Wooden Boat Festival

Sydney's Wooden Boat festival and for me Gretel II is always the star of the show. One of Australia's most famous yachts she challenged for the America's cup in 1970 and 1977. Mike Maxwell has done an incredible job with the restoration with some practical modern  super yacht touches.

Sydney Harbour is a better place because people like Mike step up to restore these wooden boats. It's always an expensive, time consuming challenge but if not we'd just lose so much history.

Legendary Halvorsen, Silver Cloud after a gorgeous refit.

My friend Dave Pagano has quite a collection of wooden speedboats including this gorgeous Italian boat and the mighty Aggressor Hydroplane with a 27 litre RR Merlin engine.


Check out these links.


Aggressor racing in the 1970's

Aggressor launch

I just love the look of these vintage Hydroplanes, badass horsepower in a light plywood step hull - all business.

Corvette block in a a clinker hull. Look at the web of lightweight ribs that line the hull - such craftmanship. Not sure if this is a Lewis or Hammond build.