From lofting to launch -
a renowned school of wooden boat building
On the Huon River at Franklin in Tasmania is a school with a difference.
We teach the old traditional skills of wooden boatbuilding to a new
generation of craftspeople from all over the world. The Wooden Boat
Centre Tasmania’s learning centre provides the only nationally
accredited, trade-level Certificate course in wooden boatbuilding in
Australia. This is the only boatbuilding school where students on the
course create a full-sized, carvel planked, sea-going cruising vessel
"from lofting to launch", or undertake a complete restoration
of a full-sized sea-going vessel, as the key component of their program.
The main emphasis is on the use of Tasmania’s unique boatbuilding
timbers – the legendary Huon Pine, as well as King Billy Pine,
Celery Top and Tasmanian Blue Gum. Using timbers of this quality and
scarcity is a cherished privilege: it demands a commitment to high-quality
craftsmanship in the building, and longevity and repairability in the
product.
Many of the school’s graduates have gone on to build careers in
boatbuilding, all over Australia and internationally.
A unique wooden boat discovery centre
Alongside the school workshops is the Wooden Boat Centre Tasmania’s
discovery centre, where visitors can enter the wonderful world of wooden
boats – their history, their construction, their use, the tools
that shape them, the peculiar names and terms for things, the atmosphere
of the wooden boat workshop.
Visitors also watch the school and its students at work, and can come
back again and again to see the various boats – and the skills that
produce them – growing and taking shape over time.
The Wooden Boat Centre Tasmania operates an 18-berth
marina on the Huon River adjacent to the centre, as well as jetties for
occasional use by visitors. The marina can accommodate vessels up to 40
ft in length, and provides permanent deep-water mooring in a section of
the river where fresh water flows when the river is in spate, and salt
predominates during drier periods. The Wooden Boat Centre’s marina
provides a calm-water mooring close to a variety of restaurants, craft
shops and the local chandlery.
Contact the Wooden Boat Centre for details of marina berthing arrangements
and fees
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Learn
about wooden boats and boatbuilding |
A
safe haven for vessels
on the Huon River |
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