Sailing into the Future : The Amazing Wooden Boats of Madagascar

Tom Polacheck | Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2025

Sailing into the Future : The Amazing Wooden Boats of Madagascar

Tom Polacheck | Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2025

Exhibition Dates :
Friday 7 – Sunday 16 February 2025

Friday – Sunday 10am – 5pm
Monday – Thursday 10am – 4pm

Opening Event :
5:30pm Thursday 6 February 2025

Photographer, Tom Polacheck’s exhibition highlights Madagascar’s rich maritime heritage, where wooden boats blend influences from Southeast Asian outrigger canoes, Arab dhows, and Western schooners along the island’s 3,000 km coastline.

A photo and video exhibition that celebrates the 1000s of traditional wooden boats that still prevail along Madagascar’s 3000km coast line. Madagascar is the last large coastal region where open-ocean, wooden sailing vessels still predominate. These vessels are critical for sustaining the daily lives of the people living there. They are central for providing food and transport in a region where roads and terrestrial infrastructure hardly exist. While off the coast of Africa, Madagascar retains strong links with the Pacific and SE Asia as its original inhabitants sailed there around 1200 years ago. Since then, it has been at the cross roads of the Atlantic-Indian Ocean trade routes. It has absorbed, combined and maintained the traditions and knowledge from (1) Southeast Asian/Pacific outrigger canoes (2) Arab dhows and (3) the western gaff rigged schooners.In November 2024, five Australian’s undertook a journey of discovery to Madagascar, (including a 2 week cruise in a traditional schooner) to learn about and document its rich maritime history. Presented here is a visual display of some of what they learned and discovered about this diverse range of beautiful vessels and the people that build and sail them.