This weekend sees me volunteering at the 10th Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart, Tasmania (which is home for me in the sense of my origins and family history, if not my actual location in recent years).
Held right on the Hobart waterfront every two years (and now with free entry), the festival is a delight. Sailors and yachties mix with non-sailors and non-yachties, the latter easily picked by those with a practised eye and ear. High heels, skirts, large handbags and fashion choices over practicality all mark out the seawardly inexperienced. Terminology is also troublesome for those lacking ‘sea time’. ‘Bow’ (pronounced to rhyme with cow), ‘stern’ and ‘amidships’, are effortlessly translated from ‘front’, ‘back’ and ‘middle’ by those used to the terms, while landlubbers are perpetually flummoxed at the completely foreign language assaulting their ears (I won’t even attempt to explain ‘poop deck’).
There truly is something for everyone in the 1.3km long festival area. You don’t need to have salt water running through your veins to appreciate the quality and craftsmanship that goes into these beautiful vessels, from the smallest dinghy to the largest of the tall ships. The care and attention given to these fine specimens is evident to even the most nautically unfulfilled.
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