LEDA

a traditional wooden gaffer, moored Port Cygnet, owned by Andy Bullock

‘Leda’ (previously ‘Leofleda’) was built in Adelaide by the founder of the Wooden Boat Centre in Franklin, John Young, together with skilled woodworker Dave Kew, and launched in December 1973. The 23ft 6in boat's lines have fishing boat heritage, rather than yacht lineage. She is a slightly lengthened version of a South Australian fishing boat that her designer, Lee Anderson, had fished with under sail, without use of an auxiliary motor. The construction has a working boat rather than yacht standard of finish. The planking below the waterline is jarrah, on Australian hardwood timbers, with Queensland maple topsides.
After sea trials on St Vincent's Gulf, John, then an academic at Adelaide University, obtained a grant to undertake research in the Lau group of islands of eastern Fiji. The boat was trucked to Sydney then loaded onto a ship to Tonga. In Tonga, John met legendary single-hander Mike Bales who taught him the art of celestial navigation. John, his wife Ruth, and their two children, then sailed 260 nautical miles westward to the Lau group. They narrowly escaped shipwreck when the keel struck the edge of a coral reef as they entered a passage through the reef to the island where they had made landfall.
With the trade wind on her beam, ‘Leofleda’ cruised along the island chain for three months while John conducted his research, the family sharing the small cabin as their living quarters, often trading with the islanders for ship's provisions. On completion of the studies, the family sailed the boat onward to Suva, on the main island of Fiji, where she was lifted onto another ship for the return trip to Australia.
Back in Adelaide waters, the boat was moored in the Port River and cruised extensively in St Vincent's Gulf and Spencer Gulf, including trips to Kangaroo Island, Port Lincoln and the Sir Joseph Banks Islands. She was pooped once running before a big sea, but survived in spite of the cockpit not being self-draining.
In the 1990s, the Young family moved to Tasmania, to establish the Wooden Boat School, and ‘Leofleda’ was again lifted onto the deck of a ship, to be transported to the island state. She was moored for many years off South Franklin, cruised local waters, and participated in earlier wooden boat festivals.
I bought the boat in April 2017 and initially moored her next to Mick Hubbard's houseboat at Cradoc, before sailing her around to her new home at Port Cygnet. I have spent time refurbishing the boat (with her name shortened to ‘Leda’), replacing the mission brown paintwork with lighter and brighter colours, renewing the standing rigging, fitting bronze sheet winches, overhauling the engine, etc. I have also been getting to know the boat and learning how to best handle her.

The rig is presently being changed from gaff sloop to gaff cutter, in order to make sail reduction easier and quicker when strong winds strike suddenly. ‘Leda’ won a PCSC twilight race by one second on corrected time, sailed in the 2018 Cygnet regatta in strong wind conditions and in the 2020 regatta in light airs. She was a participant in the 2019 Australian Wooden Boat Festival, making the passage around to Hobart in company with other Cygnet wooden boats also taking part.