Dear Erik,

As Christmas is about to consume our time this update is to keep you informed of progress on the Melbourne Wooden Boat Festival.

Planning for the February 20-21 2010 event at d’Albora Marina Docklands is progressing well. Boats are registering, volunteers are registeering - City of Melbourne are helping to green light the event, commercail partners are coming on board - so I suppose the only thing left is to work out what you're doing and whether you have done what you need so you don't miss out on getting the most out of the event.

So here's a quick check list

We're already about 50% full with boat registrations so it's time to act now and not miss out - there is limited space and we expect that Boxing Day to Jan 10 will see the remainder sell out - so don't delay!

Mark Bergin
Festival Director

d’Albora Marinas Welcome Party - Friday 19th Feb

The d’Albora Marinas welcome party will be an event not to miss. Held on-site at the festival the event is a private fucntion for boat exhibitors, volunteers and event partners to get into the spirit of the festival.

There are a limited number of ways to secure your invitation (you can't buy a ticket) - to secure your invitation you'll need to be part of an exhibiting boat, a volunteer, event partner or some other type of VIP.

Don't delay register today to lock in your invitation.

Tall Ships - Enterprize and One & All

Our first event and we've got two tall ships locked in. The ships will be providing on-board tours, rigging demonstrations and hourly trips around docklands - if you've never done it then this will be a great opportunity to get a taste of tall ship sailing, if you've already been on-board then it's time to recharge your fix on tall ships.

Voyage of a lifetime on-board One & All

One & All will be sailing from Adelaide via Portland and then up Port Philip to Melbourne. A limited nubmer of berths will go on sale in early January for these delivery voyages. Don't worry about misisng out though; you'll be emailed if you're a subscriber to this newsletter. If it was passed to you then sign up here

Details of booking will be on www.woodenboat.com.au in early January 2010 - don't forget to put sailing a tall ship on your New Years resolutions list!

Maritime Heritiage Associaiton Dockalnds and Pollywoodside tours

A ferry from d’Albora Marina to pass the maritime restoration sites of the steamship Wattle, the topsail schooner Alma Doepel and the barque Polly Woodside will leave regularly from the festival with onboard commentary of the history and present status of these important vessels.
Tickets will be available on site - $10 - the tour lasts around 1 hour and is brought to you by the Maritime Heritage Association of Victoria

Wooden vessel associations will have a “marketplace” marquee where information about each of their activities will be available with the opportunity to become more involved in the wide range of wooden vessel associations.

Dockland Yacht Club & Wooden Boat Associaiton - come and try program

Dockland Yacht Club & the Wooden Boat associaiton will have “Come & Try” sailing programs running across the weekend - bring down your friends, kids, partner or who ever you'd like to get into sailing.

Wooden Boat Centre - 20 years old and open for inspection

The Wooden Boat Centre at Shed 2 Docklands will be open for detailed inspection of a range of boat building. With a 20 year history of building wooden boats in docklands this unique facility should enliven the event for the hardest wooden boat fan.

Alma Doepel - ship and shed tours

As many would know the Alma Doepel is in the middle of a major refit. This is a great opportunity to get up close to a ships rigging and structure to see inside the ship and her worklings. For the first time in Melbourne the shed will be open as part of a festival and the Alma team invite everyone to take a look inside Maritime history as you've never seen it before!

The Alma Doepel will be accessible at the other end of Shed 2 for visits and participation.

City of Melbourne behind the festival

Docklands is a great venue and the City of Melbourne is 100% behind community building events like the Melbourne Wooden Boat Festival.

As an inaugural event we were shocked to see the level of support the City of Melbourne put behind the event. This combined with a great event marketing team and an outstanding event liaison team has made bringing the event alive a reality.

From all involved in the wooden boat community - thanks City of Melbourne.

Only 60 days