2017 Articles

Port Phillip is home to some remarkable life, and some spectacular wrecks. 

This month’s guest speaker is WBA member Peter Batchelor, who will be talking about, and showing you, something of what you may meet if you go diving in the Bay.

Come along and enjoy some of the photos and videos taken by Peter and his family on dives at various locations around the Bay.

 Where?   At the Albert Park Yacht Club clubrooms, Albert Park Lake, Melbourne.     Light supper provided

Hi there again,

What with last month’s Rye sailing day and this month at the Barwon River, we’ve been to a few interesting places recently - the Barwon became fairly shallow toward Lake Connewarre but we all managed to return!

The same weekend as the Barwon River trip, I visited the Queenscliffe Maritime Museum‘s “Fishy Tales” night. For those that haven’t been to a ‘Fishy Tales’ it is a relaxed night with speakers on various maritime subjects while sipping on a wine. This time there were speakers from HMVS Cerberus Preservation Society, Alma Doepel and a boatbuilder who started at Queenscliff and ran a large boat building workshop at Beachport South Australia.

This month’s club night coincides with the South Australian Wooden Boat Festival, so our next club night is in May which will be a presentation from Float a Boat. We hope to get a good turnout for this and we have invited our friends at the APYC to join us.

The St Ayles skiff group in Williamstown are at present doing the early stages of their construction. I visited them at their shed at Seaworks and it was generally a ‘hive of activity’ with everyone cutting out and trimming the stages for the mould. The WBA supports the group and we were able to assist with a community reference for funding to get a trailer which will aid them (when they have finished) to get to the class races.

On the June club night, we have invited the St Ayles group to visit us and tell us about their aims for the future.

I am off to the South Australian Wooden Boat Festival but visiting a few places along the coast on the way, also visit friends along the Murray on my way back.

I hope to see you in the future.

Andrew Campbell

There were over 50 boats entered in the regatta this year, about a dozen more than last year. The increase in numbers shows the word is spreading about the great venue, hospitality and variety of historic boats to be seen at the Inverloch regatta. Perfect weather for all three days made it a magnificent weekend to be on the water.

The regatta opened with a cruise across the inlet to Point Smyth on Thursday (Australia Day). To see the whole fleet lined up along the beach over at the point was spectacular. Walking from boat to boat, recognizing the designs and looking at the details of the rigs and gear, I realized that this year we have a real representation of the sailing scene of 30 or 40 years ago.

On Friday morning the boats were displayed on the beach for judging and as Chair of the judging panel I had a challenging task assessing the finer points of construction, restoration, rigs and fittings. I was joined on the panel by sailmaker Mark Rimington, professional boatbuilder Reuben Kent, SGYC race officer Lyn Leppin and Past SGYC Commodore Ian Jones. Their combined knowledge and experience helped us assess all aspects of the boats.

We spent over three hours moving from one boat to another, listening to the owner’s stories of how they found the boat and what they had done to restore it and get it to the regatta. Deciding the winners of the four category awards plus the special awards for Gwen 12s and Sailfish took some careful evaluation of the short listed contenders but we reached agreement in time for lunch!

Friday afternoon at 2pm was the scheduled start time for the regatta race. There were three starts. The fast boats started on the 2pm gun and the Sailfish started 3 minutes later, with the slower boats starting three minutes after that. At least that was the plan. Precise timekeeping may not be the most salient virtue of wooden dinghy sailors. Despite a well conducted start procedure on the committee boat, there was a degree of confusion about the start times out on the water and many boats started a bit late, including myself. Nevertheless it made a great spectacle for the crowds lining the shore.

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Well we are back from the holiday celebrations and back into all things boat related.

With some events already under the belt for the year being the Classic Wooden Boat rally at Paynesville 21-22 Jan (well done Peter Medling) and the informal sailing day at APYC on the 22nd as well.

The next week saw the Inverloch Classic Sail Boat Rally featuring on water events and displays at the Community Centre of boats, photographs of local maritime events and models. On water, there were a number of Sailfish and Moths and all manner of other sail boats with a total of around 50 (well done Leigh McNolty).

The Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart is almost upon us with a few members planning on the trip over including myself, which I’m sure will be written up in a future ‘Shavings’.

In the coming months there will be the Rye club day (I am OOD), a club night get together for a meal in March and a Barwon River club day. Anyway, stay tuned to ‘Shavings’ for the details.

That’s all for now.                                                                   

Andrew Campbell

Well here we are again, already into the New Year, 2017.     I trust you all had a happy and safe Christmas and New Year break. 

What a great get together was missed by those who couldn’t attend our Christmas lunch at the Albert Park Yacht Club.    The 30 plus who attended made little impact on the feast provided by the Club and the dedicated cooks from each family – I suspect many a trade was made of the left-overs. 

Apart from meal, a few enjoyed the chance to have a pre-lunch sail, and Jim made more tests of the trim and seating in his new rowing skiff. 

It was another busy and varied year in the WBA with: 

• Visits to Seaworks, seeing the Tenacious entry to Williamstown, tool sharpening at Geoff Divco‘s workshop, one pot cooking, St Ayles skiff visit

• Talks from David McCubbin and Dr. Chris Davey

• Sailing days

• WBA boat trips Paynesville Classic Boats, Geelong Wooden Boat Festival, Maribrynong River trip with the St Ayles skiff, Weekend away to Paynesville and day on the Werribee River  

I thank the Committee and others for organising these events. 

Of course our last meeting of the year wouldn’t have been complete without the presentation of the awards for 2016. 

The Broken Oar Award had attracted many contenders with competition hotting up for this coveted award. Contenders included David O’Dempseys’ unexpected and unnecessary inspection of the underside of the hull of his doracle while it was afloat in Albert Park Lake. There was also someone who when travelling under the bridges on the Maribyrnong believed his deckie when she said the mast would fit under the bridge beam only to hit the bridge. But the winner of this year’s award goes to the person who lead us up the Mitchell River only to get comprehensively snagged in the middle of the river where his boat was rocked about his midships like a see saw. The winner of the broken oar award is therefore David Stott.

This year the committee decided on an additional special award to go to a true stalwart of the WBA.   (More and pictures follow-)

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