Warren to air passion on TV

KATINA CURTIS

JAMBEROO’S Warren Wood is passionate about boats – and he will share this passion with the nation on television on Friday.

Mr Wood said someone “dobbed him in” to the ABC show Collectors to present his collection of wooden surfboats.

“Due to the changeover from timber boats to plastic and composition boats, the timber boats have become redundant,” he said.

“The favourite way of getting rid of them was burning them and having a beach party and I heard about this happening and I thought they’re really a work of art and I think they’re worth preserving for future generations.”

After he decided to rescue the boats, he wrote to every surf club in NSW, Victoria and Southern Queensland.

He got his first boat in the mid-1980s, just after moving to Jamberoo.

“I just ended up with eight, so maybe they’re the last eight wooden surfboats in Australia,” he said.

Mr Wood has already restored a Woonona and a Stockton boat and took the latter to a wooden boat show in Hobart last year.

He is now working on the famous Don Burrows boat from Wollongong – named for a very good sweep from Wollongong Surf Life Saving club – and another nameless one that he plans to call Gerringong.

The restoration process involves waterproofing the 26-foot boats by re-laminating the wood, splicing the oars together and making new stainless fittings for the rowlocks.

He is also making plans to build an 18-foot boat based on the old whalers and has a 1954 caravan to work on once the boats are finished.

“I just do it as a hobby. I love it,” he said. “I always had sailing boats, but now I just have the surf boats.”

He has passed on this love to his children as well, with two of his sons now working as shipbuilders.

Mr Wood and his wife Judith are making plans to take two teams of rowers back down to Hobart for next year’s wooden boat show and races on the Derwent River.

Collectors airs on ABC1 on Fridays at 8pm. The show on April 25 also features Mark Booth and his ladies rowing team from Gerringong Surf Club giving one of the boats a workout in the waves.