Presidents March and April report—“Roscoe’s Ravings”

Well, not a lot has happened in the last month. I missed the last meeting because I was ‘swanning’ around in Sydney and I have also been extremely busy try-ing to make a ‘quid’ in the meantime, along with other members of our Committee.

I must apologise for the missing March SKEG but I’m sure this one will make up for it. Out trusty Secretary/Editor has been even busier than myself, travelling Australia wide for TAFE Tasmania and has not been able to do, what has to be done....if you get my drift! We do appreciate the work Peter puts in to the SKEG and we must remember to give him all the support we can, because, the SKEG keeps all members of the Guild informed of what is happening and what is going to happen.

Now, while I was in Sydney, or should I say, Pittwater (some refer to it as Summer Bay) I had the oppor-tunity to go for but yet another sail on my

mate Mick’s 28’ Couta boat, which was built at the Wooden Boat Shop in Sorrento five or six years ago, and it was an absolute blast. As

you can see by the accompanying pho-tos, I had to do all the hard work down

wind....they don’t have boom vangs you know, so you have to stop the boom from lifting, some-how....!

But, back in the real world, Tasmania, we some-times have the odd strong gust of wind....or seven!! Well, as we know Thursday 3rd we had a ripper....93 knots, something like 175 kph from the north - nor west. I received a phone call from Pe-ter on my way to work the next morning telling me that the Terra Linna had been blown off its ‘blocks’, more about this later in this edition, and then not more than half an hour later I had a colleague phone me, and even more later, to me that Maori Lass had broken her mooring during the early hours of the morning and was on the ‘bricks’. Barb Murphy, who lives across the road couldn’t see Maori Lass on her mooring and thought that I’d been very clever to move her be-fore the storm. It wasn’t until later Barb saw her on the sand and informed me. I was absolutely dev-astated; our ‘friend’ of over 15 years was in deep ka ka! I just hoped that the insurance was paid up and was going to cover what I expected to be the

worst.

Several phone calls later, my mates Terry, Roger and the salvage guy, Tony had the situation under

control and she was to be floated/towed off later that afternoon as the tide came in. Would you be-lieve there was very little damage, I had expected the worst. Most of the shoreline round How-

Editor: Peter Higgs Volume 11 Number 8/9 13th March & April 2008

Apologies for being so late with

this Easter message!

Photo by R

oscoe, how does he do it? Roscoe enjoying Summer Bay

Roscoe sailing the Couta Boat

Photo by R

oscoe P

hoto by Roscoe

Maori Lass on the bricks!

Photo R

oscoe and Cheryl

Maori Lass off her mooring!

Photo R

oscoe and Cheryl

Photo R

oscoe and Cheryl

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den, where she is moored, is rocky and oyster en-crusted, but, in her wisdom, and only as a wooden boat would, she decided to go aground on one of the few sandy areas available.

She is now at the RYCT about to have the small amount of damage attended to by a shipwright, and her mooring is going to be rearranged very consid-erably so as we don’t have a repeat performance. Just as a matter of interest, the top end of her moor-ing is, or was, ¾” nylon 3 strand rope, this either chafed on the bow roller due to the ‘hobby horsing’ in the exceptionally strong winds, which I doubt, or, jumped out of the bow roller and chafed on the toe rail. We will never know....

Daylight savings may be over for this year but we have plenty of autumn and winter outings on our 2008 calendar, so I look forward to seeing you at some of them, as well as our monthly meetings and special (check the calendar) Terra Linna working bees at the Halls in Bellerive.

No Cheryl....I wouldn’t go down to the work shop after dinner to work on the new dinghy, it’s too cold....

(....has anyone got a small pot belly stove for sale??)

Roscoe

Duckpond “Clean Up Australia Weekend”

See http://events.cleanup.org.au/?The+Duck+Pond and many thanks to Cheryl Barnett for persevering with the Kingborough Council to ensure them we were a registered site and getting them to eventu-ally provide our clean up equipment and kit.

Well what a great weekend! Dallas and I caught the Ferry down and whilst having a coffee and tea in the Kettering Café we noticed Noel, Noelene and Graeme and Judy motor out in Farewell. When we got to the Duckpond to set up camp we discovered that the site was occupied by a group in a tent (3 tents actually) and in this group they had their pet pig. Yes you read right they had their pet pig. The

pig was quickly named Yum Yum which did not impress the pigs owners when they enquired as to the reason. Of course it meant that Yum Yum would make a great break-fast. When all said and done not a bad thought

given the rampage and mess Yum Yum caused in the camp.

Also in the site were the Rudd family, Peter and Sue, in their Winebago known as Rudderless.

Quite a sizable unit and decked out with all the mod con particularly communication gear. Sue and Peter had been on the road for 7 years and originated from Queensland. Peter’s brother Alan was there also in his Toyota ute with his slide off outfit and rubber ducky. They were a great group to spend a few days with.

We eventually settled on our site and started the set up process. Just as we got underway Lynn and Gra-hame Dudg-eon arrived and informed us they had arrived at the Duckpond after catching the 9.30 Ferry and were surprised not to see any members of the WBGT there. Apologies Lynn and Grahame if we gave you a false start time. After a while they decided to go for a drive into Adventure Bay and after returning sat down and enjoyed their lunch as we chattered about who was arriving in the Duckpond and what craft they were on.

It was not long before the boats started arriving.

Yum Yum in the camp

Photo by P

eter Higgs

Yum Yum caught out in the camp

Photo by P

eter Higgs

The Camp Site

Photo by P

eter Higgs

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aboard to assist her with the anchor. Ironically Barb was unaware of his earlier feats but of course he more than ably helped Barb set Whimbrel’s anchor like an old salt. Just before this Jim received a call from John and Victoria Bishop to get the combination to Jims shed/house because somehow his tender for Solveig was inoperable. A few hours later John and Victoria anchored Solveig with a beautiful rubber ducky tender owned by Jim and Caroline in tow.

That was our lot until first light when Rob and Jo Nolan arrived in their Norwalk Sharpie which they had sailed to Snug the evening before to attend Jo’s sis-ters birthday celebrations.

Other shore travellers included Ros and Ainesley Smith who B&B’d at Lunawanna in southern Bruny Island and Cherelle Gadge and Robin Singleton who could not get down before Sunday as Cherelle was playing in the Tasmania Symphony Orchestra’s Sym-phony under the Stars in Launceston. What an effort to bus back from Launceston after the show Saturday night and still get to the Duckpond on Sunday! Well done!

Saturday evening saw the traditional Bar B Q with all those aboard boats making it to shore for the event. Sue and Peter Rudd were most amazed at the ele-gance with which members returned and boarded

Farewell was the first to arrive with Teepookana in tow as well as Farewell’s tender. Almost at the same time Jim and Caroline Tayton arrived aboard the Huon Pine tug Victory and Roscoe arrived in Maori Lass (remember this is a two month edition so some things will be out of synch.). It was inter-esting to watch Jim set Victory’s anchor. In it went

and then to ensure it had taken Jim whacked her in reverse only to com-pletely dis-lodge the anchor. Ob-serving this Grahame

Dudgeon was convinced, even with the aid of bin-oculars, that it was not Jim as the chap at the an-chor windlass looked too old for Jim and besides his hair was too long!

Next time he knew he did not have to reverse as hard. Soon after this Graeme Hunt rowed Teepo-kana in for the shore bound members and Jim shuttled him back to Farewell in the commuter tin-nie he and Caroline towed over.

It was not long before Barb very ably navi-gated her way into the Duckpond in Whimbrel. Jim went

Members boats at anchor in the Duckpond, dawn Sunday—photo by Peter Higgs

Barb checking that Whimbrell is safe at an-chor

Photo P

eter Higgs

Farewell at anchor in the Duckpond

Photo P

eter Higgs

Victory the 60ft Huon Pine Tug entrusted to Jim and Caroline Tayton

Photo by P

eter Higgs

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their vessels given the lack of light and the weather of crew! Members, wives and partners all contributed to a great array of cuisine and enjoyable liquid refreshments, enjoyed by all. In the morning the traditional breakfast of egg and bacon

on the barbie was also well received prior to our clean up.

The clean up got under way and although the site looked cleaner than usual we still collected over 28 bags of rubbish and a variety of camp mattresses, bed frames and vari-ous car parts,

steel drums and buckets. Star of the cleanup Duck-pond was Judy Hunt who cleaned the verges of Missionary Road from the Duckpond to Barnes Bay. A journey of some 3.5 kms, well done Judy. There were no incidents of danger apart from the Camp Leader cutting one finger badly on broken glass at one of the camp sites. The weather was beautiful and all enjoyed tea coffee and lunch of sorts before departing.

Dallas and I camped on until Wednesday which was most enjoy-able. We went down to Jetty Beach, on South Bruny and caught a

good feed of flatties as well as enjoying the scen-ery and one of our favourite past times, photogra-phy. We also enquired about the Bruny Island Wildlife Eco Charters for a cruise after next years Duckpond visit, see www.brunycharters.com.au .

The disappointing part about camping on was that the Council did not collect the rubbish until Wednesday afternoon after 3 phone calls and again claiming they were not aware of the WBGT Inc. Cleanup Australia Day event in the Duckpond on Bruny Island.

Secretary’s and Terra Linna report Firstly apologies for this Skeg being late and it be-ing a double issue but it is the result of compound-ing problems. Thanks Roscoe for your comments. Just a little info that may clarify the situation. Janu-ary, February and March are busy work times for me due to many TAFE research and project pro-posals I am responsible for submitting. This was compounded by shifting of the Terra Linna and moving into a new project phase including a sub-mission to Tasmania Community Fund to support the project. We have requested some $50,000 for the project. At the same time TAFE decided I needed a new computer which is always compli-cated. The change over took over 4 weeks and during that time all my files, including WBGT, were lost and subsequently recovered 3 times. As well my AWBF commitments have increased with the setting up of their office net work. It has been an exciting time!

Any how things seem like they might be back to normal so here is hoping.

As mentioned we have made a submission for Tasmania Community Funds for the project. We have shifted the Terra Linna and set her up at Noel and Noelene’s in Bellerive. Work had been pro-gressing until the recent backlash from the WA Cy-clone hit Tassie and the Terra Linna was blown off her blocks. What a blow! Any how many members responded and the fol-lowing week-end she was back on her blocks.

In the mean time Noel and his team of

Photo P

eter Higgs

The Pres. Roscoe doing his bit

Photo P

eter Higgs

Noelene Hall Cleaning Up

Photo P

eter Higgs

The Clean Up crew and their collection Terra Linna off her blocks

Photo by N

oelene Hall

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General Meetings are on the 3rd Monday of each month, inc. public holidays, but

not in the month of January.

The next general meeting of the Wooden Boat Guild of Tasmania Inc. will be held at

the Mariners’ Cottage,

Napoleon Street, Battery Point commencing at 7.30 pm

Monday 21ts April 2008

There will be a committee meeting held prior to the meeting commencing at 6.00pm

Guest Speaker/s, 21st February 2008 Rob Nolan will be presenting on Sardinia

wooden boats Needed;

1. Skeg articles by the 2nd Monday of each month.

2. Skeg photographs by the 1st Monday of each month.

3. Speaker/demonstration ( it can be a demonstra-tion of a wooden boat building activity or prob-lem) for next month.

4.

Try this link to our Web site to check our next function and the weather!

http://www.maritimetas.org/taswoodenboatguild/

Officers of the Guild contact list President Ross Barnett Home 6227 1720 or

mobile 0438 300 229

Sen.Vice President Graeme Hunt 03 62278652

Vice President David Barnes 03 62441302

Secretary Peter Higgs 03 62491695

Treasurer Brian Marriott 0419877684

Flag Officers Peter Higgs & Brian Marriott

Mess Officers Cherelle Gadge & Robin Singleton

03 62439033

Committee David Gatenby 0428391432

Jim Tayton 03 62674051

Noel Hall 03 62445583

Calendar 2008 • WBGT General meeting 21/4/2008 7.30pm—

6.00pm Com mtg

• Green Island (Cremorne) rowing day & big boats welcome 27/4/2008. Includes tour of Oyster farm. Trip Leader Rolly 0408243883

• Terra Linna Working Bee 10.am 10/5/08

• WBGT General meeting 19/5/2008 7.30pm—6.00pm Com mtg

• Wooden Boat Centre visit & rowing day 25/5/2008—Trip Leader hopefully Grahame Dudgeon

• Terra Linna Working Bee 10.am 8/6/08

• WBGT General meeting 16/6/2008 7.30pm—6.00pm Com mtg

• Trial Bay rowing day 22/6/2008—Trip Leader Jim Tayton

• Terra Linna Working Bee 10.am 13/7/08

• WBGT General meeting 21/7/2008 7.30pm—6.00pm Com mtg

• New Norfolk Rowing Day 24/7/2008 Trip Leader Peter Higgs—There is another New Norfolk rowing day we have been invited to earlier in the year. More info to come.

Trip Leaders responsibilities; the Trip Leader is to con-firm meeting paces and times (including maps) for the Skeg edition prior to the event. Skeg closing time is 2nd Monday for text and 1st Monday for photos every month. Following the event the Trip Leader is to pro-vide a short story and up to 12 photos, sized appropri-ately, of the event for inclusion in the following Skeg.

Members wishing to submit photos: All members photos are most welcome as contributions for the Skeg or other publications. For the Skeg members are asked to restrict their submissions to 6 in total per month and to have resized the photos to the following specs.

400 Pixels wide X 300 Pixels high, or

5.7 cm wide X 4.2 cm high, with a resolution of

180—250 pixels per inch

If yo can not size a photo your system probably has a function that enables you to save it for email. This is also probably quite a good solution.

See last pages for Sunday 27/4/2008 Rowing Day at Green Island.

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Des and David have been strip-ping out some com-ponents and drawing up moulds. Through the

help of other members (Eric B) timber pallets and ply were sourced from Incat and this has provided the stock to make the moulds. Well done Noel, Des, David and Eric!

Then under the guidance of Graeme Hunt an-other working bee has been held to erect a tem-porary structure that will be clad with shade house plastic and shade cloth to provide a cov-ered work site. Poles for the structure have been kindly provided by Ainesley and Ros Smith. Thanks Aines and Ros, much appreci-ated

For members comfort we have, through Ainesley Smith, had a donation of a Hobart PCYC Bar B Q and through David Barnes an Urn has been procured so that when we have Working Bees members can have a cuppa and a bar b q lunch. Well done Aiensley and David.

So work is progressing and we seem to be fi-nally getting the real work of restoring the Terra Linna under way.

Many thanks to all concerned.

On the AWBF just a reminder to members that entries have opened and you can get your boats entered by going to the AWBF web site. See www.australianwoodenboatfestival.com.au

“Wooden’ Miss This For Quids!”

The 2008 Whyte Just & Moore, Geelong Wooden Boat Festival!

Graeme Hunt and Peter Higgs did attend this both representing the Australian Wooden Boat Festival, who funded the ferry costs, and the Wooden Boat Guild of Tasmania.

What a great wooden boat festival. Although time consuming we made a lot of new friends in

the Geelong Royal Yacht Club. The Teepookana was quite a hit and we entered her in the Row Past and came out winners with a bottle of red being our prize.

We met up with some past participants in the Austra-lian Wooden Boat Festival. More about this later. We handed out many invites to the Australian Wooden Boat Festival and answered many questions about Pin-ers Punts, Huon Pine and wooden boat building in Tas-mania.

One key event at the Geelong Festival was a presentation made by Hal Sisk, an Irish yachting devotee who has restored his beautiful yacht Peggy Bawn. Peggy Bawn is a G.L. Watson design built by John Hilditch in Carrickfergus, Ireland. She was built in 1894 so will just about match our Terra Linna but they are completely different yachts.

Hal now sails her in the Celtic waters, Mediterranean Regattas and intends sailing her to the USA for major

wooden boat and classic boat regattas.

We hope that we may be able to get Hal to talk at the AWBF in 2009 but we do have some footage of his presentation at the Gee-

long Wooden Boat Festival that we will present one night at the WBGT General Meeting.

If you would like to know more about Peggy Bawn go to www.peggybawn.net .

In future Skegs I may bore you with some further Higgs Boat Builders history un-covered in Geelong. Particularly about an oar making machine invented by the Geelong Higgs family to meet WW2 American orders of thousands of oars to meet

Graeme Hunt sailing a WBA Vic boat at Gee-long

Photo P

eter Higgs

Austarlian Rope Makers at Geelong and com-ing to the 2009 AWBF

Photo by P

eter Higgs

The Eastern Shore Boys building moulds

Photo by N

oelene Hall

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the American Marine requirements.

Last months (oops!) Februaries quiz The person in question was non other than Bill Fos-ter. Hope you are feeling a bit better Bill? And the yacht was the Westward. It came from an article Jan. 1949 Seacraft magazine provided by Roscoe.

An excerpt from the magazine reads “The yacht Westward , which was the winner of Div 2 after coming from astern of the leading group but her windward work from then on gained her a second handicap victory.

Some Graeme Hunt Photos Barnes Bay 2008

Geelong

Bill Foster top centre. Photo from Jan. Seacraft 1949

Westward finishing in the 1949 Sydney Hobart. Photo from 1949n Seacraft

Cloudy Bay, Bruny Island near Jetty Beach. Photo Peter Higgs

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Dear Guild Member, just a few notes on the “Green Island” rowing day. The rowing day has come about as a result of my being chronically infected with the disease W.B.B. (Wooden Boat Bug). It is a disease I liken to Ross River Fever, it strikes from nowhere and I doubt any one is ever cured.

Wherever we go my 6 years old son will see boats worth many thousands of dollars and say “Dad that ones no good it’s not wooden”. I fear at a young age he has also succumbed to W.B.B.

“Green Island” is the name of our property, which has been farmed by my family for five genera-tions. Situated at Sandford, and lays opposite Cremorne, is surrounded by Fredrick Henry Bay to the east and the shallow waters of Pipe Clay Lagoon. A water way now made famous by my fa-ther for the growing of Pacific Oysters for the past forty years.

The farm in its original state was some 640 acres, which was taken up by my great grandfather in the 1800’s, is surrounded by water all but the relatively narrow neck between Pipe Clay Lagoon and Clifton Beach, hence the naming of “Island” and I am sure in the early days it was sum what greener than it is today.

On the lower reaches of the farm is a point at sea level once adorned with apple, pear and apri-cot orchards. It is here that my partner Kate, son Rupert and myself have a modest boatshed come shack. We spend a lot of time here, having our own farm at Campania, where there is little water for wooden boats.

We wish to make available to Guild members and friends this water way, private beach and idyllic setting on the 27th of April. So bring your wooden boat, kayak, surfboard or hollow log and have some fun. The program for the day is a guide only, and it is up to the members to please them-selves what they do, paddle around, watch pleasure craft come and go or just on the foreshore and talk wooden boats.

Members are more than welcome if they wish to come and camp on Friday or Saturday nights. There is ample room for caravans, camper vans or tents or indeed swags under the stars. There has never been any Tassie Devils on “Green Island” and to date no foxes!!

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If you wish to bring a large boat into Pipe Clay Lagoon, you will need a tender (wooden of course) to get from channel anchorage to the shack (shallow draft).

If you are coming down via horseless carriage then you need to read the map enclosed, but basi-cally once you get to Bicheno Street off Clifton Beach Road proceed around edge of the bay until you get to several colour bond oyster sheds on your right. Continue on where you will be guided to the shack by a series of red arrows.

The following is a list of what we can provide to members on the day;

I will dress a lamb for chops on the BBQ, the BBQ of course, tables, chairs, beach umbrellas, soft drinks, plates, cups, cutlery, coffee, tea, sugar, milk, large tent for added shelter.

For members who require alternate meat or beverages, then please bring your own. It would also be appreciated if members could supply a bowl of salad to share at lunch. Schedule for the day (Guide Only) 9.30am Gather and morning cuppa at “Green Island” Shack. 10am Boats in the water 10am-12 noon Paddling in the Pipe Clay Lagoon, there are some quite interesting boats to see moored in the channel. 12noon-1.30pm Lunch at the shack 1.30pm Re enter the water and row across lagoon to tour oyster hatchery. Those that don’t go by boat can walk to hatchery via beach. 2pm-3pm Tour oyster hatchery 3pm Return to shack, load boats, coffee and reflect on the day – head home Kate, Rupert and I are really looking forward to guild members and friends coming down and spending the day with us at a truly lovely piece of Tasmania’s coast line. In fact we feel it is so close, its only a local call to heaven. Roly Calvert To get there see map over

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