Port Fairy Wooden and Classic Boat Parade

by Sail-World/Madeline Healey, Fairfax on 2 Jan 2007 Wooden and Classic Boats are, if anything, gaining in popularity around Australia. Wanting to cherish our sailing and boating heritage is something shared by lovers of the sea everywhere.

Down there at the bottom of Australia on the Great Ocean Road there’s a town quaintly named Port Fairy, and here, as many other places in the world, they are proud of their wooden and classic boats. So yesterday, proud boat enthusiasts sailed their beautiful timber vessels down the Moyne River in front of a huge admiring crowd of thousands.

The Port Fairy Wooden and Classic Boat Society held the annual parade as part of the town’s Moyneyana Festival.

Typical of those participating in yesterday's parade was Portland couple Merry Abbey and Anton Hornemann. They were in a boat inherited from Ms Abbey's father who had been part of a winning team in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.

Ms Abbey said she loved timber boats and the chance to be part of the Port Fairy parade each year. 'Once you've owned timber boats it's hard to go to any contemporary materials,' she said.

'It's a totally different feel ... it's about the way they sail.'

Each year they spend a couple of weeks holidaying in the boat while it is moored in Port Fairy. 'We love it we reckon we sit on the best real estate in Port Fairy for nothing for a few weeks,' she said.

Port Fairy Wooden and Classic Boat Society’s co-ordinator Gordon Harman said the event had helped retain and attract timber boats to Port Fairy.

'Timber boats were starting to disappear from Port Fairy and everywhere apart from where they were being promoted,' he said. 'What inspired me was the old Inverness, which was built here, it was for a time the largest boat ever launched
on the river and is now doing charter work in Queensland.'

Mr Harman said the society had helped to keep boats like the Inverness in Port Fairy. The club is trying to raise $7000 to take the town's historic lifeboat to the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart.