Guys,
One of my Xmas presents was a new book produced in my home state of Queensland.
It is titled Classic Moreton Bay Cruisers and is a beautiful coffee table type colour production outlining the history of the timber boat builders of this area and a lot of their boats.
A very well done production..
They have a web page www.classicmoretonbaycruisers.com
on the web page there is a link tp the photographers web where he has a collection of the photos plus more as presemnted in the book.
If you are into classic timber motor cruisers then you will like these.
One of the boats Waverley was built by the same boat builder who I got to build my Tidahapah and both are very similar except Waverley is a carvel and Tidahapah is a sharpie.
Rufred another boat featured was designed and built by Fred Flemming the designer of Tidahapah.

I have nothing to do with the production except a  love for traditional timber motor cruisers.

Benn 

WOW!! Those are some beautiful boats in stunning condition! What kind of success have they had with the sail rigs in particular flying just the foresails? They have the same rig I have been talking about adding to my boat for the last two years. What do their hulls look like?

Daddyo,
All or most are full displacement cruisers with full keels, The second last boat in the book , Waverley , very similar to my own boat but built as a carvel, (round) bottom as opposed to my shape , sharpie , more flkat bottomed, better at anchor but lose a bit in sea keeping to the carvel.
Waverley is owned by a good friend of mine and he can sail at approx 5.5 knots with about 15/20 knots breeze. This is with all his sail up.
Most use jib and main and used as sail assist and others use a biggish MPS with the right breeze.

Old timber cruisers are still very popular in Aus and insurance is no more expensive than for a similar priced plastic boat.

Benn

Thanks for the info. One of my biggest reasons for adding the sail is the additional stability, any word on how these rigs perform with regards to stability?

If you want to look at some great old clasic boats try http://www.classicyacht.org/gallery/

Don't drool to much.  Enjoy