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A 71-year-old Tasmanian boat builder is liquidating his 240 hull-timber watches before closing his boatshed for good

After 43 years building boats that take on the Southern Ocean, Warren Kirby no longer has the strength to keep going. We looked into the story that is shaking the Huon Valley.

A letter from Warren Kirby, boat builder, Franklin

Franklin, Tasmania. Warren Kirby, 71, will end forty-three years of work on 30 June 2026. Inside the boatshed that looks out over the Huon River, he is packing away his creations one last time: 240 watches assembled by hand, with dials cut from genuine Huon pine reclaimed from real boat hulls, each crown set with a piece of sea glass polished by the waves of the Southern Ocean.

 

Why is he closing? Knees that gave out after forty years of crouching on hulls, a surgeon who said the words he had been dreading, and above all a promise made to his daughter Emma after the storm that nearly took everything. "She said to me: you've been fixing other people's boats for forty years. Now you look after yourself. I promised."

 

Before he pulls the shutters down for good, the boat builder is selling off his last 240 watches for $149 each, turning down a Sydney distributor who offered $44 apiece to resell them at $440. This isn't a commercial operation. It's the end of a story the sea wrote for him.

 

Our investigation shows how forty-three years of timber and salt are about to come to a close, and why this closure resonates well beyond Franklin.

The event that set it all in motion: when a storm becomes a starting point

June 2019. A powerful East Coast Low hammers the Tasmanian coast with winds of one hundred and forty kilometres an hour. In the port at Franklin and along the Huon, several boats are ripped from their moorings and thrown against the wharves.

 

Warren spends three weeks fixing what can still be saved. He works in sub-zero temperatures, hands in salt water, knees in wood shavings. At sixty-four. Alone.

 

"My daughter Emma used to watch me from the jetty on some of those mornings," he confides. "She didn't say anything, but I could see what she was thinking." He pauses. "She was right."

 

One evening a few weeks later, over dinner, Emma told him what she really thought: "Dad, you've been fixing other people's boats for forty years. You've never done one thing for yourself."

That sentence stays with him. It works on him.

 

In the weeks that follow, unable to sit still in the empty shed, Warren starts sketching. Not a boat. A watch. He wants to make something from what he has always had close at hand: offcuts of planking salvaged from dismantled hulls, pieces of sea glass the tide brings back every day, the bluing steel of old marine instruments. Everything the sea has given him over forty years, condensed into an object you can wear on your wrist.

 

"If the ocean can turn hull offcuts into something beautiful, maybe I can make something too, before the workshop closes."

240 watches and thousands of hours of marine timber

For two years, Warren Kirby walked the beaches of the Huon Valley at low tide. The tally: kilos of polished glass collected fragment by fragment, offcuts of planking sorted by species and thickness, dozens of prototypes abandoned before he arrived at the watch he had in mind.

 

The process is slow and meticulous. Each dial is cut from a different piece of hull Huon pine. The grain, the knots, the variations in tone never repeat. The crown of each watch receives a unique piece of sea glass, some clear, others slightly blue or green depending on where the glass came from, depending on how many years the waves took to polish it.

 

"My hands have known this timber for forty years," he explains. "They know which piece will give the most beautiful dial, which grain will come through under the marine varnish."

 

The seconds hand is blue, not from paint, but from thermal oxidation, the same technique used on marine navigation instruments for two centuries. The colour is in the metal itself. It doesn't flake. "It's the exact blue of the Southern Ocean on a clear day. I've been looking at it from my workshop every morning for forty-three years."

 

But the body eventually had the last word. His knees, worn out by decades of crouching on hulls, delivered their verdict. In January 2025, the surgeon put words to what Warren had known for a long time: severe osteoarthritis, joint replacement unavoidable, heavy physical work ruled out.

 

"My body said no," he sums up. "I had the 240 watches ready on the bench. The timing was perfect, if you can call it perfect."

An unexpected wave from all over Australia

When Emma put the page online from her apartment in Hobart, she expected to sell a few dozen watches to relatives and to people who love the sea. What happened next caught her completely off guard.

 

The first orders came from Tasmania. Then from all over Australia. Former sailors, sons of boat builders, people who have never set foot in a boatyard but who recognise something in this story. Warren's inbox filled with messages he wasn't expecting.

 

"Your watch is the first one I wear every day since the death of my father, who was a boat builder himself," writes a customer from Hobart. "The dial on mine has a black grain running diagonally across the wood. It exists as a single example in the world," shares a buyer from Fremantle. "I showed the watch to a watchmaker friend of mine. He asked me how much it cost. When I told him 149 dollars, he didn't believe me," reports a customer from Melbourne.

 

On social media, hundreds of people are sharing the story. Some call it "the last truly maritime watch made in Australia", others "an object you pass on". A spontaneous response that reaches well beyond the borders of Tasmania.

 

But the countdown continues. Fewer than 160 pieces remain.

The last 240 watches of a life in the boatshed

On the bench he built with his own hands thirty years ago, 240 watches are waiting in their cases. No stock sitting in a warehouse. No mass production from somewhere else. Just what is left of two years of work packed into a boatshed in Franklin.

 

Each watch contains a piece of hull that has been out on the water. A piece of glass the sea has polished for years. A blue that no factory reproduces exactly.

 

The dial in reclaimed Huon pine, recovered from real hulls. Huon pine taken from the planking offcuts of dismantled boats. Each dial is unique, the grain and the knots never repeat. "The watch you receive exists as a single example. There are 240 of them. None of them are alike."

 

The Huon pine bracelet, shaped links, marine varnish. Same species as the dial. The links are sealed with the same marine varnish Warren used on the decks of his boats. It hardens with time, resists moisture, darkens slightly over the years the way the timber on a well-kept old boat does.

 

The seconds hand blued by thermal oxidation. The colour is in the metal, not on the metal. It doesn't flake. Southern Ocean blue, chosen by Warren himself.

 

The crown set with a piece of sea glass collected on the beach. Gathered just below the workshop. Each crown is different, some clear, others blue or green. "The sea finishes them. I just place them."

 

The case in brushed stainless steel, marine instrument finish. Matte, non-reflective, unaffected by salt. A watch made to be worn, not put on display.

 

The high-precision Japanese quartz movement. The only element that doesn't come from the sea. "Japanese quartz is honest. One battery every two or three years. These watches have to work without being fussed over, like a good boat."

 

"It isn't just a watch," Warren explains. "It's a piece of the sea you wear on your wrist. Forty-three years of boatbuilding packed into something that fits in your palm."

 

Buyers don't miss the point. Many order several, for their father, their brother, a friend who grew up by the sea. "The best gifts carry a story," Warren observes. "This one comes from the ocean."

 

When these 240 watches are gone, it will really be over. The workshop will close on 30 June. And with it, forty-three years of a legacy built piece by piece, hull after hull.

 

>> Click here to get a Kirby >>

A legacy that will outlive the walls of the boatshed

Warren Kirby has no illusions. In a few weeks, the lease on the shed will run out. The keys will be handed back. The bench he built with his own hands will be taken apart. The shed that looks out over the Huon River will probably take in something else.

 

But he refuses to see this as a failure. "When my boatshed no longer exists, these watches will keep telling the story of the sea," he says. "And maybe mine too."

 

For him, every watch sold is a win. Not only financially. It is proof that forty-three years of timber and salt have touched people, have brought a piece of the ocean into lives that didn't necessarily have one.

 

"I don't regret a thing," he insists. "These two years designing the watches taught me something forty years in the shed hadn't: that you can hold the sea inside something that fits on a wrist. If that can remind someone what wet Huon pine and salt smell like, then I will have done what I set out to do."

 

At $149, the watches move steadily. Some days, one order in the morning, two in the evening. On others, ten at once after an unexpected share. The counter turns down: 240, then 210, then 180, then fewer than 160.

 

For those still hesitating, Warren's message is clear: "I'm not asking for charity. I'm asking for a home for what I made with my hands, and for everything the sea gave me over forty years."

 

>> Click here to get a Kirby >>

How to order before it's too late

The 240 watches represent everything that is left of Warren Kirby's work. No restock will be possible. No new production is on the table. Once they're sold out, this forty-three-year story will be over for good.

 

The price is set at $149, after Warren refused to hand his stock to a distributor who offered $44 each to resell them at $440. A decision that has nothing to do with marketing, but reflects a single belief: that these watches deserve wrists that know the value of timber and of the sea.

 

Orders can be placed directly online. Warren backs every watch: satisfied or refunded within 30 days. "I want people to love it as much as I loved making it."

 

Delivery times are short. From the shed at Franklin, every parcel is sent with its certificate of provenance, the origin of the wood, the piece number, and Warren's direct number for any question. Some buyers have already received their watches and say so: "Even more beautiful than in the photos. You can really feel it's real hull timber. The blue hand is exactly the colour of the sea."

 

Time is short. In a few weeks, the boatshed will close its doors. For those who want to wear a piece of this story, the opportunity won't come round again.

 

⚠ STOCK REMAINING: Fewer than 160 pieces. No restock planned. Direct sales only.

CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR KIRBY WATCH

Warren Kirby, Boatshed, Franklin, Tasmania

Wooden Watch

Hull-reclaimed Huon pine

Sea glass

Southern Ocean blue hand

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