Tasmania's SV May Queen

[Wayne Lomman]

FYI, I just finished watching a documentary about the SV May Queen, Australia's oldest sailing trading vessel and one of only about a dozen world wide. Built out of Tasmanian blue gum and stringybark with a celery pine deck, she has just celebrated her 150th birthday. In her time she would carry 25000 board feet of timber with a 5 foot draft. She had a retractable centreboard for plying the shallow rivers and estuaries in southern Tasmania. She first won the Hobart Regatta in 1868 and won it for the last time in 1951 with many wins between. She is fully restored and in now moored at Constitution Dock in Hobart. Cheers

http://www.maritimetas.org/collection-displays/may-queen

(http://www.maritimetas.org/collection-displays/may-queen)

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Wayne,

I wish I had seen this article before we were in Hobart 2014. We stayed at the Hotel Grand Chancellor and walked past this ship several times in our evenings when pursuing food. Our tours kept us pretty busy but I would have made time to investigate this ship!

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I would have never guessed this to be a shoal draught boat. Thanks for sharing. That's a solid built vessel.