One ‘scientific’ thing he said has always stuck with me. “Pigs can see the wind !” “Please explain,” I ask. “My uncle was a pig farmer, and pig farmers know this.” “How ?” I questioned. “ My uncle says they see it like coloured ribbons in the air.” Well ! It was a new one on me. These were the days before Google.; research into such a arcanity was impossible and how would anyone really know anyway

If you have considered putting in an entry, but are feeling a little ambivalent, have a watch of this talk given by the Festival Director Paul Stephanus at the recent Auckland Festival in March. It’s a whirlwind account of the scale and breadth of one of the most successful gathering of timber craft anywhere in the world.

A week after Australia announced its first serious tilt at the America’s Cup in 25 years, it seems a little curmudgeonly to be getting stuck in. But let’s not let the romance of a 43 year old victory divert us from the facts. The racing is boring to watch. It’s unrelatable for the weekend sailor. It’s commercially motivated

If Tetley was willing Victress was less so. He'd sailed at reduced pace in the Southern Ocean. The boat's structural problems were severe. The skins and frames of the starboard hull were threatening to part company, yet the prospect of being fastest man around the world was tantalising.

PETREL history, Hesse for sale, more MALFADA, a lobster launch and much more.

There are about a dozen communities left on earth where people in traditional craft still rely on their sails to carry out meaningful work. They don’t do this for romantic reasons, but because they can’t afford a cheap diesel engine or the fuel to drive it. These working sailing fleets, that were originally responsible for binding humanity into a single ecological and historical system, have, almost by accident, become the last bastion of a disappearing tradition that globalised the human story.

A Reimers restoration, Barangaroo Handover, Vertue News, SA stories and A new Q

It has taken over two years and is an amazing work of art.  We agreed that a conventional varnished cradle was not the way to display the model and we opted for an ‘on the hard at Noakes’ as the most suitable and appropriate approach.

But what makes BELLA GIOLA so desirable is not just her pedigree, but that hundreds of thousands of dollars have been invested in her upkeep, refits and sails since the current owner's acquisition in 2005. She is likely to be the best example of the design in the southern hemisphere (if not globally)

Always the flats were full of locals fishing with tinnies and poking around for oysters or clams, gathering supper in a simple and unassuming commune with nature, seemingly unhurried and unencumbered by all the expensive flashy gear and equipment that Americans seem to feel necessary accoutrements to any outing. We made friends with whole families who floated chattily down river in tubes of an evening sunset, regardless of the crocs “Oh none here, they’re all over on the Bribie Island side!” In the place where I’d grown up, where the Puritan Work Ethic still ruled bone deep, people would signal that they accepted an outsider by saying something like  “A decent, hardworking, honest person”. In Queensland, you knew you were deemed ok when somebody would say “Fair dinkum story teller” or “Makes a smoko go quick”  or “I got time for them”. 

A free boat, a Garden back to auction, whale speak, sails for the Alma, East African climate change and up and down three times.

Over the next three decades, MacMillan sailed the Bowdoin north twenty-six times. She carried scientists, students, and adventurers deep into a little known world — into the fjords of Greenland, past the icebergs of Davis Strait, in both Arctic summers and long dark of polar winters. She accumulated more than 300,000 nautical miles in waters that had undone far larger ships.

Fortunately, as the boat lay on her side on the beach, when the tide receded a lot of this equipment, including winches, instruments and even her recently fitted new engine, was recovered by the crew who camped on the beach for several days to save as much of their yacht as they could. They were cheerfully helped in their efforts by several hardworking gauchos from the nearby 'estancias' (ranches and farms).

The boats they race in are thirty-five-year-old Catalina 37s. Weighing in at around 7 tonnes, with dacron sails and symmetrical kites. They have a maximum speed of around 7 knots. The event is living proof that excitement in sailboat racing comes from tactics, personality and crew work, not speed and technology.

In the crepuscule of pre-dawn each day, I silently pop out the forehatch like a woodchuck to hop in a dinghy with a couple of new friends who sailed their Wharram 30 from England. He had been a policeman, which struck me funny for some reason. And she was like a Viking, long blonde braids, always wearing a navy blue turtleneck sweater with her jeans. It was winter in Miami (but still, not that cold.) Nevertheless, they had a big contract up at Jones Boatyard refinishing the exterior of a 90-foot yacht, Southwind (or some wind, I don’t really recall).

However for me the interest in the story is the roll on of business that the Australian Wooden Boat Festival creates when all the boats have returned to their home ports. After considering doing a great deal of the work myself , I came across the stand of the Wooden Boat Centre in Franklin , in particular Cody whom relayed his passion and plans to create as much new work for his apprentice shipwrights .

This week…Wingnut, AWBF entries, Veterans Race, Peixinho, and lots more.

Yet the trapeze's journey from experimental curiosity to universal standard, spans not just decades but centuries - with roots that reach back far beyond the yacht clubs of Europe — to the traditional waterways of Southeast Asia and the competitive sailing scene of New Zealand between the wars.

Ever since humans first learned to pimp their dugouts with wind assistance we've been inventing systems and gadgets to make the handling of sails and other items of onboard equipment more efficient. Their names fill huge dictionaries with words undecipherable to the landlubber; doubly so in cross-language nautical dictionaries

The relaxed atmosphere around the starting area, admiring white sails and long overhangs, was all I could ask for. It was quite a sight generated by sixty-one yachts gliding between Shark Island and Point Piper. Smiles and waves of acknowledgement add to the good vibes when many like-minded sailors come together to display their love of an era of elegance.