Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival - Part Two

The Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival seems to have a different atmosphere each day.

Fridays are my favorite day. Friday seems to bring in more of the amateur boatbuilders, eager to attend the festival as early as possible in order to beat the weekend crowds and get more one-on-one time with the exhibitors.  I really enjoy the relaxed atmosphere on Friday. I made this video clip to give you an idea of what I mean.

Saturday is the busiest day, drawing people from all walks of life, with the full spectrum of interests.  Sunday, the final day of the festival, seems to bring in many of the locals whose friendliness knows no bounds. It gradually builds in anticipation of the spectacular grand sail-by, cheered by thousands of spectators along the shore, immediately followed by thousands of fond farewells.

On Friday I alternated between answering questions on Ellie and sneaking away to look at the other boats while waiting with great anticipation for John Welsford's talk at 12:30.

Having already taken a peek at Peter's Penguin "Tenatious" at the boat launch, I figured this was a great time to go see the other Welsford boats at the festival: A Scamp and a Walkabout.

First up was Scamp.  I will be writing much more about Scamp in the future.

And nearby was "Puddles", Rick Thompson's Walkabout. Puddles is built as a coastal rowing boat. She is stretched to 17' 10", and has seat rails and removable seats and foot stretchers to allow one or two slide seat rowers. She was launched in May 2010.  Her home waters are San Francisco Bay, the Sacramento Delta, and lakes of the Sierra Nevada.  The workmanship is impeccable.

I met John Welsford at the Small Craft Advisor tent and spoke with him briefly. He had a very busy day scheduled.  John's talk at 12:30 was about the history of recreational boating.  The talk was fantastic.

There was an "Under 26' wooden sailboat race" scheduled from 2:30 to 4:00, with a skipper's meeting at 1:00 to go over the details.  I missed the skipper's meeting because I was at John's talk. No matter - I'm not a racer (I've never raced in my life) but I got this crazy idea to invite John for a sail just to watch the race. To me, dodging the racers is much more fun than racing with them.  So after his talk, I invited John out for a sail, and much to my utter delight, he accepted!  In the last few days, John had survived traveling halfway around the world in coach, gave three talks, and met hundreds of people. I couldn't tell for sure behind that beard, but I suspect John was ready for a little sailing vacation from his vacation!

So off we went to dodge the racers!  As soon as we left Port Hudson marina, I turned the tiller over to John.

I asked John how many Navigators he'd sailed.  He said he'd sailed twelve.

I ask how "Ellie" compared.  He said they all sailed very much the same, but had subtle differences.

I then asked John to let me know if he sees anything that needed to be adjusted or changed.

"You're going to want to move your jib fairlead aft about a handspan and a half.", he said.
[note: this would put the jib fairlead right at bulkhead 4]

"Really?", I said, puzzled. "Oh, is that because I shifted the jib higher up when I added the furler and turnbuckle?

John said "You see that curvature you have along the foot of the jib?"

John studied the jib for a few moments, then said, "Take the jib sheet out of that fairlead and lead it right back here to this camcleat."

I did as John instructed and looked at the jib. It now had a nice even airfoil shape along its entire length.

"That's better", said John "You could still use the other fairlead location for light air if you like, but moving it a handspan and a half aft looks just right."

John tacked and passed just astern of a gaff sloop that looked several feet longer than Ellie.


"Do you normally sit back there?" asked John

"Yes", I said

"Here, take hold of the tiller"

I took hold.

"Now let go the tiller. What do you see?"

I let go and the tiller moved slowly to port.

"A slight weather helm", I said, taking the tiller again.

"Right. Now shift your weight forward, all the way up here and let go the tiller."

The tiller moved slowly to starboard this time.

"These boats are quite sensitive to crew weight. The boat will sail it's fastest when properly balanced. You're a big guy so you are going to want a tiller extension so you can sit up here near the center."

I gave John the helm again, and sat further forward.

We sailed for several more minutes. John tacked occasionally while I daydreamed, soaked in the sunshine, and gazed at the variety of other beautiful boats in the race.

Meanwhile, Ellie seemed to be sailing faster than usual.

John tacked again, this time just ahead of a familiar gaff sloop.

"You see that?", said John, "Earlier we passed astern of that boat.  This time we passed ahead of him."

I didn't realize it, but John had joined the race.  Not only that, but with two expert adjustments and his experienced helmsmanship, John was overtaking a boat that had an advantage in length over us.  Remarkable!

Thanks, John, for generously sharing your time and wisdom with me.

After our sail, John and his lovely wife Denny met with our local TSCA group at Bar Harbor.

Next up: Saturday - the busiest day of the festival. The boats, the events, the maritime center, and much more.  Stay tuned!

Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival - Part One

The 35th Annual Wooden Boat Festival at Port Townsend was, in a word, magnificent!  I have been attending this festival for many years now.  It was two years ago when I met Barrett Faneuf here, she invited my wife and I out for a sail aboard her Navigator "Yuko", and the rest is history.  The festival seems to get a little bigger and a little better with each passing year, but this year's festival took a quantum leap for me.  Not only was it my first time as an exhibitor, but I had the honor of meeting people such as John Welsford, Howard Rice, Josh Colvin (editor of Small Craft Advisor magazine), Sam Devlin, and a surprising number of people currently building Welsford's designs.

But more on that later.

There is no way to compress all four days of the festival into one blog entry.  It's going to take several. Let's start with the pre-festival setup.

Ellie, of course, wanted to look her best, so I spent the weekend prior to the festival getting her in "ship shape".  I touched up the few scratches she had picked up from the barnacle encrusted rocky beach at Sucia, cleaned off the bits of dried seaweed from her most recent outing to a TSCA messabout at Bowman Bay and gave her mahogany seats a fresh coat of Seafin oil.  We even bought her a pretty little bouquet of flowers for the show. Ellie is a tomboy, but she didn't seem to mind.

Thursday, the busy setup day before the start of the festival, finally arrived.  We set out early because we had to tackle a bit of Seattle's morning rush hour traffic, take a Washington State ferry, and cross a major drawbridge just to get there, then set up the boat, launch her at Boat Haven marina, travel over to Port Hudson marina, and report in all before noon.

Here is Ellie, gleaming aboard the Edmonds-Kingston Ferry.

For those of you not from around here, the Washington State Ferry system has the largest passenger and automobile ferry fleet in the U.S. and the third largest in the world based on number of vehicles carried - about 11 million vehicles per year.

After the ferry crossing, and wait for the Hood Canal bridge to close, we finally arrived at Boat Haven marina.  At the boat launch was Peter Van Sickle with his Welsford Penguin "Tenacious".  Peter, who trailered over from Idaho, completed his Penguin about two months ago.  After launching our boats we headed for the festival at Port Hudson.  Here I am admiring "Tenacious".

Upon arriving at Port Hudson, we were instructed to contact the Harbormaster on VHF radio for our slip assignments.  Squeezing a couple hundred boats into Port Hudson in an orderly fashion is no easy task. More like a gigantic game of Tetris.  Harbormaster Dan Evans of the schooner Adventuress did a remarkable job.  What I didn't know was that they place all the larger yachts first.  Because we arrived fairly early we were forced to sail under beautiful, near perfect conditions for several hours while awaiting our turn to enter the harbor.  Feel sorry for us?  Don't!

At last it was our turn to enter and we tied up at our assigned spot.

Here is a panorama of all of us shoehorned in snug and cozy like.  Well done harbormaster!

At this point I had to make a quick side trip to check into our hotel, then hurry back for the reception. We were treated to a thank-you reception, complimentary drink, music and dancing at Bar Harbor (a large tent on the Western edge of the Festival where they serve beer, wine and have live music all day) that went on until after midnight.

Next up: The Festival begins.  A momentous sail with John and much more.  Stay tuned!

Another New Boat Launched

My good friend Larry Cheek launched his new Sam Devlin designed Winter Wren today.  Beautiful job Larry!  Her name is "Nil Desperandum", which is advice from the Roman poet Horace to “Quit worrying".  Larry has a terrific blog here.  Nil Desperandum will be on display at the Port Townsend wooden boat festival in September.

Larry and I met when he was writing his book The Year of the Boat.  Back then, Larry and I were coincidentally both building Sam Devlin's Zephyr design at the same time, a mere 30 miles apart when we crossed paths.  What are the odds of that? If you haven't read Larry's book, I highly recommend it.

Congratulations on a magnificent job, Larry!  I wish you many, many years of happiness, joy, and adventure, and above all, No Worries, aboard your beautiful new craft.

Sucia!

My Son and I just got back from a 4-day adventure to Sucia Island.  We were a part of the annual Sucia Small Boat Rendezvous.

Sucia Island State Park is a 564-acre marine park with 77,700 feet of shoreline. Sucia Island is considered the crown jewel of Washington State's marine park system. It is consistently ranked as one of the top boating destinations in the world. Sucia Island and several smaller island comprise the "Sucia group."

We departed Bellingham marina around 8:00 am on Friday 7/8/2011.  Soon after launching it began to rain and the wind picked up so we donned our foul weather gear.

About an hour later the weather cleared and we were able to sail all the way to Sucia except for a couple brief periods of motor-sailing. The sailing was wonderful!  Here we are approaching Matia Island.

We arrived at Fossil Bay at around 2:30 in the afternoon, set anchor and waded ashore to greet those that had already arrived and await those who hadn't yet.  There is Ellie, of course, in the foreground. That's John Bigelow in the William Garden "Eel" behind her.  John and I talked a lot and got to be good friends. The gentleman in the inflatable kayak snapping photos of John is the Doryman Michael Bogoger.

Next to arrive was Rick and his wife Judy aboard the Welsford Houdini "Gertrude". Judy hand carved the carving on the bow.  The meaning of the carving (I hope I get this right) goes like this, from front to back:  First is Gertrude, always looking forward. In her flowing hair are three sections. The first, just behind her head has twists that represent the wind. In the next twist are waves that represent the sea. The last twist has an eye that represents how Gertrude is ever watchful to keep her crew safe.

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About that time I noticed there were many rocks on the beach, while nearby Fox cove had a much sandier beach. I decided to motor Ellie around to Fox cove which I figured would be easier on Ellie when the tide went out.  I got half way out of Fossil Bay when my outboard managed to suck up a bunch of seaweed, overheated, and died.  I could not get the motor restarted so I sailed back to where I started from and re-anchored.  Here's Ellie at low tide. No damage was done to the hull by the rocks.

I spent a restless night worrying about my outboard.  Was it fried from overheating? Would I be able to get it running tomorrow or would I need to sail all the way back to Bellingham and dock under sail in a crowded marina?
Next morning finally arrived and I carefully picked all the seaweed out of the outboard motor's cooling intake with a bent piece of wire and after a bit more tinkering, it started!  What a relief!

Tim and I set about exploring the island. I won't even try to explain how beautiful Sucia is. I'll let these photos do the talking.

Every year the Sucia Small Boat Rendezvous attempts an around Sucia race. It's never been sucessful because the wind always dies. This year was no exception. We were able to sail about 1/4 way around but had to motor the rest of the way.  But we took advantage of the opportunity to poke into the various bays and do some exploring.

After the "race" there was time for more exploring before the evening's Wine and Cheese night. Tim and I took a hike out to Ev Henry point which is the South East point of Sucia.

That night, at Wine and Cheese Night, Jamie Orr played the bagpipes and everyone had a terrific time sharing finger foods and spirits. I drank too much and consequently didn't take any pictures. Sorry!

This is the view from our camp site. I woke up early Sunday morning and took an early morning hike out to the Southwest point of Fox Cove. I forgot to take the camera of course so naturally I didn't get photos of the six sea otters playing in the bay not 50 feet from me, occasionally stopping to grunt at me to go away. Nor did I get photos of the bald eagles or the blue herons feeding on fish for breakfast, or the rusted remains of an engine block and windlass lying on the dangerous rocky reef that extends halfway across the entrance to Fox cove at low tide.

Later Sunday the three of us (Tim, Myself and our pineapple named "Wilson") hiked out to Snoring Bay. Sadly, Wilson did not survive.  We buried his remains at sea.

Monday morning we said our farewells and headed for home, but stopped at Matia Island for a visit.  There were two empty spaces at the dock in Rolfe cove so we tied up and took a one mile hike through the wildlife preserve which makes up most of Matia.

 We ran into this fellow on the trail.  One of the biggest slugs we've ever seen!

 After leaving Matia we had a terrific sail back to Bellingham marina.

 

After arriving at Bellingham we went straight for ice cream and burgers!
Ellie performed magnificently.  We can't wait till next year to do it again!

Ellie's Second Voyage

Ellie, my Son and I had a spectacular sail today!  We sailed 17 miles, consistently sailed at over 6 mph upwind, and hit 8.5 mph on a reach!  We circumnavigated Hat Island.  A remarkable sail on a remarkable boat. This video is a bit long, but we hope you enjoy it!


Note:  The speeds noted in the video say Knots but they are really Miles Per Hour. I discovered afterwards that my GPS was set wrong. Oops!

(double-click twice for fullscreen)