THE LEARNING CENTRE

 

The construction process

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The Wooden Boat Centre Tasmania is located at Franklin, 48 kilometres south-west of Hobart on the banks of the Huon River. Hobart is the capital city of Tasmania, the island state of Australia.

The Wooden Boat Centre Tasmania aims to preserve Tasmania’s traditional wooden boatbuilding knowledge and skills, develop them in the context of contemporary opportunities and pass them on to a new generation of students. In doing so, it provides education in tradesman skills expressed through practices that insist on ecological sustainability.

The Wooden Boat Centre caters for students who seek both education and training. It combines the practical experience of boatbuilding under expert supervision with opportunities to study the local and global context of the boatbuilder's profession, develop independence, and the thinking, analysing and communication skills required to live in a changing world.

While recognising the advances which have been made in the use of glues, resins and plywood in recent years, and the advantages they can bring to wooden boatbuilding, the emphasis at The Wooden Boat Centre is on the use of natural timber, especially Tasmania’s unique boatbuilding timbers such as Huon Pine, Celery Top Pine, King Billy Pine, Blue Gum and Swamp Gum.

Facilities
The Wooden Boat Centre has three boatbuilding workshops and an adjoining visitor interpretation centre at Franklin. The largest and newest workshop can accommodate the construction or restoration of vessels up to nearly 40 feet in length. The other workshops are used for building or repairing smaller boats from dinghies to 25-foot pocket cruising boats.

There is a compact library with a good selection of books and periodicals – many of them classic titles and now irreplaceable - dealing with timber, design, boatbuilding, maritime history and literature.

The Wooden Boat Centre provides all necessary static and hand-held power tools. There is also a selection of hand tools: however, students are expected to acquire and use their own hand tools as soon as practicable. The Centre staff provide expert guidance to students in the selection and purchase of suitable tools.

Educational Standards

Practical courses that involve large-scale boat building or restoration projects are assessed by external qualified marine surveyors to ensure the highest professional standards. All teaching is conducted by boatbuilder/tutors with vocational qualifications and extensive experience in the industry. For courses leading to a certificate, teaching and assessment meet Australian national accreditation standards. Qualifications are competency based: assessment criteria are clearly defined, and assessment confirms the student's development and application of skills and knowledge over time

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