World-leading wooden boat festival sails back into Tasmanian capital

One of the world’s largest celebrations of traditional maritime culture will drop anchor in Hobart from Friday, with the return of the Australian Wooden Boats Festival. Here’s what’s planned

Australian Wooden Boat Festival co-founder Ian Johnston aboard the vessel Juliene ahead of the 2025 event. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

One of the world’s largest celebrations of traditional maritime culture will drop anchor in Hobart from Friday, with the return of the Australian Wooden Boats Festival.

The four-day event, hosted every two years in the Tasmanian capital, has become a pilgrimage destination for thousands of seafaring enthusiasts from across Australia and the around world.

With the 2025 edition adopting a Pacific theme, the festival will take a deep dive into the seafaring traditions of the region, featuring vessels, sailors, and artisans from New Zealand, Hawaii, Tahiti, New Caledonia, Japan, the US West Coast, and the Marshall Islands.

A central feature of the festival, the Pacific Seafarers Precinct, will showcase traditional workshops, and cultural storytelling, while a historic rematch will be held between two classic yachts – Nagataki and Te Rapunga – which last raced across the Tasman almost a century ago.

AWBF festival director Paul Stephanus said the festival would launch at midday with the spectacular Parade of Sail, involving a fleet of 11 tall ships and 250 wooden boats sailing up the Derwent and into Sullivans Cove.

A special festival welcome will follow at 4.45pm, featuring renowned Tasmanian Indigenous boatbuilder, Sheldon Thomas, launching watercraft Truganini in Constitution Dock.

Mr Stephanus encouraged locals and visitors alike to descend on the waterfront to engage in an authentic part of Tasmanian culture.

Derwent Class boats in action ahead of the Australian Wooden Boat Festival.

“The AWBF celebrates our shared maritime history, and the 2025 theme offers a chance to connect with the Pacific in a way we never have before,” he said.

“It’s an opportunity for visitors to engage with iconic vessels and extraordinary people from across the ocean.

“Our aim is to craft a festival that is as grand in its spectacle as it is meaningful in its community spirit.”

Mr Stephanus said the 2025 festival would include a return of the popular Wooden Boat Symposium to delve into stories of adventure, while the Shipwrights Village and Noisy Boatyard will deliver demonstrations and workshops.

The Little Sailors Village will provide activities for the younger generation, culminating in the Quick and Dirty Boatbuilding Challenge and race at Constitution Dock.

Buzz for economy

Destination Southern Tasmania chief executive Alex Heroys said the Australian Wooden Boat Festival made a valuable economic and cultural contribution to the state.

“The event is a cornerstone event for both locals and visitors, providing a significant boost to Tasmania’s tourism industry and celebrating our maritime legacy,” Mr Heroys said.

“This year, we are especially excited to welcome our Pacific guests, strengthening our connections to the broader Pacific region.”

Visitors to the 2025 festival can also inspect a sailing simulator developed by UTAS researchers which is helping people with significant spinal cord injuries and other disabilities to learn to sail competently on the water.

Derwent Class boats in action ahead of the Australian Wooden Boat Festival.

Unique ‘world championships’

On Sunday, the “world championships” of the uniquely local Derwent Class yachts will be held from 10am, celebrating a blend of tradition and contemporary sailing design.

Festival co-founder, Ian Johnston, said the biennial maritime event had become a key date on Tasmania’s cultural calendar since its inception more than 30 years ago.

Mr Johnston said after experiencing the way Europeans celebrated their wooden boat heritage, he became convinced Australia needed to follow suit.

“Back then, we said Tasmania was the best place in country to host it, so we went to the council, TasPorts and Tourism Tasmania, who all thought it was a fantastic idea and offered anything they could to help,” Mr Johnston said.

“All of a sudden 30,000 people turned up to the first festival and it was just a stunning success, so we did it again.

“Eventually we sold the ownership to a not-for-profit organisation for one dollar – which is the only money were ever made out of the damn festival – on the condition that it keep its identity.

“Because right from the beginning we’ve had the best theatre, the best of the music, and the best food, which brings in people from across Australia and around the world.

“This is now consider the second biggest and best boating festival in the world, after Brest and Douarnenez in France, which holds a monstrous event”.

Derwent Class boats in action ahead of the Australian Wooden Boat Festival.

Mr Johnston said although Australia’s wooden boat culture extended well beyond Tasmania, it was the island state’s passion for own maritime heritage that enabled the festival to survive and thrive.

He said Tasmanian remained proud of its role building boats from endemic timbers including Huon, King Billy, and celery top pine.

“Hobart is the only capital city in Australia that can possibly facilitate something like this,” he said.

“Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide have all tried, and they just haven’t got the facilities, nor the support from the locals.

“We’ve got 450 volunteers, international speakers, and it’s free.

“Wooden boats just have character and personality, and people love them.”

Australian Wooden Boats Festival highlights

*Parade of Sail – from midday on Friday

*Tasmanian Indigenous boat builder Sheldon Thomas launching watercraft Truganini in Constitution Dock

*The Pacific Seafarers Precinct – showcasing traditional navigation, displays, workshops and cultural storytelling

*Historic rematch between Nagataki and Te Rapunga, two classic yachts that last raced across the Tasman in 1934.

* “We are the Ocean: Voyaging and the Pacific” forum at the Theatre Royal, with Professor Kate Fullagar, historian Dame Anne Salmond, artist Michel Tuffery and waka Captain Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr, featuring a performance by the Māori cultural troupe Ngā Mātai Pūrua.

*Wooden Boat Symposium

*Derwent Class yacht “world championship” race

*Shipwrights Village and Noisy Boatyard

*Seafood Marquee

*The Little Sailors Village, featuring jungle gym, face painting, solar boat racing, and circus workshop

*Films of the Pacific at the Peacock Theatre

*Maritime Marketplace

*Quick and Dirty Boatbuilding Challenge and race.

*Walk-in workshops

*On-water activities including rowing, parbuckling, waka ama demos, dragon boat demos, outrigging demos

*Vintage Steam Village

*Vintage Diving Displays

The full AWBF program is available at www.awbf2025.org.au

Originally published as World-leading wooden boat festival sails back into Tasmanian capital