The renowned Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival seems a perfect fit for the caught-in-time nature of her Victorian-era host city on the western peninsula of Washington State. Amidst art galleries featuring the work of local painters and sculptors, the city proudly displays her artisan- and coffee-fueled community of wood-carvers, blacksmiths, cartographers, and boat builders.
“PT” hosts festivals year-round, celebrating everything from indie films to Steampunk, but September’s Wooden Boat Festival is the town’s biggest draw, and it doesn’t hurt that the sun always seems to shine on this event (even if we’re only counting one day).
Here are just a few of the sights from the show, but we encourage anyone, anywhere, to visit. Helpful hint from the locals: Now is a good time to think about reservations in Port Townsend for 2018.
A forty year veteran of model building, Jeff Simmons demonstrates how to build ships-in-bottles for a delighted audience, young and old.
PassageMaker cover darling from 2016’s Green Issue, ‘Ama Natura’ is a veteran at the fest. Built in 2008 at the nearby Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building in Port Hadlock, owner/captain Peter Wilcox runs Ama entirely on wind power and bio diesel. You can read about his new venture, Inside Passage Decarbonization Project, here …
Ken Bassett-designed speedster, ‘Miss Mile-a-Minute’ and a detail shot of her stunning short shaft outboard engine, a 1961 Mercury 800 FGS.
Pots on the back of a 1963 Vinal Beal-designed Down East Maine Lobster Boat, ‘Flying Eagle,” an unusual sight in these waters. She was built at Moosabec Reach of Beals Island from the lines of a half-hull model (no plans). Owner Rick Strollo had her out of the water for significant repairs last year.
Built in the Naval shipyards in Pearl Harbor, this Stevenston LIfeboat was built in 1944. The 52-foot wood boat is owned and operated by John Horton who has helped volunteer rescue service on the Fraser River estuary and lower Gulf of Georgia since 1988, having participated in over 870 rescues in that time.
The basin adjacent to the Northwest Maritime Center hosts the entire Wooden Boat Festival, and features exhibitor tents surrounding the in-water show, as well as demonstrations inside the facility’s training spaces. Visit NWMC for more.
Rebuilt over the course of five years by legendary NW boatbuilder, Sam Devlin, ‘Josephine’ is a 1934-built salmon troller who is no stranger to long trips. This year, Sam and his wife took ‘Josephine’ from her home port in Olympia to Kynoch Inlet in Northern British Columbia.
Bill Garden-designed ‘Capella’ is side-tied to ‘Ursa Major’ (dock side), a Norwegian-built, Dublin-launched 1972 trawler. The former is built from Alaska yellow cedar over oak frames and was a one-off design.
A view of the pristine foc’s’le of the 1963 lobster boat, ‘Flying Eagle.’
Always a featured contributor, the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building has quite a few boats in the show, including ‘Ama Natura’ and her near-sistership, ‘Seabeast.’
