PORT TOWNSEND — The tall wooden doors to the Chandler Maritime Education Building were thrown open Thursday night after visitors heard praise of those who helped build it and witnessed the ceremonial untying of boat rope knots, along with a resounding cannon blast.
Addressing about 200 gathered at the end of Water Street as the center was opened the day before the 33rd Wooden Boat Festival began, Maritime Center Executive Director Stan Cummings recalled conversations with Carlsborg-based Primo Construction workers building the Maritime Center who called building such a finely-crafted wooden structure a “once in a lifetime experience.”
The Chandler Building was opened for about an hour so visitors could get their first up-close look at the building inside and out on the eve of the 33rd Wooden Boat Festival at Point Hudson Marina.
The center will be partially open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day during the three-day festival.
Regular business hours will be established after the event.
Cummings, who helped find grants and raise public donations that supported construction, was joined in the official Chandler building opening by Maritime Center board President Steve Oliver, Port Townsend Mayor Michelle Sandoval and First Federal President Karen McCormick, whose bank helped finance the project.
‘Community investment’
McCormick called the Maritime Center “the very best in community investment,” and Oliver thanked those involved for making the Maritime Center grow “beyond our imagination.”
The ceremony ended with a shot from an 1899 B and H Yacht cannon used as a starting gun in the original Americas Cup.
Anne Greer, a former Wooden Boat Festival director, and her boat-building husband, Jay Greer, brought the cannon from its home on the deck of their 1935 28-foot sloop, Red Witch.
Following the cannon shot, the crowd filed into the Chandler building, with many of them milling around it for the first time.
The 11,000-square-foot building is one of two structures planned for the $12.8 million center at the end of Water Street, overlooking Point Hudson Marina and Port Townsend Bay.
The Camilla Chandler Foundation stepped up early in the Maritime Center’s capital campaign with a $1 million gift.
Year-round activities
The Chandler Education Building will allow many of the popular features of the 33-year-old Wooden Boat Festival to take place year-round, such as wooden boat work and classes for youths.
The building features a boat shop, classrooms and a pilothouse room that, once equipped, will model a large ship’s bridge, complete with navigation and communications equipment used at sea.
Peter Quinn, Northwest Maritime Center development director, answered questions inside the pilothouse. He said the pilothouse just received a $500,000 port security grant that will help purchase the equipment needed to transport students and visitors to the world of maritime commerce.
Brent Shirley, former Port Townsend mayor and a First Federal board member, attended the opening, which comes about 10 years after he helped acquire about two former Thomas Oil Co. acres on the waterfront at the end of Water Street to locate the Maritime Center.
“I understand the dirt and the [site oil] cleanup, but I had no idea it was going to look like this,” Shirley said, overlooking the crowded boat shop from second-floor classroom mezzanine.
“I just told Main Street [Program] that it now looks like the end of town.”
City leaders have long said the structure would serve as a strong anchor to lure more visitors toward Point Hudson.
The public outdoors space, a courtyard marked by a compass rose with more than 1,400 paver bricks engraved with donor names, has been named First Federal Commons.
The city of Port Townsend recent completed streetscape roadwork surrounding the Maritime Center on two sides and up Monroe Street to Washington to improve access there.
Boats will be worked on at the boat shop and displayed in and around the center.
The chandlery, gifts shop, coffee shop and conference space with kitchen facilities inside the Heritage Building half of the Maritime Center will open after Jan. 1.
Administrative office space is already partially in use on Heritage Building’s second floor.
The Northwest Maritime Center and Wooden Boat Foundation’s goal is to engage and educate people of all ages in traditional and contemporary maritime life.
The 30-year-old Wooden Boat Foundation is the Maritime Center’s key collaborator and partner for maritime education programs, including on-the-water programs, school field trips, demonstrations of boatbuilding and other traditional hand crafts, maritime skills classes, youth mentorship opportunities, and the annual Wooden Boat Festival.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.