PORT TOWNSEND — When 260 seventh-graders row two longboats three times a year, oar damage is as certain as low and high tides.

That’s why adult and high school student volunteers are helping shipwright Jeff Covert craft 16 new oars at the Northwest Maritime Center/Wooden Boat Foundation boat building shed at Point Hudson Marina.

The project begun two weeks ago requires more work and skill than meets the eye.

The oars are a critical part of the foundation’s Maritime Discovery Program, which introduces youths at a pivotal age to maritime life.

“That’s the essence of our mission,” said Andy Gale, Northwest Maritime Center/Wooden Boat Foundation program manager.

With seventh-graders taking the program three times a year, Gale said, “The outcomes are much broader. It’s sort of a turning point where they start to become adults and are learning things.”

It helps teachers, many who love the program, Gale said, to bond with their students starting off the school year in the fall.

When they are finished, in about another week, the new oars will replace those chipped when students from Port Townsend and Chimacum middle and high schools use them to row the 26-foot longboats, Townshend and Bear.

Longboats replicas

The longboats are replicas of those used by Capt. George Vancouver, a British explorer whose tall ship, HMS Discovery, entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca, between Vancouver Island and the Washington state mainland on April 29, 1792.

Vancouver’s crew surveyed every inlet and outlet on the west coast of the mainland, all the way north to Alaska, relying primarily on longboats powered both by oars and sails.

Maneuvering larger sail-powered vessels in uncharted waters was generally impractical and dangerous because of strong tidal currents.

The foundation’s longboats are used by the Sea Scouts and Puget Sound Explorers, maritime youth programs.

Oar construction

To make the oars, three pieces of lightweight fir are laminated together before the blades are tipped with a tropical hardwood known as sapele, which is donated by Edensaw of Port Townsend.

The oars start out as blocks of long wood, which are shaped using a pattern, then rounded with planes and sanded.

They are finished with “boat sauce,” a concoction of turpentine, linseed oil and pine tar as water-proofing, then leathered where the oar meets the oar port on the boat.

The oars are also “marlin spiked with decorative knots to prevent chafing of the wood,” Gale said.

“It’s incredible how much work goes into it,” he added.

For more information, or to arrange a time to watch the work, phone Gale at 360-385-3628, Ext. 110.

Northwest Maritime Center programs are listed at www.nwmaritime.org.

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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.