goolwa wooden boat festival

[rumbles]

so , who's coming to Goolwa this weekend?

[Paul SA]

I am there sunday at the boat club around 9am.
paul

[DaveD]

I plan to be there Sunday morning also.
My understanding is that there will be closed water in front of the Goolwa Aquatic Club from 9am for 2 hours on Saturday & Sunday.
The program is showing Speedboat demo on 9.30am both days, which is usually a drive past the wharf but I'm not sure if this is still happening.
The static display is near the wharf.

[Hifi]

Ill also be there on sunday at 9.00
Lets hope the weather is good.
hifi seems to be running ok

[Greg]

So how was Goolwa WBF? Not a piccy in sight!

[rumbles]

well, I had a good time because I made it my business to. I secured a B&B with its own little marina so my boat stayed in the water from Friday morning until sunday afternoon. we cruised here for lunch, there for dinner etc, and just goofed off for the weekend.
as for the festival proper, it is quite obvious that the current organising committee is not interested in power boats. no provision was made for any on water activities anywhere near the wharf precinct (which is where the public is). my brother and his wife, and also one of my staff came down on the sunday to say hello. they paid their tenner at the gate, had a wander around and couldn't find me or any speedboats. they could hear boats making a noise and apparently the wharf was lined with people craning their necks to the right trying to see what all the noise was about. we were a mile down river at the aquatic club. to get to the club would have meant going back out the gate, walking half a mile back to their car, then driving to the club if they were lucky enough to find it as their were no signs indicating how to get there. consequently there were 20 or so spectators at the club, and 5000 odd at the wharf. I know we are biased and not everyone is interested in power boats, but I bet a good proportion of them would have loved to see some boats roar past.
I will probably go next year because it is only an hour drive for me and I had a great weekend, but I wont bother paying to officially enter the event . the reams of paperwork they gave me as an "entrant" were so full of "safety" information it is obvious that if your vessel moves at faster than walking pace you are a dangerous hazard.
that's my 2 bobs worth anyway.

[screwit]

Its happened again we have a wedding of a close friends invitation arive the other day and its on goolwa weekend
this is three years in a row now
Grrrrrrr

[DaveD]

I did take a couple of photos but as mentioned by Mark, there wasn't that much to photograph. The guys did their bit at the GAC but there was no speedboat roar past as previous years.
I was only able to attend Sunday but as I wasn't 100% on attending at all I hadn't registered any boat.
I did take Jayme II down on Sunday but on two occassions was refused entry to put Jayme II on static display.
Their reasons were 1. - event was full, 2. - paperwork as mentioned by Mark.
I did pay $10 to enter only to find 3 boats on static display, 2 with Duck Flat and Maryanne (Hydro). There was plenty of space, the whole car park area that was filled with speedboats two SAWBF ago was completely empty.
On the way out of Goolwa a bloke was looking at Jayme II as he had travelled from Pt Lincoln mainly to look at speedboats. He has bought and is restoring "Half a Chance", a Simpkin some would know of. He was hoping to see examples and talk to owners and was very disappointed.

[Greg]

Bit of a shame. The SAWBF people seem to be their own worst enemies.

Roll on Goolwa Aquafest

[bootlegger]

I'm afraid the wider wooden boat community still dont see wooden speedboats as part of the wooden boat community. I'm in the wooden boat association and I still know after being in it over ten years I'm still a fringe dweller.