Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2015

Mind Blowing is probably the best way to sum up the 2015 AWBF, The sheer quantity and quality of wooden boats just takes your breath away, and despite being there for the full 4 days I’m sure there are many things I didn’t see and many beautiful boats that deserved much more than a quick glance.

This is a good case of a “picture speaks a thousand words”, so heres a few thousand to get going with!

with 540 wooden boats on display, space is at a premium.

A sea of Varnish

Standards must be kept Boxer 1908

Same boat, Boxer arriving into Hobart.

Varg in all her glory

New Zealand Traditional Boat Building School and the St Ayles on display.

Some of the Tawe Nunnugah fleet rafted up.

School Kids building simple skin on frame boats during the festival.

Plenty of day boats to choose from. This one electric drive.

Size wasn’t a barrier to having fun.

There were a few Kiwi boats on display too. Tuarangi from Invercargil.

Great line up of the Derwent Skiffs, Julian rowed one of these the entire Tawe Nunnugah.

During the AWBF there was a have a go day and demonstration 250m sprite racing for the St Ayles skiffs, This was hugely popular and I believe about 120 people got the chance to row / race one of 4 St Ayles skiffs including the two Kiwi boats Wee Tawera and Frank Worsley.

St Ayles Skiff, have a row event.

Imagine, The woman on Water St Ayles from Franklin

As part of the Hobart Regatta we took part in the St Ayles 250m sprint races and were lucky enough to come home with these beautifully hand crafted wooden medals for first place.

!st place medals for the Hobart regatta.

Our fearless skipper negotiating her way through all the expensive varnish.

If your a wooden boat fanatic like me then Hobart is a must do trip, I hate to say it but its hard to imagine that New Zealand could put together such a collection of well presented classics to match what I saw in Hobart. That said wouldn’t it be fun to try…