DIETITIANS, doctors, academics and lawyers who've turned their attention to restoring wooden boats later in life have been rewarded for their labour of love.
Volunteers at the Lake Macquarie Classic Boat Association (LMCBA) have taken out the NSW Wooden Boats Association Hal Harpur Award for their hard work bringing a Pittwater Rowing Scull back to her former glory.
It's a real feather in their caps, LMCBA president Bill Coote said.
"It's a very tough competition and one of the advantages we had in the award is that we have involved a lot of people," he said.
"Most of the others entered in the award were individual and their building techniques are spectacular, they're works of art, but we're one of the only groups in the state with such large numbers."
The award is a perpetual trophy named after one of the associations founding members.
Most of the local members are retired, with a number of shipwrights among them teaching the rest how to wrangle wooden boats.
Mr Coote was a dietitian in his working life, and said working on the boats is a welcome distraction.
"It's something different and it's an interesting area to be in, because you can get different levels of quality of build and different boats," he said.
"It's different to the science of nutrition and dietetics, it expands your horizons and it's interesting."
Working down at Rathmines in one of the old Royal Australian Air Force buildings, the group of 75 have been restoring wooden boats for the last 15 years.
It all started with a classic boat festival held in Toronto, which has evolved into Boatfest at Rathmines.
And, it's back again in 2023 on February 5, Mr Coote said, along with a car boot sale called the Boat Bits Bonanza.
"Lake Macquarie City Council have asked us to combine with them to put on a wooden boat display in the Rathmines hall, so it's a big year," he said.
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