Historic timber boats back in vogue

The latest festival is this weekend’s Paynesville Classic Boat Rally, a three-day celebration of older motor cruisers and sailboats held on Eastern Victoria’s Gippsland Lakes.

The rally is open to all boats older than 25 years but includes a number of key craft including the Coral Trekker, several World War II-era Australian Works Boats built by Holden in Adelaide and Melbourne, and four St Ayles skiffs that are so dedicated to the event that their crews are rowing to the event from the Port of Sale more than 40 kilometres away.

The Gippsland Lakes region also recently welcomed back the 50-foot Metung, a five-times Sydney to Hobart contender designed by famed Sydney naval architect Alan Payne and built at Metung in 1956 by shipwrights C.J. Bull.

The Metung has even circumnavigated the world. The boat is currently out of the water ahead of an extensive restoration.

The renewed interest in older wooden boats has led to growing following at other older boat festivals throughout Australia, including Geelong, Hobart and even Sydney.

Some of the boats come with a deep pedigree.

Two huon pine timber boats with a deep cultural link to Australia include the

Oomoobah has her own distinct history. The Morrison and Sinclair-built motor cruiser was commissioned by the Arnott family – the same one that built the Australian biscuit empire.

“Both of these boats are collector’s items and we are seeing unprecedented levels of interest from the market,” said the broker handling the sale of the craft, D’Albora Marine's Simon Payne said.

“Like most things, when these boats come on the market we see high levels of interest as the timber boat community know these boats, and there’s strong demand out there for them,” Payne said.

“Oomoobah, like Windward II, is steeped in history – not only being built for the Arnott’s family but she also hosted [US] General [Douglas] MacArthur on her in Papua New Guinea where he dined and strategised for an afternoon plotting his next move in World War II,” Payne explained.

Some of the links to the older wooden boats run much deeper than just nostalgia. Bill Barry-Cotter, the owner of Queensland-based luxury motor yacht maker Maritimo, spent several years resorting his family boat, the 32-foot Katwinchar, after discovering it in poor condition in an online ad after a decade-long search.

The 114-year-old ketch won its class in last year’s 75th Sydney to Hobart yacht race, even though it was both the oldest boat to enter, and the oldest boat to ever compete in the gruelling passage race.

It’s time? Four days, six hours, 27 minutes and 47 seconds.

“It’s something that I thought I’d never get the opportunity to do so I thought it was absolutely wonderful,” Barry-Cotter said.