Wooden boat - dinghy cruising - Welcome Home Courageous! Our new Huon Pine Clinker

Today we welcomed the stunning Courageous home to our family.
Courageous is a Huon Pine Clinker Dinghy, constructed in Sydney in the late 1970s, launched in the 1980s.
She spent some time as the tender (jolly boat) to the replica Bark Endeavour and can be seen in the documentary series The Ship: Recreating Captain Cooks Voyage… watch out for her in episode 2, as the crew put to shore in Cook Town.
After that she returned in the early 2000s to Kettering, where she rested in a shed for nearly 20years.
She was found by the lovely Mat & Jo, who bought her back to the water and eventually to our family.
It’s truly amazing to be a custodian of a wooden boat. You realise that you are so impermanent, that you can care for something special and important that links you to everyone who has ever stood at her bow and run their hand down her side - and anyone who ever will.
Courageous has a new course now. She is destined to fill my children’s childhood with adventure and happiness - with love and laughter and a definite appreciation for the natural world around us.
She will teach them care and compassion for a previous vessel, natural timber and how a wooden boat is more than a pile of sticks floating down a river.
Stay tuned for more adventures - Pearl the Tamar and Courageous side by side - two historical Tasmanian dinghies, sailing into intoxicating adventure.
#woodenboats #tasmania #sailing #dinghycruising #dinghysailing #swallowsandamazons

[@TimsBitsnPieces]

A beautiful little wooden boat you have purchased there Holly, I can see many hours and years of fun in that boat for all the family. Welcome to wooden boat life.

[@afloatinawoodenboat]

Why thank you! She is something special :)

[@paulkiefer5231]

Lucky you! I hope you and yours have some wonderful adventures in Courageous.

[@afloatinawoodenboat]

Thanks - sadly we may have to send her to a new home as family life changes. But oh she’s lovely!

[@jacobbujnowski7892]

That’s a holy grail of dinghies 😮 love the colour and craftsmanship 👍👍🇦🇺

[@afloatinawoodenboat]

She’s spectacular! A real tribute to her craftsmen

[@per4013]

Hello Holly, Caught a glimpse of Courageous in the Journal of the DCA (No 252) a few weeks ago, and remember thinking what an attractive boat it was. Delighted to get this chance to have a closer look - she really is a very lovely boat. Hope you get some happy times sailing her in the Tasmanian summer. Here, our boat is tucked in the shed and the fjord is frozen solid - longing for spring! Best wishes, Per (Norway)

[@afloatinawoodenboat]

Oh wow - are you able to sled or ice skate on it?

[@per4013]

@@afloatinawoodenboat Certainly, and our children do ice skate close to shore - reckon the ice is about a foot in thickness by now. I prefer skiing on the fjord after a good layer of snow has settled on the ice - then our summer swimming and sailing grounds are transformed to a still frozen desert. Have a nice weekend and enjoy your summer! Per