TIMBER FROM AUSTRALIA

At the time Europeans began to discover, then colonise, New Zealand, Tasmania and mainland Australia, these islands were blessed with huge quantities of native timbers of various species, many of which were highly suitable for boatbuilding. Indeed, the British were attracted to Tasmania not only for its suitability as a penal settlement, but also for its rich source of timber, much of which was exported to the mother country. But, almost without exception, these boatbuilding species are now very rare and extremely hard to obtain. Many of them are no longer commercially harvested, and for boatbuilders to obtain them they often have to rely on a certain amount of luck: by stumbling across timber which is being recycled, for instance, or by finding some that is being hoarded by someone waiting to find a worthwhile use for it.

On Australia’s mainland grew in Queensland and the northern part of New South Wales but is almost impossible to get now, although it was readily available when Ian Smith, president of the Australian Historical Sailing Skiff Association, used it to build his Sydney Harbour 18-footer replica in 2002. “It is distantly related to mahogany but lighter and more durable,” he told me. “Just about every open boat in Sydney was built of it.”