We are currently putting the finishing touches on our submission for the Tasmanian Tourism Awards, due to be announced in November of this year.  The awards are hotly contested and competition is fierce, with winners in the Tasmanian awards progressing to the Qantas Australian Tourism Awards where they will receive national recognition. The nomination process […]

After nine years and four MyState Bank Australian Wooden Boat Festivals, our General Manager, Paul Cullen, has advised the Board of the Australian Wooden Boat Festival that he intends to step down at the end of this year. Paul’s achievements have been extraordinary, and he has contributed very greatly to the success not only of […]

Our friends at Off Centre Harbour just can’t stop making great short films here in Australia.  Their latest is a cracker: Live Well, The Cruising Smack STORM BAY with Tim Philips Storm Bay is a regular at the MyState Bank Australian Wooden Boat Festival, of course, and earlier this year put on a turn of speed […]

At each MyState Bank Australian Wooden Boat Festival, we focus on a country with a strong maritime tradition and a long heritage of building wooden boats.  In the past we have welcomed visitors from Indonesia, Japan, The Netherlands, Denmark and most recently, the United States.  In each case, we have sought out the most talented […]

Our globe-trotting Dockmaster, Ross Barnett, and his lovely wife Cheryl, have just returned from a wide-ranging sweep across the USA, from the East Coast to the West.  We caught up with them for an account of their visit to some of the most important wooden boat locations in North America. My wife and I have […]

Story and pictures courtesy of Lindon Haigh Riawe’s story is embedded in Tasmanian maritime history, originally designed and built by Ned Jack at Trevallyn in 1912. Now, 107 years on, no major restoration, refit or rebuild has been necessary. She is essentially the same sturdy wooden boat Jack built, given her continuous use and maintenance in maritime survey as […]

The 2019 MyState Bank Australian Wooden Boat welcomed more than half (53%) of its audience from interstate and overseas.  These people were our guests for an amazing long weekend of Tassie hospitality and good times.  When we sent out a post-festival survey to 1,750 email addresses, we asked the question: What did you like best […]

You will hear many commentators say that the world, especially the on-line world, is losing the attention span required to read text and that all we really want to do is look at pictures. That may or may not be true, but in any case we are fortunate to have a huge well of photographic […]