On a personal note, in January 2010 I took some time out to enjoy some sailing on a tall ship. I have the privilege to be volunteer member of Queensland Sail Training Association which runs the sailing ship South Passage, a 30 metre gaff rigged schooner.

South Passage spends most of the time taking groups of high school students on three to five day sailing trips where they learn by doing ALL the different aspects of a working sailing boat. There are no winches, all sail are hoisted and lowered by hand. It can be a life changing experience for some. The ship works her way up to Cairns in the winter, and down to Sydney in the summer. Some time in January, the ship needs to be brought back to Manly in Brisbane, her home port. This trip (8 days) is usually too long for schools so it is open to the public. I was fortunate to be picked as one of the crew so it was off to Sydney for Neil!
We sailed from Sydney on Sunday morning with a full crew of twelve and eighteen paying passengers. What an experience to sail down Sydney Harbour and out through the heads with 15kn of breeze - it was awesome!
We over-nighted in Newcastle, at Boughton Island then Trial Bay. We saw lots of dolphins during the day, with one on duty watch lucky enough to be entertained by a group of dolphins.  They were swimming in front of the bow of ship at night when we were going through a lot of phosphorus in the water. This was leaving a glowing trail behind the dolphins as they played around - It must have been amazing.
We stayed in Coffs Harbour Marina for a night on the town (we were all well behaved). Next stop was the Clarence River then we sailed all through the night to get to Tangalooma Point at Moreton Island and anchored the last night. We arrived at Manly Marina at 3 pm Sunday where passengers were happy to meet friends and rellies and tell them about their wonderful trip. It was a very pleasant trip with light winds and mild temperatures (I would have liked to have had some strong winds for good sailing). All in all it was a very good trip enjoyed by everyone.
They are always looking for more schools to charter the ship. So while she is up in this area if you have high school age children and would like them to experience living on a tall sailing ship for a few days please let me know who to contact at your school or check-out the South Passage website .