Garry Stewart is the consumate current day classic wooden boat builder. The Stewart family commenced wooden boat building began at Port Fairy in 1966. 

My father Ron Stewart started the wooden boat building business at the current Gipps Street site on the banks of the Moyne River. Wooden Boat building has been occurring at Port Fairy since the early-1840’s, when John Griffiths, ship builder and whaler, built a sea-going vessel on Griffiths Island. The Haldanes built two fishing vessels on Griffiths Island, the 39-foot Amaryllis in 1933, and the 40-foot Dolphin in 1941. They also built the 84-foot Tacoma in 1951 on the Western bank of the Moyne River. The Haldanes then moved to Port Lincoln and, with the Tacoma, became the pioneers of the South Australian tuna fishing industry.
Over the years there have been numerous other classic wooden couta and fishing boats built by fishermen and boat builders.

Ron’s first boat shed had been on the island at Mordialloc Creek. In 1950 he moved to Portland where he constructed all types of timber vessels, large 80-foot barges for the Portland Harbour Trust, small couta boats, and crayfish and shark fishing vessels for the expanding fishing industry in South Australia and Victoria. Also at Portland, he converted a number of couta boats to cray fishing boats for South Australian fishermen.

These boats were fully decked, fitted with bulwarks and rails, wet crayfish well and small wheelhouse. Ironically, now some of these boats have been restored back to sailing couta boats. 

In 1963, Ron sold the Portland boat yard and moved up to Barmera at Lake Bonney, South Australia. Apart from smaller boat building and repairs at Barmera, he received orders for construction of two 45-foot cray fishing boats for Beachport fishermen, the second of which in 1965 when I started my boat building career. It was quite a sight to see these large vessels up in the Riverland, 230 kilometres from the sea. When completed, they were transported by road to Port Adelaide for launching and sea trials.

The long, hot summers at Barmera were taking their toll, and it was time for Ron and the family to head back to the coast: This marked the start in Port Fairy. Here he built a number of 33-foot plywood semi-planing ‘scoota’-type cray fishing boats. Some of the larger vessels he built here were the 46-foot Viking (one of the pioneering South Australian prawn fishing vessels), the 50-foot Ruby H and the 50-foot Gaymerelle (both used for crayfish and shark fishing), and many smaller fishing and sailing craft.

In 1978 Ron retired from the boat building business and then I took over. During the time since, we have carried on building a variety of boats of all types and sizes.