AUSTRALIAN WOODEN BOAT FESTIVAL LAUNCHES ACROSS THE PACIFIC
A Big Plug Today For The Biggest & Best Wooden Boating Event In The World – I encourage anyone with an interest in classic wooden boating to make this a bucket list item. Link below to a peek back at the 2021 Festival to give you a taste. https://waitematawoodys.com/2023/02/12/woodys-on-tour-hobart-australian-wooden-boat-festival-day-3/
The Australian Wooden Boat Festival (AWBF) is excited to launch its 2025 Festival Program, proudly presenting “The Pacific” as its central theme. The festival will showcase this vast ocean region’s cultural and historical significance, featuring content from New Zealand, Hawaii, Tahiti, New Caledonia, Japan, the US West Coast and other Pacific locales.
Tasmania’s largest free event and the largest celebration of wooden boats and maritime culture in the Southern Hemisphere will be held 7–10 February 2025. Over four days, Hobart’s waterfront will reach its fullest potential and become a place of pilgrimage for 400+ boats and tens of thousands of visitors from across Australia and the world.
Highlights of the 2025 Pacific-themed program include the Pacific Seafarers Precinct presenting navigators, artists, curators, and maritime artisans who embody the ancient and ongoing traditions of the region, feature vessels such as the recently restored 1896 New Zealand built yacht Te Uira—one of the first racing yachts to make it to Australia—and the Australian debut of the Kumundar Gujo Project, a giant Japanese-inspired jungle gym that kids build themselves.
AWBF General Manager and Festival Director Paul Stephanus said, “The AWBF is a celebration of our collective heritage. The 2025 theme allows us to explore our connection with the Pacific like never before, bringing visitors face-to-face with historic vessels and remarkable people from across the ocean. We hope to create a festival experience that feels both grand in its spectacle and intimate in its sense of community.”
Festival favourites are back but with a Pacific twist. The ever-popular Wooden Boat Symposium will dive deep into stories of (mis)adventure and tackle hot-button issues, the Shipwrights Village and Noisy Boatyard will deliver demonstrations and workshops by master craftspeople, and the bustling Maritime Marketplace will offer unique wares. The Little Sailors Village and Constitution Dock will engage young hearts and minds with activities for all ages, culminating in the thrilling Quick & Dirty Boatbuilding Challenge and Race.
The 2025 AWBF program is available online now at awbf2025.org.au/.
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Hi Alan,
The painting used to promote the Festival is one of mine.
Info follows:
The Moutohora waka unua sails with the Endeavour, November 2nd, 1769.
Oil on linen canvas
400mm x 600mm
Copyright A. D. Blake, 2024. All rights reserved.
The painting depicts the Moutohora waka unua sailing in close company with the Endeavour, with Moutohora Island( Whale Island) in the background. Moutohora island is approximately 6 km off the coast of Wakatane on the East coast of the North Island.
Both vessels sailed together for over an hour with Tupia, on board Endeavour, talking with crew of the Moutohora waka unua.
The painting shows the Moutohora waka unua leaving the Endeavour with crew brandishing paddles, taiaha and patu.
The Moutohora waka unua was sketched sailing on November 2nd, 1769, by Herman Spoering, a 35 year old draughtsman of natural history and personal secretary to Joseph Banks, on board the Endeavour.
The Moutohora waka unua paddled around the Endeavour while anchored on the evening of November 1st, 1769, at Moutohora Island.
The sail of the Moutohora waka unua was made of woven flax panels. A zig zag pattern was woven in each panel with sections of the zig zag weaving allowing the light to show through. This panel arrangement and see through quality can be seen in Spoering’s very accurate sketch.
The Moutohora waka unua’s sail seems very close in construction and detail to the sail known as Te Ra.
Te Ra is the only known Maori customary sail in existence and has been in storage at the British Museum for over 200 years. A replica of Te Ra has recently been made by a group of dedicated weavers who are part of Te Ringa Rau Pa.
According to estimates, the Moutohora waka unua consisted of an 18 metre long Waka Tua lashed approximately 300mm apart from a smaller canoe. The sail was lashed to two spars, which were supported by forestays and backstays. The sail was approximately 9m high. It was not triangular but had a width of approximately 1m at the base.
In the painting the lengths of the two backstays are being changed by crew members, to give a better sail shape.
Also crew members can be seen bailing water out of the smaller canoe. Being lower to the water than the larger waka tua some waves would splash over the gunwales. The 10 knot wind in the painting is from astern, thus enabling the Moutohora waka unua to sail, with swells, from the starboard quarter, lifting the bows.
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