TIMBER FROM
AUSTRALIA
Above: Celery top
pine
CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2019 65A guide to the remarkable boatbuilding
hardwoods and pines of Australia
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS NIGEL SHARPA
t the time Europeans began to
discover, then colonise,
New Zealand,
Tasmania and
mainland Australia,
these islands were blessed with
huge quantities of native timbers
of various species, many of
which were highly suitable for
boatbuilding. Indeed, the British
were attracted to Tasmania not
only for its suitability as a penal
settlement, but also for its rich
source of timber, much of which
was exported to the mother
country. But, almost without
exception, these boatbuilding species
are now very rare and extremely hard
to obtain. Many of them are no longer
commercially harvested, and for
boatbuilders to obtain them they often have
to rely on a certain amount of luck: by
stumbling across timber which is being recycled,
for instance, or by finding some that is being hoarded
by someone waiting to find a worthwhile use for it.
On Australia’s mainland there have been a number of
timbers suitable for boatbuilding. Australian red cedar
grew in Queensland and the northern part of New South
Wales but is almost impossible to get now, although it
was readily available when Ian Smith, president of the
Australian Historical Sailing Skiff Association, used it to
build his Sydney Harbour 18-footer replica Britannia in- “It is distantly related to mahogany but lighter and
more durable,” he told me. “Just about every open boat
in Sydney was built of it.”
Silver ash is also from Queensland. It glues and
steams well, and can provide a pleasing contrast with red
cedar planking when used for ribs, gunwales and keels in
small dinghies. Queensland white beech has “a beautiful
silver colour,” according to Andrew Denman (President
of the Tasmanian Special Timbers Alliance) and a very
high oil content which makes it difficult to glue but
suitable for laid decks. His company Denman Marine
recently built a 32ft powerboat for a client who had had
previous boats with beech decks and was
keen that his new boat should too.
“After a six-month search Australia-
wide, we found some fifteen
minutes down the road,” said
Andrew. “A man had bought a
whole pile of it from an old
Melbourne cabinetmaker who
had it left over from a contract
to build the new Australian
Parliament house.”
Hoop pine is a dense
softwood from South
Queensland that has been used
for hull building in the past, but
almost all of the hoop pine now
produced is plantation-grown and is
used to manufacture plywood.
From Western Australia comes jarrah
and karri. Jarrah is durable, very heavy
and often has an interlocking grain. Andy
Gamlin, founder of the Australian Wooden
Boat Festival who also ran the Wooden Boat
Centre at Franklin, Tasmania, said “To me it is
better than teak. It wears better and is harder and just as
durable.” Karri – which people often confuse with New
Zealand Kauri – is also very dense and is typically used
for longitudinal parts like stringers and beamshelves.
Among the Australian eucalypts are stringy bark,
spotted gum and blue gum. All are heavy, so are often
used for keels, while the two gums steam well and are
used for ribs. (In Australia, steamed ribs are preferred to
sawn frames in far bigger boats than they are in Europe).
Blue gum, which has a heavily interlocking grain, grows
in Tasmania as well as the mainland. It was the popular
choice for the Tasmanian trading ketches which were so
important to the survival and development of the island
before any roads were built and one of these, the 66ft
1867 May Queen, is Australia’s oldest sail trading vessel
still afloat.
But there are three other native Tasmanian timbers
which are head and shoulders above any others when it
comes to suitability for boatbuilding: Huon pine, King
Billy (or King William) pine and celery top pine. They