Ship Building Huskisson

1933

AWM Settree " "Pop", arrived in Huskisson in 1932 and started building large wooden ships.  When his son Alfred Raymond Settree took over the business in 1948,  the age of large sailing ships had passed by.   Raymond Settree built timber trawlers, his reputation as a master ship builder was established.      During World War 2  trawlers were requisitioned by the military  for the war effort,   Alf received orders  from the US Army to build for them a series of small vessels to assist them in their New Guinea campaigns.    Alfred  Raymond Settree or "Alf " as the locals knew him," passed on his skills to his son's,  John and Trevor.  They continued  building trawlers with John building the last timber Settree vessel the trawler Tasman Sea. The long, amazing and one time important industry of timber boat building at Huskisson came to and end  when the water front ship yard on the banks of Currambene Creek was sold by the Settree's in 2014. Anyone who had anything to do with boating around Huskisson knew Alf.   He was always motoring along the river, checking moorings and securing new ones.  I spoke to him on many occasions while i was putting signs on vessels hauled out onto his slip-way.   His old workshop was a treasure trove of shipbuilding history.

Alf Settree -  continue reading