Given the difficulties in travel and transport over the last few years, the festival organisers made a cleaver decision for 2023, to highlight Australian designers and builders and with the release of the full program on line, we can now see how they are intending to do this.

For those of us lucky enough to be attending next years festival, the live symposium provides a level of scholarship and intellect rarely applied to the world of wooden boats. The program is now out!

Former Chair of the AWBF, Peter Higgs once described the Festival as an elephant on roller skates, zooming down a hill. In the words of the current General Manager Paul Stephanus… “Well, we are are now almost seven months out from the big day, and the beast is well and truly picking up momentum.“

The portraits will become an evolving display at the Festival with each participant invited to find their image amongst the sea of faces and handwrite on their print what wooden boat custodianship means to them.

Got a wooden boat? Why not bring your pride and joy? It will be four years since the last Festival, and the AWBF crew are excited to open the flood gates for registrations.

Wooden boats were and still are a common feature in Tasmania, an island surrounded by water. Sharing the knowledge surrounding the wooden boat craft is a big feature for the Australian Wooden Boat Festival.