AWBF Festival Director Paul shares how a chance connection sparked the relationship between the Australian Wooden Boat Festival and the Auckland Wooden Boat Festival.
Credit: Mark Chew Photography
In early 2022, in the midst of planning the 2023 Festival, I received a book in the mail from my good friend in New Zealand. “This is the last gift mum gave me before she died,” the pencil-scrawled inscription read inside the front cover, “It’s a great read, though I think you could take more inspiration from it than I can.” (At the time, my family and I owned a 40’ Port Kembla Pine Swanson designed cruising yacht, Sea Dreamer, and made the occasional jaunt through Tasmanian waterways in the Summertime.)
The name of the book was South Sea Vagabonds by Johnny Wray, and it is without a doubt the most humorous and rip-roaring tale of boatbuilding and maritime adventure I’ve ever read. After being sacked from his job in the midst of the Great Depression in New Zealand, 21 year old Johnny wastes no time in erecting a makeshift boatbuilding shed in his parents’ front yard. Without a pound to his name he teaches himself design, carpentry, blacksmithing, and boatbuilding. He scavenges Kauri logs from nearby islands, melts asphalt to tar his #8 wire fastenings, begs his friends and family for a penny here or there. Within two years his vessel Ngataki is careening on the back of a wobbly truck down the backroads of suburban Auckland and dumped into the sea.
From there, Johnny and his crew embark on a series of hilarious adventures throughout the South Pacific before being lured back to Auckland at some point in the mid 1930s to compete in the first Trans-Tasman race from Auckland to Melbourne. The weather was a disaster so all competitors dropped out, apart from Ngataki and another vessel, Te Rapunga.
It was at this point that my eyebrows pricked up. Te Rapunga? It is a unique name for a vessel, and one I’d heard before, but where? Te Rapunga…
of course! Te Rapunga was the name of the vessel being restored by Andrew Denman just 40km South in the quaint yachtie town of Kettering. But could it be the same boat? A bit of swift googling later and I was sure. This was the same boat. Amazing!
Back to the book. Te Rapunga defeats Ngataki in the first Trans-Tasman to Melbourne, and then defeats her again in the adjunct race from Melbourne to Hobart. I finished the book that afternoon and was immediately back on the googles to discover the fate of the storied Ngataki, sure that she’d been wrecked, burnt, lost or eaten by worms long ago.
But I was soon to discover the work of the Tino Rawa Trust in Auckland, a small group of dedicated maritime culture enthusiasts who had over many years saved, restored, and continued to sail all kinds of classic vessels – including the great Ngataki.
So, Ngataki and Te Rapunga had both been independently restored on either side of the Tasman, and, as far as I was concerned, were yearning for a rematch after 90 years of stabling.
Tony Blake painting of the historical race.
Racing during the AWBF 2025 Photo credit: Mark Chew
From there, over the course of 3 years, a wonderful friendship developed between myself and Tony and Michelle of the Tino Rawa Trust.
They attended our 2023 Festival; I supported their inaugural 2024 Auckland Wooden Boat Festival; and in 2025, those cheeky Kiwis upped the ante. Tony and Michelle stuffed a display of 6 classic NZ vessels into a 40’ shipping container and plopped it down in the middle of our waterfront, in the middle of our Festival. Not only that, they carried the New Zealand Maritime Museum, the Te Toki Voyaging Trust, the Classic Yacht Trust, and hundreds of enthusiastic Kiwis across the Tasman in their wake.
And as if that weren’t enough, Tony and Michelle poured tens of thousands of dollars of their own money into sending Ngataki across the ditch. It was actually happening!
On the third day of the 2025 Australian Wooden Boat Festival, Ngataki squared off against Te Rapunga on the Derwent for the first time in 90 years, and after 4 hours of high intensity seafaring, they crossed the finish line in a dead heat.
The cross-Tasman collaboration at the 2025 festival was such a success that we decided to make it an annual tradition, maintaining a vibrant wooden boat festival on each side of the ditch every year.
So, starting in September 2025, the AWBF team, supported by philanthropic funding, developed a shipping container display and selection of vessels to tell the story of recent goings on in the world of Tasmanian maritime culture: namely, the recent Derwent class resurgence and the Tasmanian boatbuilders who made it possible, as well as promote some truly Tasmanian organisations, stories and vessels.
AWBF Production Manager Andrew Brassington, AWBF Festival Director Paul Stephanus and AWBF supporter Ted Domeney at the AWBF exhibition, Auckland Wooden Boat Festival 2026. Credit: AWBF
Our container landed at the Auckland Wooden Boat festival in mid-March 2026, and it was a huge success. Tens of thousands of Aucklanders, visitors, maritime enthusiasts, and general passersby, flowed through the displays on water and on land at the Auckland Viaduct. It seemed that the Auckland Wooden Boat Festival had grown significantly in its second iteration, offering more business exhibitor stalls, more boats ashore and a truly impressive model boat display.
Credit: AWBF
A couple dozen Tasmanians travelled across to support the event. The relationship couldn’t be stronger.
What all started as a chance gift in the mail from a long-lost acquaintance led to an unlikely connection, then to friendship, and now to a partnership that is enriching our two Festivals.
It seems as if, if you tap in the right place, maritime history is always right there waiting under the surface, full of pent-up energy and ready to awaken when given the smallest opportunity. These mischievous boats… it’s as if we’re not even in control at all. Like these vessels are using we unwitting humans to achieve their own whimsical aims.
Well, of all their mischievous deeds, the connection across the Tasman these boats have created feels like the beginning of something long lasting, and I can’t wait to see what the Kiwis bring to our 2027 Festival!
For more information, visit australianwoodenboatfestival.com.au
