RudderPosts

Wood, Wombats, and Wallabies

We've had requests for all three. So let's get to it:

This, you may think, has absolutely nothing to do with wooden boats. And in the strictest sense, you'd be right. Except that that's circumnavigator Jamie Morrison making friends with this wallaby--essentially, a miniature kangaroo. The location is the parking lot near Wineglass Bay in eastern Tasmania, the site of a horrible wreck just a few days before. A thirty-something foot wooden boat, you see, anchored here while en-route to the festival, dragged ashore and was ground to bits in the surf. Hard to believe, judging from this photo, isn't it? (WoodenBoat contributing editor Harry Bryan sailed with his family to Tasmania about eighteen years ago. They spent a year in Hobart, and anchored for a while in Wineglass Bay. The boat they did that in--the William Hand Ketch Patience B., is used for classes by WoodenBoat School.)

In southern Tasmania, as noted in WoodenBoat No. 184, a fellow named Tolly Jaworsky
has been building a Herreshoff Mobjack for the past fourteen years. It's a gem-quality job; rumor has it that the interior has been through a few iterations already. Here's where things stood a few months ago. And here's a close up of a knee, to give you a sense of the ring spacing of Huon pine. The best way to think of this wood is: the denisty of cedar meets the ring spacing of old growth douglas-fir meets the durability of longleaf. On second thought, that might not be the best way, but it's the best I can do with my limited observation. The stuff's unique--and commercially unavailable. The state of Tasmania, however, is loaded with great timber, lots of which is exported for chipboard. This tends to create some not-too-warm-and-fuzzy feelings among lovers of trees and timbers.

And, finally, a wombat, in the wild.

An Antipodal Amplification

Astute WoodenBoat readers will by now have noticed that I shamelessly accepted the hospitality of the organizers of the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart, Tasmania, in February. Who could resist such a thing? They offered me a plane ticket from Los Angeles to Hobart in exchange for speaking a few times at the show. Much of my time was taken up with getting ready to talk, talking, cleaning up after a talk, or talking about the talk.
     For the curious: I spoke about two things: 1) classic American yachts that are still sailing today, and 2) the importance of maintaining authenticity in publicly displayed wooden boats. But that's beside the point of this post. The point of this post is to amplify the details of that trip, and to show you more photographs from it--stuff that the space constraints of WoodenBoat's pages wouldn't allow.

This is Holger Danske. She's a 1964 Aage Nielsen-designed ketch, 42' overall, built by the famous Danish yard A. Walsted Baadeverft for an owner in Marblehead, Massachusetts.She was a fixture of my youth, as I passed her almost every summer day on my route to YMCA camp. Don't be fooled by the full ends and robust appearance. She's fast as well as seaworthy; she won the 1980 Bermuda race, skippered by the owner's son, Richard Wilson. Several years ago, a German fellow living in Tasmania purchased her, sailed her to Denmark for a total refit at Walsted's, and then proceeded on to Tasmania. That's where the boat is now, and that's where I took this snapshot. She's for sale; you can view the listing here. If you like this boat, then you'll want to know that our own Maynard Bray and Tom Jackson are writing a book about the designer. If all goes according to plan, it'll be published in the first half of next year.

Next we have Siandra, the 35' Arthur Robb-designed Lion-class sloop sailed by Jamie Morrison and Niki Perryman. They left Australia in her 13 years ago for a meandering global circumnavigation that's covered about 60,000 sea miles. They've transited the Red Sea, overwintered above the Arctic Circle in Norway, spent a summer in Brooklin, Maine (which is where we first got acquainted), and lived for a few years in New Zealand. We see the boat here from the deck of John and De Deegan's Sotalia, as we crossed tacks entering the harbor at Kettering, Tasmania. (British readers will recognize Niki as a columnist for Classic Boat magazine.)

Here's the James Craig. She's a riveted iron bark built in 1874, eventually beached and abandoned until 1972. I know, I know: She's not wooden. But if you stood close to her and saw the level of craftmanship in her restoration--which was accomplished by an army of skilled volunteers who came out of retirement for the 20-year project--you'd, I hope, agree with her inclusion here. She's stunning. Learn more about her here. I'm not sure what the bright-hulled sloop is, but she was ably handled and cut a fine figure tacking in the basin where the Craig was moored.

A gang of Danes came to the festival all the way from Roskilde--home of the famous Viking Ship Museum. They brought a few boats with them, as well as a pile of bast fiber to spin into rope. That's what this guy, Carsten, is doing, while several of his colleagues demonstrate woodworking tools or boats.

There's more, of course. There's a fleet of one designs that look a little like Wianno Seniors. There are interior and deck shots of the Herreshoff Mobjack being built by Tolly Jaworsky. There's a logyard full of Tasmanian timbers, a wollaby and a wombat, and some not-too-boaty scenes from a stunning national park. If you want to see any of this, just ask.
--MM