigenous societies. 

Valerie Vattier

Director of the Musee d'Nouvelle Caledonia, a maritime museum in New Caledonia with a particular focus on the voyage of La Perouse.

Pacific Adventurers:

Tom Robinson

A young Australian, who rowed across the Pacific Ocean from Peru to nearly Queensland, in a homemade wooden whaleboat. 

Sanakoli John

Boatbuilder, adventurer, and sailing school instructor from Papua New Guinea. Established the Pasana Group with his brother Justin John. 

Thor Jensen

Documentary filmmaker, who circumnavigated Papua New Guinea in a traditional sailing vessel with local sailors and boatbuilders.

Our Ocean Home:

John Church

Joining us from the University of New South Wales, 'Rising sea levels across the Pacific' scientist and author. A pioneering figure in detecting climate change in the ocean. 

Dr. Elisabeth Holland

Coming from the University of the South Pacific to discuss current and future responses to sea level changes across Polynesia. 

Alson Kelen

Hailing from the Marshall Islands, Alson will discuss the economic changes in the Pacific and how traditionally built and navigated craft respond to them.

Bill Lockwood

Manager of the Uto ni Yalo Trust in Fiji, Bill will discuss the importance of traditional boat design and navigation, in the modern world.

India Tabellini

Captain of ocean going Polynesian vessel Fa'afaite to discuss changes in extreme weather, fish population and migration patterns in the Pacific region.

Feature Vessels:

Rainui

70 tonne traditional Norwegian Pilot Ketch with a wonderful history. She was designed and built in 1936 by whaling Captain Korinius Larsen at Port Pegasus, Stewart Island, New Zealand. Crafted entirely of native kauri and totara.

Te Karangathi

A beautifully carved waka taua built in Perth (Aus) in 1998, and now in Melbourne. A wonderful example of traditional Maori war canoe design and traditional carving.

Ngataki

In 1936 two vessels - Te Rapunga and Ngataki, competed in the first Trans-Tasman ocean race from Auckland to Melbourne. Te Rapunga has recently undergone a massive restoration in Hobart. The Tino Rawa Trust in Auckland has also completed a long-term restoration of Ngataki. At the 2025 Festival they will sail together again.

Uto ni Yalo

Fijian late-Polynesian designed ocean going vessel using traditional navigation techniques.

Haunui

Polynesian voyaging canoe originally built in American Samoa and now part of the Te Toki Voyaging Trust in New Zealand.

Te Mana o te Vaka

Using traditional Polynesian boatbuilding techniques, western methods and Polynesian carving techniques, a community-focused program supported by MFAT to train apprentice boatbuilders and carvers in the Cook Islands.