Friend of the Living Boat Trust Bert van Baar was with us whilst he supervised a team building a boat at the WBC in 2016-17, and since then has entertained a steady stream of Tasmanian visitors at his home in the Netherlands. One of Bert’s stock stories is that the first industrial revolution (at least in the western world) occurred in Holland, not Great Britain, and that it was wind, not steam powered. It was all about milling the wood to build the ships for the Baltic trade and to bring the spices back from the East Indies. If you aren’t visiting Bert soon to hear the yarn you can read it, in the March-April 2025 edition of the Watercraft magazine. It is a recommendation. It seems Bert has taken up the sawmilling trade – if we learn more we will pass it on.
Read more >>here<<, or see a mill in action >>here<<.
Going down the Internet rabbit hole a bit further, sawmills such as this replaced sawpits, with a topman and an underdog using a long crosscut saw. One of the first sawpits in Australia was dug at Adventure Bay. From WIkipedia:
In August 1788, William Bligh captain of HMS Bounty, anchored in Adventure Bay, Tasmania and ordered his crew to dig a saw pit in order to repair their boat. Eight months later the crew would go on to mutiny in the famous Mutiny on the Bounty.
Waddayaknow!?