Australian Wooden Boat Festival, 2013

Last weekend was the Australian Wooden Boat Festival. I managed to head down from the maritime college and catch up with everyone. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the festival was HUGE. Elizabeth Street Pier was packed full of tall ships:

The marina was packed full of boats that I didn’t have time to see. There was a huge range of sizes, from tiny little dinghies:

All the way up to the James Craig. Look how big she is!

Even Captain Fell’s old ferry, Emmalisa, looked the part:

That’s what the whole weekend was like. Boats boats boats boats boats. Berthed just in front of us was my old ship, Enterprize, and she’s looking great, isn’t she?

It was a real pleasure to catch up with former crew, once they recognised me (they knew me back when I had a large and awful beard). I spent one night sitting on her tiller sharing songs and stories until 1am.

Even though we weren’t the tallest tall ship in the harbour, the mast made a very good vantage point for some more happy snaps:

Along the pier, there were a number of old speedboats on display. Look at the care that’s gone into them! Even their engines were clean as anything.

There were a number of steam-powered boats on the water all weekend, including Hobart’s local S.Y. Preana.

Preana’s engineer, Wally Mounster, has also built a steam-powered outboard and is considered the world expert in that area. In this photo, it’s mounted on Diablito, “little devil”:

The steamboats weren’t the only cool old boats going around. The Notorious is a replica of a 15th century Portuguese Caravel, and with her rough-cut timbers and black everywhere, she looks MEAN.

With this many tall ships going around, there’s obviously going to be some pirates walking around as well. This one wasn’t in a crew, but what he lacked in numbers he made up with size:

If PVK taught me one thing, it’s that when you have pirates, vikings aren’t far away. This weekend was no exception. Behold, the Rusich. Crewed by a crew of crazy Russians, she’s been all over the world.

It wasn’t all boats, despite the name. There was a great exhibit of old surfboards, too:

What a weekend!