T
he Wooden Boat Centre was founded in 1992 in Franklin on
the banks of Tasmania’s Huon River. It is primarily a
boatbuilding school but it also carries out commercial work
to help its financial viability. The school caters for people
who wish to gain a “recreational experience” of wooden boatbuilding,
also those who hope to become professional boatbuilders. The
seven- or eight-week clinker dinghy course is one of the most popular,
in which students produce a Foster 10ft (3.1m) or Percy 11ft 5in (3.5m)
boat, both of which were originally produced by former tutors at the
centre: Bill Foster and Perc Coverdale. Other short courses focus on
stitch-and-glue motor launches, skin-on-frame kayaks, strip-planked
kayaks, plywood tenders, and oar and spar making. In the past the
centre has run 18-month trade courses in which boats as long as 32ft
(9.8m) have been built. One of the biggest was the gaff cutter Ubique
in 2002 which now operates as a charter vessel in nearby Kettering- and there are plans to establish a similar, but two-year, course.
“There is certainly scope for us to develop something along those
lines in the future,” said Mike Johnson, the centre’s senior instructor,
who has worked there for five years, "so we can keep the old skills
alive but also teach things which are relevant to the current industry.”
Although courses are attended by a few Tasmanians, more come from
mainland Australia and from the rest of the world. At the time of my
visit, a Percy 11ft 5in clinker dinghy was being built by retired husband
and wife Wendy and Paul from New South Wales – who were
sponsoring the dinghy, in other words paying for the materials, and
would own her when she was finished – and Jacob, a cabinet maker
from Denmark. On average, there are about six students per month at
the centre.
Among the past commercial projects is Zelectra, an electric-
powered speedboat commissioned by a Tasmanian businessman and
completed in 2017. The centre takes advantage of Tasmania’s
wonderful native timbers as much as possible and in the case of
Zelectra, three different ones were used: celery top pine, Huon pine
and (for the topsides, over the plywood shell, and the deck) king billy
pine. And just as I was arriving at the centre, the latest commercial
project was just leaving: a 130-year-old couta boat which had beenLucky students at this school get to build boats in great,
local timbers like Huon and celery top pine
BACK TO SCHOOL
WOODEN BOAT CENTRE, TASMANIA
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS NIGEL SHARP