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.

The obvious solution to excess healing, is to move weight, either human or material, to windward and if moving to the edge of a boat isn’t enough then you need to get it further outboard, beyond the gunnel.

This week…Ocean Cruises, Command structures, Caribbean Racing, Burgess in Bass Strait and much more.

Jehol, a 1970s Westerly Centaur – one of the most popular British-made yachts – is a boat that Green is in the process of tackling. “She has changed hands for £1 four times, always to people with a dream and the best intentions,” he says. “But life takes over.”

So Uffa Fox was not a particularly good businessman – undoubtedly had his commercial flair matched his inventive genius he would have ended his days a rich man. As it was, others made far more money out of Uffa's brain than he did himself. But it can be argued that this is characteristic of many highly creative people; things like managing money are simply a distraction from the free-thinking flow that can create great and original design art.

And aboard the boat anchored next to us, the playboy model American girl came up on deck with her walkman hooked to her string undies. I think we call them thongs, now. Things. Thongs.

The most impressive thing about the film is that it is stunningly beautiful. In spite of the fact that Alizé was seriously seasick for about half the passage and this is her first feature-length film, her camera work is exceptional. Somehow she has no trouble getting big waves to look big in pix (a trick I’ve never mastered), and she has a very nuanced eye when it comes to depicting life onboard.

PETREL continues apace, the Japanese like Inverloch, to Museum or not, and a few other bits and pieces from around the world and the web.

Personally when I cast my eye over my 100 year old boat her signs of age endear her to me. My aesthetic is that of the cathedrals gloomy with the smoke of innumerable candles, the scars of the sackings by the Ottomans, the steps worn hollow by a thousand years of kneeling penitents. Further to that my humble vessel belongs to a vernacular tradition based on the Queenscliff fishing boats from the turn of last century. A tradition of hard usage, hard knocks, and short pockets.

It’s a fascinating concept… Three moments in time for Kiwi boat design spanning a 90 year period. From a vessel ordered to be both fishing boat and farm truck, to a time when the vision of two young sailors was to create a global legacy shaping a generation of cruiser-racing boats, craftspeople and competitive sailors.