Antique and Classic Boat Show 2016 Knysna
The annual ‘Wooden Boat” show was held on Saturday the 8th October 2016.
Thesen Island was the perfect setting for this show, which is one of its kind in South Africa. The lawn in front of the Turbine Hotel, Thesen Harbour Town, had antique boats on display, suitably in an area rich in wooden boatbuilding history.
Knysna’s rich history of boat building goes back to 1831 when the first ship built from wood was launched. A twin mast, 22m brig appropriately named “Knysna”, built by George Rex to trade between Knysna and Cape Town. There were many other vessels that followed but significantly there were the heavily armed Fairmile patrol boats and submarine chasers, which were built for the Navy during the 1940s.
The Thesen boatyard burnt down in 1966 and was rebuilt in time to enter “Voortrekker” in the transatlantic race from Plymouth, UK to Newport, Rhode Island in the USA in 1968, where she came second, only 130km behind the winning yacht.
On November 14, 1970, the first Cape to Rio yacht race inspired the building and launching of the second famous yacht Albatross II, from the Thesen boatyard. She went on to the win the race outright!
This year an inboard pleasure vessel called ‘Halycon’, which was built in 1934 by Cyril Noble, a talented engineer from the Thesens Boatyard was on show. It has been fully restored to its former glory and is back on Knysna’s waters. The well-known steamboat ‘Perseverance’ from Wilderness, a possible ‘Healey’ runabout from the Austin Healey company was also on display and a recently rediscovered and one of the few remaining runabouts built at Thesen’s Boatyard, unrestored and sporting the factory’s original brass badge.
With all this grand history it made for an interesting walkabout through the history of these boats.
Antique and Classic Boat Show Gallery