Spectacular launch to kick-off the Classic and Wooden Boat Festival

by Jude Timms on 13 Apr 2016 The Australian National Maritime Museum’s 2016 Classic and Wooden Boat Festival will open with a traditional smoking ceremony and the Sydney Children’s Choir at 10am on Friday 15 April.

The festival will be officially launched by the NSW Treasurer and Minister for Industrial Relations, Gladys Berejiklian, who will be joined by special guests, internationally renowned cruising sailor Lin Pardey and Jessica Watson OAM.

Celebrating the beauty and diversity of Australia’s heritage vessels and their craftspeople, the Classic and Wooden Boat Festival will run from 15 to 17 April 2016 in Sydney’s Darling Harbour. This year for the first time the festival will extend beyond the museum into Cockle Bay.

From modest beginnings in 1996, the Classic and Wooden Boat Festival has become a premier event on the nation’s maritime calendar. Ten thousand people will attend the festival and the museum will be open late on Friday and Saturday nights to ensure everyone has the opportunity to visit.

The free festival will give visitors the chance to get up close and personal with over 100 beautiful boats large and small, both afloat and on land. The huge range of boats includes Halvorsens, yachts and skiffs, classic speedboats, steam launches, tugboats, whalers and navy workboats from all around Australia. A star attraction will be the stunning 1924 luxury ketch Hurrica V, featured in Baz Luhrmann’s film The Great Gatsby.

Maritime demonstrations and competitions will include line throwing, sculling, caulking, and the ‘Quick and Dirty’ boat building competition, where the race is on to create makeshift boats and sail them on the harbour in record time. A swimwear parade through the ages will showcase a colourful selection of ‘cossies’ from the museum’s collection.

A maritime marketplace featuring 30 stallholders from trades of all types will showcase their wares for festival goers to peruse and purchase. Each day a host of arts and crafts activities for children will take place in the Kids’ Boatshed, where crafty kids can make, float and race their very own foam boats.

There will be entertainment throughout the weekend, including live music performances from artists including Sam Joole, Bill Hunt and Stu Tyrrell. The program will extend into the evenings with entertainment including reggae artist headliner Declan Kelly and the Rising Sun.

Other festival highlights include a symposium, heritage vessel rides, roof projection and more.

Festival entry is free. For more information and for tickets visit website.