my new boat

Metal Boat Festival Wrap-up

I returned home yesterday from the 24th Metal Boat Festival, held 19-21 August at the Cap Sante Boat Haven in Anacortes, WA. The venue was good, there was an interesting array of metal boats to be viewed on the  marinas and great people to meet and with whom to socialise.

I was lucky to be the guest of Ian and Laurie Clark, on their centre cockpit Dix 43 "Namo". She was beautifully built by John Dearden of Gibsons, BC. I was made to feel very welcome and tried very hard to behave myself (not that easy).


Highlight of the weekend was the very interesting presentation by Charmaine Lingard (assisted by daughter Sindella) about their voyaging in the Antarctic and Chile aboard Vickers 45AC "Vlakvark". Charmaine had the audience enthralled with her video showing the interaction of her family with nature in this extreme climate. This part of the 3-day program alone was worth the effort of flying across the continent to attend.

My thanks to Charmaine Lingard and Brian Russell for their presentations, which supported my own talks, helping to make this a successful event.