The Leeuwin Port Party

Jean Hudson reports on the festivities at Victoria Quay yesterday afternoon

The weather gods have been acting up and sending a cold front Freo’s way. Because of the weather forecast, STS Leeuwin II arrived into Fremantle Harbour Thursday afternoon, a day earlier than scheduled, to avoid wild weather.

Here she is approaching B Berth on Thursday afternoon.

And you’ll find even more pics of Leeuwin’s return to Port Thursday afternoon right here.

I missed her arrival but popped down to Victoria Quay at sunset Thursday to capture this pic – it was lovely to see Leeuwin back at B Berth and silhouetted against the setting sun.

She still requires a lot of work before she can sail again. The tops of her masts, spars, rigging and electrics will be fitted at B Berth. So expect to see lots of cranes as the work continues. She should be ready to sail by end of January 2026.

The weather was looking very dodgy for yesterday’s Port Party between 3-6pm. Perhaps someone put a statue of ‘The Infant of Prague’ outside because the rain held off. (It’s an Irish tradition; the statue is left outside to ensure good weather – usually for weddings.) VIPs had tours of the ship and crew were on hand to answer questions.

Because of the weather, face painting and the Mermaid Meet and Greet were moved inside Gage Roads – there were queues of kids.

Long queues for free icecream too, lots of flavours – the raspberry sorbet was yum. But, truth be told, I would have preferred a mulled wine as it was 17 degrees with northwest winds gusting to 28km/h.

The Lost Quays, a Fremantle nautical vocal group, entertained the crowd with cappella sea shanties from the Leeuwin cockpit.

A smaller crowd than expected, but everyone there was really excited to have her back.

And never fear, we’ll keep you posted on her rebuild progress.

* Words and photographs (save where indicated otherwise) by Jean Hudson @jeansodyssey.

Jean Hudson is our Shipping and Sailing Correspondent and also a regular feature writer and photographer here on the Shipping News. You may also like to follow up her informative Places I Love stories, as well as other feature stories and Freo Today photographs, right here.

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