Letter from the Chairman – April 2018

The City of Sydney is a place very fondly regarded by many Australians, particularly it’s magnificent harbour.  It is a very fitting place for the Classic and Wooden Boat Festival, which was held recently at Cockle Bay, and organised by the Australian National Maritime Museum. We at Australian Wooden Boat Festival Inc have enjoyed a very long and rewarding relationship with the Australian National Maritime Museum, and we were very pleased to be able to support the event, and whilst there, publicise our own MyState Australian Wooden Boat Festival, in Hobart.  Regrettably, I was not able to make the trip, but by all accounts, our general manager Paul Cullen, board member Geoff Pickard with partner Sue, and members Roscoe and Cheryl Barnett and Mike Ponsonby had a thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding time.  They were very flattered by the interest in our own event, and I should record our thanks to the Australian National Maritime Museum for its support, and making a space available for us during the course of their Festival.

I would like to thank those who represented us in Sydney, for their efforts; and to congratulate the Australian National Maritime Museum in conducting a wonderful event!

Early indications are that we are going to enjoy a strong level of support from interstate and in particular from Sydney and surrounds, with many Sydneysiders not only bringing their own wooden boats to our event, but coming to enjoy it.  We look forward to seeing you all!  Further, we hope to have a number of square rigged ships come and enjoy the fun at our festival; we love having them here, and they make such a marvellous spectacle whilst sailing up the River Derwent to join us, at the opening Parade of Sail.

Readers will note that expressions of interest are now open for those who want to display their vessels on water during the Festival.  I would urge all those interested to lodge their expressions of interest as soon as possible.  We would dearly love to be able to accommodate everybody who wanted to bring their wooden boat to our Festival, but history shows that we will have far more boats than we have available space, but we will, as usual, do our very best to accommodate as many beautiful wooden boats as possible.

Steve Knight

Chairman AWBF