Franklin waterfront alive with sounds of wooden boat building

THE Franklin waterfront is alive with the sounds of wooden boat building.

Lon Cauchi, Steve Iles and Doug Pattison. TasWeekend Feature Story on new era of Wooden Boat School/Shed at Franklin.

THE Franklin waterfront is alive with the sounds of wooden boat building ahead of celebrations this weekend and an international boating competition in February.

The Wooden Boat Centre, which has become a magnet for tourists after gaining recognition in international boating magazines, is officially being handed to the community-run Franklin Working Waterfront Association tomorrow.

The association raised enough money to buy the workshop, school and visitor centre from retiring owner Andy Gamlin.

An auction of specialty Huon Valley timber on Saturday morning will raise further funds to run the centre.

Timber Workers For Forests has donated the myrtle, valued at $13,000, which its members salvaged from a clear-felled coupe in 2001.

“(Timber Workers for Forests) decided that the aims and objectives of Franklin Working Waterfront were sufficiently aligned with their own to make us a suitable recipient,” said association member John Young, who was the original founder of the Wooden Boat Centre.

Next door at the Living Boat Trust, volunteers including Willis Smith and Lon Cauchi are busy making wooden boats for international teams to use during the St Ayles Skiff Championships, to be held at Franklin in February.

The event will bring boaties from around the world to the town following Hobart’s Wooden Boat Festival.

For more on the Wooden Boat Centre, pick up a copy of TasWeekend in your Saturday Mercury.