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This entry was posted in Commentary, Discussion & Enquiries on December 29, 2012 by admin.

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← New CYAA Website Under Construction CYAA 2013 Summer Series Race 5 Feb 17 Entries, handicaps and SI’s →

CYAA Notice’s 7th November 2020.

CYAA( Vic) Event schedule Issued 7th December 2020.

Entries for all remaining races still welcome.
Now a three race series. All races counting for series points.
No entry fee applies for the series.
Click on the link to Download the Summer Series entry form. or use the QR code as seen below to enter

Mark Chew’s CYAA Instagram Feed

classic.yacht.australia

Great to see Sailworld picking up on the idea of a

Great to see Sailworld picking up on the idea of a Classic Division at Hamilton Island Race Week. If you’re thinking about being part of the action then get in touch with SWS via the link in the Bio #hirw #hamiltonisland #classicyacht #woodenboat #tropicalsailing #fnq @sailworldnews @hamiltonisland

A windless day in a wooden boat in Bass Strait I

A windless day in a wooden boat in Bass Strait I never tire of these creatures company! #bassstrait #woodenboat #crayboat #dolphins

Look out for a story coming soon to SWS (link in b

Look out for a story coming soon to SWS (link in bio) on the magnificent and recently restored 1950’s Port Fairy cray boat, the MARGARET PEARL #crayboat #margaretpearl #fishingboat #woodenboat

I’m not sure there has been enough recognition f

I’m not sure there has been enough recognition for the life of Tim Severin which ended last month. Growing up in middle class England in the 1970’s and 1980’s, I perhaps understandably, was looking for a way to escape the suffocating expectations and traditions of a society obsessed with pigeon-holing its citizens. One of the ways I could do this, was to read accounts of explorers and adventures and I did so voraciously. My heroes of the time, in the light of today’s cultural expectations, might be considered morally dubious. Wilfred Thesiger is a prime example. He is euphemistically described on his Wikipedia page as “traditional and old fashioned” Gavin Maxwell is now quite rightly considered to be a most unpleasant man, but at the time I cherished “A Ring of Bright Water”. Interestingly, the only criticism you could level sailors such as Moitissier and Knox-Johnson , is that they were at times a little odd!
Somewhere on this spectrum fits Tim Severin who died three weeks ago in West Cork, Ireland. In my teenage years I read “The Brendan Voyage” a few times, relishing his account of both the research and the execution of his greatest adventure. Like Thor Heyerdahl he had a theory on historic exploration, but unlike Heyerdahl his approach to testing the theory was intellectually rigorous and, in the end far more informative and entertaining. (Full story at link in bio) #severin #adventure #brendanvoyage

I refuse to call the endless sea a coffee table b

I refuse to call the endless sea
a coffee table book.
It’s so much more than what that mildly derisive term implies. Once in a while a beautifully designed book such as this, lands on my desk, and I leaf through it expectantly, wanting and hoping that the substance will match the style. So often I’m disappointed…but not this time. Recently published by Massey University Press in New Zealand ENDLESS SEA is made up of a series of stories told through the taonga, or treasured possessions, of the New Zealand Maritime Museum, Hui te Ananui a Tangaroa. Find out more by clicking the link in the bio @artnow.nz @masseyuniversitypress @nzmaritimemusem #woodenboat #maritime #bookreview #sws

Great to see one of the big boys of online sailing

Great to see one of the big boys of online sailing media taking up a story about wooden boats in our little corner of the world! Thanks @sailinganarchyworld and thanks to @afrancolini for the interview. Visit link in bio for the full story or go via www.sailinganarchy.com #photography #woodenboat #classicyacht @southern.woodenboat.sailing

WYRUNA and the Tumlaren VAHINÉ make it into toda

WYRUNA and the Tumlaren VAHINÉ make it into today’s Melbourne Age Newspaper. It’s not often that Wooden Boats make it into the mainstream media. Congratulations @fjdarley_shipwrights_rigging For more info on the WYRUNA restoration watch the video link in Bio. #woodenboat #restoration #classicyacht #tumlaren @sbinder190 @tum.lare_melbourne

Check out the latest story at www.southernwoodenbo

Check out the latest story at www.southernwoodenboatsailing.com about the beautiful ex-Tasmanian cray boat the OWEN JOHN and her/his equally beautiful owner! Link in bio. #crayboat #woodenboat #sws #sailinglifestyle @twocuppedhands

Dates for Hamilton Island Race Week 2021 have just

Dates for Hamilton Island Race Week 2021 have just been announced. 21st-28th August. Last time there was a classic division was 2005 with the likes of Koomooloo (still floating) Astor (Fife Schooner S2H LH winner) and Rhodes 43 ft Fair Winds. How good would it be to have a Classic Div again in 2021. See forum at link in bio for more details #hirw #hamiltonisland #classicyacht

Today is LAUNCH DAY for the new website at SWS....

Today is LAUNCH DAY for the new website at SWS..... Click on link in bio to check it out ...and sign up for the weekly email reminder. #woodenboat #classicyacht #timberboat #sailing #sws

Thanks to the work of Peter Costolloe and the CYAA

Thanks to the work of Peter Costolloe and the CYAA, a hard copy version of the Instagram series “Australia’s 42 most Important Wooden Sailing Boats” has been published and distributed to all the members. It’s deliberately been a small run, to reward members for their loyalty, but and on line version can be found at https://online.flipbuilder.com/qdaw/rrhf (link in bio)

With Victoria finally opening up, a summer of sensational Classic Yacht sailing looks promising on Port Phillip Bay in addition to the programs already underway on Sydney Harbour, Pittwater, Moreton Bay, and the Derwent. If you’ve got a wooden boat… live for today…Get involved!

#woodenboat #classicyacht #CYAA

After a few months of enforced idleness, it looks

After a few months of enforced idleness, it looks like the restoration of “Port Phillip’s most successful keelboat” is about to get back underway again. When your 83 years old, having to wait a few extra months to get back into the water isn’t too much of a problem.
#yvonne97 #charliepeel #classicyacht #volunteer #tumlaren #woodenboat @fjdarley_shipwrights_rigging @rmalcolmd @sailingant @chris_clapp

I love this image of a Cray Boat ploughing through

I love this image of a Cray Boat ploughing through the sea provided by @tonymckenna55
I can smell the fish and the salt air!
The crew man in the background came from Port Fairy and was called Mr Eales ….Nickname??? “Slippery” of course!
Only problem is we don’t know which Cray Boat it is…
Any ideas from all you fishing boat historians out there?
@woodenboatshop @timphillips9303 @cbluntboatbuilders @crayboat @scom1246

#crayboat #woodenboat #fishingboat #slipperyeales

I’m usually very careful not to use this forum f

I’m usually very careful not to use this forum for political comment, but when I read the headline below and the article that accompanied it (click on link in Bio), I felt a tiny bit less proud to be Australian.
“AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND DENY SAFE REFUGE”

The gist of the article is this…

“With the cyclone season approaching the Southern Hemisphere on November 1, there is concern for Sailors in the region.
After last-ditch effort letters to both Prime Ministers, The Océan Cruising Club received formal rejections by both Australia and New Zealand on September 18, 2020. Unfortunately, despite many explanatory letters and emails, health officials do not appreciate most cannot sail to safe harbor in their own country, nor understand yachts need to be safely out of the cyclone zone, not at sea and seeking shelter in New Zealand (or Australia) when one occurs! The yachts in Fiji and French Polynesia and other Pacific islands must now risk tropical cyclones in locations which do not have the capacity for safe mooring or dry storage. Prudent and safe navigation is to move small yachts out of the cyclone zone before the cyclone season occurs, this takes many weeks of sailing. These yachts are the home of families and couples.”

Sometimes I feel that the Covid Pandemic has provided an excuse for bureaucrats to engage in lazy thinking…. i.e. its easier just to say “NO” than spend time working of a viable and fair solution…. In this case… Why isn't it as simple as something like…”you can sail to NZ/Aus but you’re not allowed off your boat for 14 days minus passage time and even then only with a negative covid test”....?

As an Australian sailor I apologies to any cruisers out there facing a long, hot, potentially ruinous South Pacific summer due to the insensitivity of our government.

I love a good restoration story… Arabella is spe

I love a good restoration story… Arabella is special for a few reasons, firstly she’s an early Couta Boat built by Peter Locke, one of the Queenscliff / Sorrento masters. Secondly the quality of the workmanship by Andrew Davis @coutaboatarabella looks extraordinary…. I don’t think an old fishing boat ever looked this polished…and finally because the restoration has been done away from the traditional couta boat home of Southern Victoria up the beautiful Tamar River at Clarence Point just south of low head, in Tasmania.
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She is 22ft 3in x 9ft x 3ft 3in. Kauri planked, with new celery top ribs, jarrah case, teak decks, huon pine platforms and powered by a Yanmar. All the spars and bronze fittings were supplied by @woodenboatshop in Sorrento.
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There are a few gaps in her history but what we know is this. She was built by Peter Locke. Locke had started working with Mitch Lacco in Queenscliff in 1924 and took over his business in 1926. He built Couta Boats over the next 20 years and it is during this period that Arabella would have been launched, but we are not exactly sure when.
@timphillips9303 has a picture her moored off Lentill Av, Sorrento early in her life but not much else in the way of history. I’m sure any other information would be much appreciated.

#coutaboat #woodenboat #fishingboat #sorrento @sscb #cyaa #rivertamar #tasmania

Watching long lens footage of the AC75s tracking b

Watching long lens footage of the AC75s tracking back and forward across the Hauraki Gulf reminded me of how sail handling has disappeared as a skill from the Americas Cup. Spinnaker poles are now an anachronism on any self-respecting IRC boat and so Classic Yacht Sailors find themselves with an additional responsibility. Along with preserving the vessels that give us so much pleasure we now are becoming the custodians of many of the sail handling skills that would otherwise become extinct. There is a generation of young sailors who wouldn’t know where to begin if asked to execute a dip pole gybe, trim a blooper (with the halyard!), or adjust the set of a gaff main with both throat and peak halyards.
On talk like a pirate day 2020, here are a few examples of the Melbourne CYAA fleet keeping the skills alive.
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Image 1 Mercedes III 1966 Kaufmann/Miller
Image 2 Avian 1938 Reimers Tumlaren
Image 3 Fair Winds 1956 Rhodes
Image 4 Acrospire III 1924 Charlie Peel
Image 5 Blue Jacket 1946 Reimers Stor Tumlaren
Image 6 Sayonara 1897 Fife III
Image 7 Zephyr Reimers Tumlaren
Image 8 Ettrick Reimers Tumlaren
Image 9 Boambillee 1968 Sparkman & Stephens.
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#classicyacht #woodenboat #spinnaker #sailhandling #portphillipbay #cyaa

I always feel a little conflicted when I see boats

I always feel a little conflicted when I see boats drawn by John Laurent Giles, who died 50 years ago this year.
The efficacy of his designs is beyond question. The Vertue for instance, would have a reasonable claim for the most successful ever keelboat under 30ft, and his philosophy “that a yacht should have the utmost docility and sureness of manoeuvring at sea, in good or bad weather" was without doubt realised in all his yachts. Yet occasionally the minimal overhangs and bizarre reverse sheers that he drew were just blatantly unattractive.

Olin Stephens is quoted as saying
“In any design the most important factors of speed seem to be long sailing lines and large sail area, with moderate displacement and small wetted surface. Then comes beauty, by which is meant clean, fair, pleasing lines. Though per se beauty is not a factor of speed, the easiest boats to look at seem the easiest to drive.”

Perhaps Giles proves him wrong.

Here are three examples of his designs currently sailing (or more accurately in lockdown) on Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne. I think they are some of his more handsome creations.

And the final 4 pictures are of 2 boats that hopefully make my point. They are of the successful British ocean racer GULVAIN (the first yacht made out of aluminium) and the famous Myth of Malham, twice winner of the Fastnet Race.

Pics 1&2 CORIO VERTUE.1960 Kauri on Blue Gum
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Pics 3&4 RUTHEAN 1947 Huon Pine
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Pics 5&6 WANITA Pic 7 Brittany 34
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Pic 7&8 GULVAIN
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Pic 9&10 MYTH OF MALHAM

#LaurentGiles #classicyacht #woodenboat #cyaa

Today we are looking for a delightful little boat

Today we are looking for a delightful little boat with quite a special history. ALOA was designed by AC Barber (perhaps most famous for designing the first Sydney Hobart winner RANI) and built in Berry's Bay just north of Goat Island in Sydney Harbour, possibly by Charles Pugh. She was apparently built for dentist R. Bull of Five Dock.

One of her former custodians @phijoy is keen to know that she is alive and well after not being spotted for over 20 years.

She is about 31' long , 10' beam and 6' draft and cutter rigged.
She has a raised deck from the shrouds, a trunk cabin top and a horizontal cockpit coaming & toer ails. The mainsheet is aft of the lazarette hatch. There is a chance than her name might now be spelled ALOHA

She was in the 1947 & 1948 Sydney to Hobart races. Unfortunately she didn't finish the 48' race.

The first picture in this series of her dried out on the tide was taken just before one of the two Hobart races. Right after this she left Sydney Harbour to do a trial run with another boat up to Pittwater. and on the way back to Sydney, the other boat radioed (apparently both boats had recently installed radios for the race) to tell Aloa's crew that there was a whale directly on collision course with her bow. She apparently tee-boned the whale and all were amazed that the only thing that happened structurally was that the seams cracked the newly painted hull. But other than that she was undamaged.

#classicyacht #woodenboat #acbarber #sydneyhobart #aloa #aloha

We didn’t have much luck with finding the TAHLEE

We didn’t have much luck with finding the TAHLEE, from my last post…. But it looks like it’s going to be at least another ten weeks until we are allowed to go sailing again here in Victoria so searching for old boats is a good way to pass the time.
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Here’s another little beauty that @wpc182 is on the hunt for. She’s called DOLPHIN and was built in 1933 originally as rigged as a ketch with a one cylinder engine. The year after her launch she was converted to a motor cruiser re-engined and was one of the first boats to be registered at the RMYC Port Hacking.
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She’s 31 ft long, built with spotted gum frames and kauri planking and weighs about 10 tons. She served in the Navy during WW2 and operated between Cape Banks and Stanwell Park and was fitted with depth charges and carried the white ensign as PT65.

She certainly looks to be a fine yacht, and such a great history. How good would it be to see that ketch rig reinstalled!
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There is a rumour that she may still be up around Port Stephens. The name DOLPHIN makes her hard to trace, as you get swamped with results on any search, but if anyone out thinks they might have seen a boat with those characteristic three round portholes on either side of the hull and elegantly raked raised cabin then let us know!

#classicyacht #woodenboat #porthacking #ketch

This one’s a bit of a long shot as we don’t ha

This one’s a bit of a long shot as we don’t have a lot of information but hopefully some one knows the where abouts of TAHLEE.
She’s a cutter rigged timber yacht approx 31ft built around 1935 in Sydney. Perhaps in Balmain by a shipwright called Robertson or maybe Robinson. The hull shape looks a little bit Maurice Griffiths like but the dates don’t really work.
She was fully restored at some stage. Any one got any leads…the internet is remarkably devoid of info.

#woodenboat #classicyacht #tahlee

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