Stu's Stories as at 2024

Our First Boat In 1973, Kevin Veness (Margaret’s brother) and myself decided to venture into boatbuilding as an additional source of income and possible future business. The accompanying pictures are of the one and only cruiser we built as, shortly before finishing it, the World economy crashed, and the market for this type of boat collapsed. The building and finishing of this boat is a saga all of its own. While we were building it, we decided to sell the farm and move to Western Australia, where we could look at the possibility of starting a business. The buyer of the farm was so impressed that he asked us to stay on at the farm until it was finished and he would buy it as well as the farm. However, when the economy crashed, he was badly affected, and even had difficulty settling the farm. He turned sour and asked us to leave the property. This meant we had to find somewhere to finish the cruiser. We all had caravans, so accommodation was not a problem, but where to place the cruiser was. We finally moved onto the Mooney Creek Caravan Park, lock, stock and cruiser! Everything progressed well until the first of two floods hit the park. During the first we were lucky with the vans, as the water came only to the doorsteps, but the cruiser, sited on the banks (as can be seen in the photos, was lower down. We had to race madly around, grabbing some cakes of soap and ramming them into the pipe openings in the hull to prevent the boat sinking, then float the boat away from the stands on which it had rested to avoid it settling crookedly and holing the craft. Then, as the waters receded, came the task of floating it back over the shore and settling it on new supports. 13 | P a g e