Overview

For over a hundred years the Aussie 18-footer was the dominant Open Boat racing class on Sydney Harbour, the Brisbane River, many ports up and down the NSW and Queensland coasts and in the early days, Perth. But where did they come from? Folklore tells us that they evolved out of working boats, but did they? In an extensively researched presentation, boatbuilder and sailor Ian Hugh Smith traces the origin of the 18-footer in the nineteenth century and its evolution in the first half of the twentieth century and provides the answers to those questions. And for the whole of this period, the vast majority of Aussie Open Boats were built with one planking method: batten-seam carvel. Not only has the author traced how this method developed, he presents a thorough how-they-were-built guide that will enable future generations to understand this important part of our maritime heritage.

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9780648138600

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Author Information

Ian Hugh Smith has had a forty-plus year career in boatbuilding and boatbuilding education, during which he built upwards of 80 wooden boats from dinghies to yachts. He set up the Sydney Wooden Boat School in 1990 and has taught hundreds of first-timers to build their own boats. With a long-standing interest in maritime heritage he joined the emerging Australian Historical Sailing Skiff Association which builds, sails and displays traditional Aussie Open Boats and built a 6-footer The Balmain Bug and 10-footer Republic to join the growing replica fleet. In 2001-2 he built the 18-footer replica Britannia, and still sails it every Summer Saturday with the replica fleet at the Sydney Flying Squadron.

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