Wee George Robinson

Mr George Robinson, known widely as "Wee Georgie Robinson", was the designer, builder, owner and skipper of the champion skiff BRITANNIA throughout its working life.

Robinson was a foreman shipwright at Cockatoo island, living on the Balmain waterfront for his whole life. He sailed in summer and played football in winter. Like his father, George Robinson became a boatbuilder and 18-Foot skiff skipper, starting as a bailer boy in his father's boat.

In 1913 he built his first boat, a 6-Foot skiff named BRITANNIA, and in 1919 he launched his 18-Foot skiff of the same name. Over the next 25 years BRITANNIA with a crew of 11 family and footballers became a champion.

He built other craft including his own work launch, a yacht named WAITANGI and a series of Sabot class dinghies.

Upon his death in 1987, his family donated various papers (programmes, notebooks recording race results, magazines and newsletters) relating to BRITANNIA collected by George Robinson to the Australian National Maritime Museum.