For those who don’t know the story of the Capricornia, well, it is a good story. She was built in Darwin many years ago by a Frenchman named Jean-Pierre who had spent 25 years in Oz, mainly in the north. In the last couple of years in Darwin he had built a wonderful 31 foot open whale boat and had sailed her in Darwin Harbour. The Capricornia. She had a sloop rig then. He then left Darwin for Noumea about 12 years ago. Unable to keep her he put her up for sal but she had not sold by the time he left.

Pieter Lunstedt was building in Darwin around that tme and  he had seen the ad in the trading post from time to time. A few years later he went to check her out and she had suffered from the ravages of a tropicl climate and the boat being out of the water.

He bought her, built a trailer and towed her down to Robe in southern SA where she stayed in a shed for a  couple more years. As chance would have it he found himself in the 2007 RAID and ended up talking the LBT crew into looking at the whaleboat. He’s a smooth talker as well as a good builder. He went back to South Australia and returned last winter with the Capricornia, lots of timber, a rig and sails and the LBT and a huge amount of Pieter’s work led to the boat being ready for the RAID this year, and she was the success of the trip, but enough about that elsewhere.

Just again by chance he came to Tasmania in January to visit the Australian Wooden Boat Festival and found himself studying the very familiar lines of a whaleboat in Constitution Dock. There were differences to the boat he built, she now had covered in ends and there were no longer any ribs, but she looked so close to the boat he knew. Closer examination revealed the tiller he had lovingly and skillfully created so many years before with its graceful curve and elegant knob and ropework, and with excitement he realised this had to be the boat he had built.

It didn’t take long to meet the new owner and the rest of the LBT crew and it wasn’t much longer still before the rest of his holiday - a bus trip around Tassie was cancelled and Jean-Pierre was signed up as crew (or co-skipper) for the return trip to Franklin.

This became a trip of a lifetime and took six days encountering all Tassie had to offer apart from a full on southwesterly but the flukey Channel winds were there, on the nose of course, for the first two days. 5 knots and the full rig up then a 30 knot bullet with frantic reefing then back to 5 knots just as suddenly.

Very different from New Caledonia where wind just blows from the same direction, and different in temperature too. Those first two days were cool on land let alone on the water and Jean-Pierre frequently had all his clothes on at once and for the first time was not sailing in bare feet. Then once the fronts passed, the high came over and they were blessed with warm days and  a very pleasant northeasterly that took them from Great Bay where they had been visiting friends to Dover in a memorable and very pleasant sail in a warm breeze more reminiscent of Noumea.

A pleasant night was spent in the Dover Hotel and then chance meeting of friends from the RAID in Dover took them to the hinterlands for more visiting of friends.

Once the sea breeze came in Capricornia set sail for the Huon and enjoyed another memorable sail to Abels Bay where another night was spent ashore in a friends house before the final leg to Franklin.

Then, just before the trip back to Noumea, Jean-Pierre joined the LBT workgroup at the LBT shed for a big Monday night. About 20 people turned up for a great Ros barbeque and work was still done. The Swiftsure had her bottom sanded prior to the installation of a brass rubbing strip and a fresh application of antifoul. Gretchen had her covers taken off and floorboards removed and the lead ballast put in the correct position. This all happened, with the able assistance of many willing hands before the food arrived and then it was time to chat and eat and enjoy.

So, the finding of a long lost boat, discovering friends with similar ideals, a chance opportunity to sail in some of Tassies’s beautiful waterways were unexpected adventures and discoveries that in so many ways reflect what the LBT is about.