Tarkine - A lesson for the 21st Century
Sitting in the saloon of TARKINE, chatting to Iefke Van Gogh & Matt Morris, it feels as if they have been living aboard their pilot cutter for years.
(click to enlarge)
They move around the boat in the same way that long term liveaboards do, reaching naturally between hand holds and ducking their heads subconsciously as they step past low sections of the cabin roof. At first, this comfortable familiarity might seem strange, as they are yet to sleep a night on board and the hull hasn’t felt a single splash of salt water… but then as you talk to them, you begin to understand. Every single detail of the boat has been thoroughly considered before being crafted. It’s not procrastination… they just address each issue that comes with building a boat, decide on the most elegant solution and then execute… usually with a degree of expertise that leaves us mortals gasping with appreciation. So it’s really not surprising that moving through the space inside this Paul Gartside inspired 40 footer, comes so naturally.
Matt hitches himself up, to sit on the starboard quarter-berth, his unruly hair trying to escape from under his woollen beanie. His eyes sparkle, and he laughs a lot, but you can tell that underneath there’s some serious thinking going on. He’s not your average monosyllabic Tasmanian boat builder. He’s full of interesting ideas and opinions, and given a little encouragement he shares them eloquently.
Down the other end of the saloon, Iefke leans forward over the central table made from Tasmanian Myrtle. Her blond hair and soft north European accent, might make you guess at Scandinavian origins, but in fact her background is Dutch and they mention Holland as a long term objective of their first major cruise. She’s explaining how she sourced many of the fittings and equipment through her connections in Europe shipped them out to Australia. It soon becomes apparent, that for every day spent building this boat, many hours have been spent researching and investigating, and the benefit of that dedication is apparent as you look around the boat.
It’s an unusual pairing this… Matt from just down the road in Cygnet, giving off the Aussie larrikin vibe, and Iefke’s from the other side of the world, with her more restrained persona, that demands to be taken seriously… but there’s no doubting the strength and symbiotic nature of the partnership... together these two will continue to make extraordinary stuff happen!
Olbie the dog, who has already booked his berth for the first leg of their adventures to New Zealand!
Matt and Iefke met while working on the tall ship EUROPA (he as bosun, she as deckhand) and began to share a dream for building their own craft. They both admired the aesthetics and sea-kindly reputation of the British pilot cutters, and when Matt came across Paul Gartside’s 40ft version of one of these craft, he felt it ticked all the right boxes.
Gartside who is still alive, in his mid 70’s, is best known for small and mid-sized traditional craft, such as rowing skiffs, dinghies, gaff-rigged dayboats and double-ended sloops, and so TARKINE would be one of the bigger Gartside boats that been built. He was born in North Wales but grew up in a boatyard near Falmouth, Cornwall, a sailing ground where this type of boats was conceived.
Matt and lefke went down that way for one of their wedding anniversaries, looking for a place to build their dream boat. The location didn’t feel quite right and so they came back to Tassie and had a chat with Dave Golding, (a shipwright best known in Melbourne for his ground breaking restoration work on the two big gaff cutters ACROSPIRE III and SAYONARA) about using part of his shed just outside Huonville, Tasmania. Dave is the sort of person who was always going to say “yes” and so they began the project in November 2019, under the name “A Boat By The River”.
Initially, they expected it to take about four years, and now seven years in, they are very nearly finished. They chose to go with a strip plank construction and a beautiful straight laid timber deck, a nod to the working boat origins of the craft, rather than the “yachty” look of a classic sprung deck. After much debate and changing of minds, they have decided that the rig will be Bermudan and they are just starting the process of designing and constructing this massive 60ft spar.
I asked them how they went with Covid, as it struck the year after they began. They replied that looking back it was a boon, allowing them concentrated time, focusing on the project without distractions. But it’s also clear there were tough times in the early days; They worked three days a week for wages and four on TARKINE, living in a van in the cold Tasmanian winter, working in the icy open shed and building as they earned, spending every cent they could spare on the project. Local Tasmanians often helped them along the way, donating materials and equipment whenever they could, but summoning the enthusiasm to keep going, must have been hard at times.
Two years into the build they thought it was time to start sharing the journey. They decided to have a go at the flourishing phenomenon of funding a project by producing regular Youtube content. By this time the poster boy of the genre, Leo Goolden was five years into The Tally Ho project and receiving good revenue from his subscriber base, and so the template was proven to work… if the material was good enough.
Iefke with her usual competence, turned her hand to filming the content, and between them they now produce a 30 minute piece each fortnight for their 25,000 subscribers. As I write (four years after Episode 1 came out) they are about to release episode 110. It’s an undertaking that takes time out of their boat building schedule, but funds their simple living requirements. But it’s not enough to really contribute to the costs of building the boat. The style of the videos is refreshingly old school. No need for confected excitement, or manufactured plot twists. The characters are real people and they never condescend to their audience. They try to explain their process honestly and entertainingly, but at the end of the day they are proud to be boat builders who sometimes make videos, not video makers trying to build a boat.
If you watch their latest episode you will get an idea of how close they are to launching… so the obvious question is…. “What happens next”?
Well the answer is that the Australian Wooden Boat Festival happens next!
TARKINE will be a feature boat at the event, from 5-8 February 2027, displayed on the hard outside Mures Restaurant, right at the heart of the Hobart festival. The plan is to build a scaffolding walkway around the boat so the public can inspect the new vessel from both deck height and water level. Matt and Iefke will be on hand for most of the time answering questions and explaining the journey they have been on.
Which leads me to wonder what that journey has really been about. For Matt and Iefke it’s obviously been about the creation of a beautiful and functional, floating home, that will take them safely to almost anywhere in the world. But for the hundreds of thousands of people who have viewed their videos and will speak with them at the festival, their journey has been a beacon of hope… An example of how a couple of hard working young people, with a clear vision and perhaps an extra dollop of determination, can push back against the 21st century’s slow and seemingly irresistible tide of conformity and risk aversion, and create a rich, adventurous and meaningful life for themselves.
Thank you Matt and Iefke for showing us how!
Words and Images Mark Chew
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