PORT TOWNSEND — At the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, you can take your pick of maritime sights and experiences — whatever rows your boat.
The 41st festival will be from 9 a.m. to midnight today and Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at the Northwest Maritime Center at 431 Water St. in Port Townsend.
Tickets are $20 for a one-day pass or $40 for access today through Sunday.
Discounted tickets at the gate are available for seniors older than 62, students and active military, while children will be admitted free.
Tickets can be purchased at nwmaritime.org/wooden-boat-festival.
There will be plenty for “boat nerds” to see and do, said Jake Beattie, Northwest Maritime Center executive director, who added, “I say that as a boat nerd myself.”
Presentations ranging from sextant care to first-person adventure stories will occupy all three days, drawing world-renowned wooden boat experts to three outdoor and four indoor stages.
If you’re drawn to the water, you can hop aboard a paddleboard in the paddleboard pool on the Point or off the beach, row and sail replicas of Capt. George Vancouver’s 1792 vessels and ride on the Martha J, Adventuress or Zodiac.
The designated hub of kids’ activities, Kids’ Cove, will offer perennial favorites and new traditions.
Beattie estimated thousands of small wooden boats have emerged out of little hands during the annual kids’ boatbuilding activity. Throughout the festival, children can choose a hull, mast and sailcloth and build a pint-sized vessel to their liking.
“Mantles around the Olympic Peninsula have accumulated an armada of small wooden boats,” Beattie said, laughing.
The Kids’ Cove also will feature fish painting T-shirts, a puppet theater, plays, pirate storytelling and face painting.
For more on kids’ activities or off-site child care, visit nwmaritime.org/wooden-boat-festival/ family-fun.
There’s also much to behold. You can watch a ship’s wheel being built or a ship in the bottle being assembled in the boat shop. Or view gripping boat races throughout the weekend.
The annual “Sail-By” caps off the festival as 300 wooden vessels pour out of the harbor at 3 p.m. Sunday.
For a full schedule of events, visit 2017wooden boatfestival.sched.com.
The schedule of presentations and demonstrations follows:
Today
• 9 a.m. — “Make Your Own Gilded Name Boards: An Elegant Alternative to Transom Signage”; dittybag apprenticeship, with traditional sail and canvas work by hand.
• 9:30 a.m. — “Steam Bending”; “Caring for Your Magnetic Compass.”
• 10:30 a.m. — Sharpening.
• 10:45 a.m. — “Clouds and What they Mean to a Mariner”; “Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire”; “The Australian Eighteen-Footer.”
• 11:30 a.m. — “Norse Boat Building Techniques”; “Working with Handsaws.”
• Noon — “Solving Problems in Boatbuilding: A Painless Approach”; “40 Camels: A Cruising Story”; “Care and Feeding of Your Outboard Engine”; dittybag apprenticeship; pilothouse simulator tours; “Transiting Surge Narrows Under Sail Alone”; yacht designer’s panel.
• 12:30 p.m. — “Choosing and Using Hand Planes.”
• 1 p.m. — Pilothouse simulator tours.
• 1:15 p.m. — “A Family Cruises Around the World”; “Finding Pax & Writing Your Boat’s Story”; “Owning a Classic Wooden Power Cruiser: The Practical Aspects”; “Removing Old Paint and Starting Over”; “The Voyage of the Southern Cross — A Different Kind of Circumnavigation and Education Program.”
• 1:30 p.m. — “Demistifying Foils”; “Mortice and Tenons.”
• 2 p.m. — Pilothouse simulator.
• 2:30 p.m. — “Coopering”; “Working With Epoxy and Fiberglass”; “Composting Toilets”; “Creating the Unstoppable Boat”; “Keeping a Weather Log: An Old Tool for a New Age”; “Truths to Tools”; “When Good Fuels Go Bad.”
• 3 p.m. — Dittybag apprenticeship; pilothouse simulator tours.
• 3:30 p.m. — Kayak rolling demo; “Basic Boat Electrical Systems”; “Dovetails.”
• 3:45 p.m. — “Boat Interiors”; “Forty Years Master: A Life in Sail and Steam” and “Solo Around the Americas!”
• 4:30 p.m. — “Essentials of Sailmaking.”
Saturday
• 9 a.m. — Dittybag apprenticeship.
• 9:30 a.m. — “Caulking”; “Caring For Your Marine Sextant”; “Dream vs. Reality: Owning and Restoring a Classic Wooden Yacht”; “Forty Years Master: A Life in Sail and Steam”; “Living the Dream”; “How to Get Your Boating and Cruising Stories Published.”
• 10 a.m. — “Essentials of Sailmaking.”
• 10:30 a.m. — “Marine Batteries — New Technologies”; “Smoothing With Planes”; “Vacuum Bagging Techniques.”
• 10:45 a.m. — “Finding Pax & Writing Your Boat’s Story”; “How Professional Meteorologists Put Their Forecast Together”; “Outfitting for Blue Water Cruising”; “Why Have a Compass.”
• 11:30 a.m. — “Sharpening.”
• Noon — “Forty Camels: A Cruising Story”; “Care and Feeding of Your Outboard Engine”; “Celestial Navigation”; dittybag apprenticeship; “Owning a Classic Wooden Power Cruiser: The Practical Aspects”; pilothouse simulator tours; “The Australian Wooden Boat Festival”; “Sail Handwork — Rings, Slides and Leather.”
• 12:30 p.m. —“Drawknives and Spokeshaves”; “Marine Corrosion.”
• 1 p.m. — Pilothouse simulator tours.
• 1:15 p.m. — “Azorean Whaleboats”; “Planning a Successful Cruise to Alaska”; “Removing Old Paint and Starting Over”; “Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire”; “Tides: the Science and Spirit of the Ocean.”
• 1:30 p.m. — “Choosing and Using Western Hand Saws”; “Tying Thump Mats and Other Flat Things.”
• 2 p.m. — Pilothouse simulator tours.
• 2:30 p.m. — Kayak rolling demo; “NW Coast Adzes”; “Below 40 South — Voyaging South on the Strait of Magellan Aboard a 12-Foot Sail and Oar Boat”; “Find Your Park in a Wooden Boat”; “Get Your Captain’s License”; “Keeping a Weather Log: An Old Tool for a New Age”; “Varnishing Tips and Tricks.”
• 3 p.m. — Dittybag apprenticeship; pilothouse simulator tours.
• 3:30 p.m. — Kayak rolling demo; “Fiberglassing Over Wood”; “Spar Making.”
• 3:45 p.m. — “Decarbonizing the NW Marine Fueling System”; “Demistifying Foils: A Primer on Wings in the Water”; “The Adventures That Shaped Our Lives.”
Sunday
• 9 a.m. — Dittybag apprenticeship.
• 9:30 a.m. — “Chopping Rabbets”; “Sharpening; Caring for Your Magnetic Compass”; “Composting Toilets”; “Electric Boat Discussion”; “Surviving an Ocean Capsize”; “What to Do When the Captain is Incapacitated.”
• 10:30 a.m. — “Carving Oars Dovetails.”
• 10:45 a.m. — “Cruising the Salish Sea Under Sail Alone”; “R2AK — Racing from Port Townsend to Alaska on a SUP”; “Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean”; “Wooden Boat Thieves in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.”
• 11:30 a.m. — Kayak rolling demo; “Carving NW Canoes”; “Diesel Engine Maintenance.”
• Noon — “Cruising Happily in Small Boats”; dittybag apprenticeship; “Keeping the Dream Alive: Our 25-Year Love Affair; “Lust or Logic: Restoring a Wooden Boat”; pilothouse simulator tours; “The Australian Eighteen-Footer.”
• 12:30 p.m. — “Fiberglassing Over Wood”; “Introduction to Wood Lathes and Turning.”
• 1 p.m. — Pilothouse simulator tours.
• 1:15 p.m. — “Cool Products No One Knows About”; “Decarbonizing the NW Marine Fueling System”; “The Greenland Climate Project.”
• 1:30 p.m. — “Chopping Rabbets.”
• 2 p.m. — Pilothouse simulator tours.
• 2:30 p.m. — “Solar Panels.”
• 3 p.m. — Dittybag apprenticeship.
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Reporter Sarah Sharp can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56650, or at ssharp@peninsula dailynews.com.
Rowers pose for a group portrait at last year’s 40th annual Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend. (Northwest Maritime Center)
