The forecast looks good and there should be no excuses for not turning up for a 'Celebration of Sail' of Classic Yachts. We are expecting some Coutas and Rangers from the Harbour to join the Pittwater Coutas for a Gaffers Division and I am hopeful that we could have a mixed Metre Boat division on the Saturday ( 5.5M, 6M & 8M )…….. plus other Bermudians!

The ABC picked up on our story from last week. The aforementioned rowlocks are still sitting beside my computer as I write. Surely there true custodians can be tracked down!

"We're moving quickly to get her back into a situation where we can find out what, on this occasion, went wrong and then we'll continue to move forward with a plan that we have to restore it."

The idea was, that the two fully restored boats would go out on the Derwent and sail a short course in company. There would be a start boat to see them on their way, and then they would cruise sedately beside each other providing opportunities for photographs.

Well that wasn’t going to happen! On an overcast day with a 15 knot South Easterly blowing, the fog horn sounded, signalling the start ,and it was on for young and old!

Derwent Class World Champs. The winds are light but the banter, high. A ‘D’ sails up to the transom of the start boat. Is it a sign on? Nuh. ‘Have you got any Panadol?’  Almost 100 years after the first ‘D’, IMP, rolled out of Percy Coverdale’s yard at Battery Point, did anyone imagine the boats would still be racing in 2025?

SOS HELP US FIND THE ROWLOCK LADY! We both stared at the ROWLOCKS in her hands imagining how we could murder our husbands with a short bronze stick and a bit of bronzy horse shoe. Interesting. Turns out I’m rather imaginative.

It is dark, but the sky is clear enough to see the moon bearing true north. The navigator, crusty old salt, informs the skipper they will arrive at the Rip at the flood slack and they can sail straight in. No tide tables were on board. How did the navigator know?

Here are four brand new wooden boat designs that will be entering the new yacht market in 2025

In attempting to find something positive in her demise, I can only think that coming to grief on a reef in Western Australia is preferable to a slow death in a marina from lack of maintenance.

The brain uses this positional disparity automatically in everyday life to gain a depth of perception. Measuring distance by the rule of thumb relies on leveraging the known dimensions of the outstretched arm and the distance between the eyes. Your arm is typically 10 times as long as the distance between your eyes.

The crew of 1958 pilot cutter Goondooloo called police at 3:45pm on Wednesday after the vessel experienced a mechanical failure in D'Entrecasteaux Channel, in the state's south.

Mr Palin approached the Wooden Boats Centre in the Huon Valley in Southern Tasmania to create five buoys out of wood, to be dropped into Antarctica's icy waters later this month.

According to the most recent data from the Marine strike log maintained by the MMAG, over 50% of all collisions reported result in damage to either the vessel and/or its crew, as well as possible injury or death to marine life.

So what better way to learn a little of the history and philosophy of this seminal craft than to chat with the legendary Peter Shipway, who sailed aboard her in every one of the early races and is involved with the program to this very day.

“For the amount of work in the six-month time frame, it was very tricky. We worked every day, some very long days, to get Mermaid ready for relaunch at the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in February.”

I love a good map.. and these ones are next level, uncovering patterns that govern our environment and society. Its particular strength lies in its ability to show things that are hard to see, yet profoundly affect us, such as economic flows, environmental changes, and social inequalities.

In 1942 she was bought by Mr. Len Nettlefold who held the agency for General Motors in Tasmania. He had the quaint ‘dog house’ build aft of the mizzen mast and it is said that the design for this was drawn from the cab of a Chevrolet truck.

It is not a “want” issue but a “need” issue and few I wager will be completely honest about this at the time of purchase. But let’s not to be too hard, the answer sometimes comes after a time.So here is the story of ROSIE to question what each new owner may wish to achieve.

Mark and Sal will be in Hobart on the waterfront for all four days of the festival. Don’t hesitate to come up and say hello, (especially if you’ve got a good story to tell in future pages of SWS!)

The original INDEPENDENCE was built in only five months by the ship's carpenter and some of the crew of a larger boat, the Union. The Union's captain Isaac Pendleton had learned from French explorer Nicholas Baudin of the existence of a large island, south of the South Australian mainland, where seals and other wildlife were plentiful.