Casilda

Vessel numberHV000781

Sail NumberV10

Date1915

DimensionsVessel Dimensions: 14.17 m × 1.62 m, 19.31 tonnes (46.5 ft × 5.3 ft, 19 tons)

DescriptionCASILDA is a carvel batten-seam Huon pine hull with a traditional drop centreboard through the fish well, there is no centrecase as such. The amateur builders James and Walter Rattenbury, were its original owners and operators and members of an early Tasmanian East Coast family. They were farmers who turned to fishing and pioneered direct export of crayfish from Dunalley to Sydney. CASILDA was superbly built and has always been a well maintained vessel. Now over 100 years old it retains over 90% of the original structure and original configuration. The mizzen is demountable and vessel often sails as a cutter.

CASILDA spent about 60 years as a commercial fishing vessel initially on Tasmanian East Coast mostly scale fish and cray fishing and then from the 1950s it worked in Storm Bay and the D'Entrecasteaux Channel with scallop fishing.

Sold out of the trade the late 1970s it has since become a yacht but remains completely unaltered from the fishing boat configuration. CASILDA was an early member of the now defunct Vintage Boat Club of Tasmania. A new lower mast was fitted in the mid-1980s following a dismasting in 1983.

SignificanceCASILDA is a wooden fishing vessel built in Tasmania in 1915. it was built by Walter and James Rattenbury at Dunalley near Port Arthur for their own use as a fishing boat. It was operated commercially for six decades, and then became an auxiliary yacht. However, CASILDA’s fishing boat configuration remains completely intact and unaltered, and CASILDA is probably the most authentic of its type extant.