Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival - Part Three

Dawn, Saturday, the busiest day of the Festival, had arrived.  I spent most of the day aboard Ellie, answering questions, but occasionally sneaking off to watch presentations and view the other boats.

The Main Attraction today, for us Welsford fans anyway, was Scamp.  Howard Rice did an amazing talk. I wish I could have recorded it. The adventures Howard had taken aboard small boats are jaw dropping. He has gone around Cape Horn, both ways, in a sailing canoe, which ranks as one of the most epic journeys ever undertaken in a small boat.  No, he's not crazy.  Just the opposite. He trains Navy Seals in small boat handling.  Small Craft Advisor magazine did a series of interviews with Howard in issues 58 through 63.  In his presentation, Howard talked about his past and about the tests he had done aboard Scamp.  Howard was having a microcruiser designed for him by a French designer, but replaced it with Scamp hull #3.

John Welsford did another outstanding talk later that day entitled "The Designer's Role: More Than Just Drawing".  This time I brought my camera and recorded the talk.  Unfortunately the room was packed.  My seat was near the back of the room, too far away to make a video, and the audio is not the greatest quality either.  But if you crank up the volume, it is well worth listening to.  John talks about the Designer's role, which is turning your dreams into reality, and about how he designed Scamp to fulfill the specified design criteria.

 

 

I missed the majestic Schooner Cup races this year.  I was at John's talk instead. There are so many things to see and do at the festival that it's impossible to see them all.  Here is a little bit of the race.

I've been toying with the idea of building a cedar-stripped kayak or canoe. I know next to nothing about kayaks, but the cedar strip kayaks at the festival are just so beautiful, and they look like they would be a lot of fun to build.  I went to Joe Greenley's Cedar Strip Canoe & Kayak building demonstration.  I went away from the presentation thinking they didn't look too difficult.  A typical kayak uses a quarter mile of cedar strips!

The musical entertainment at the festival is fun. There is live music at Bar Harbor all day long. Here is a sample from "The Whateverly Brothers".  Many people play their instruments on their boats and they are quite good and a lot of fun to listen to.

These boats are replicas of the longboats that Capt Vancouver used to explore Puget Sound in 1792. Every year I kick myself for not signing up early enough to go out for a rowing and sailing tour aboard them. Next year for sure!

Remember Captain Kirk Gresham, inventor of the home-made roller furler?

Here's his latest contraption he built for his Devlin cutter Eider.  It keeps his full-keeled Eider comfortably upright on the beach while the tide is out.  They say the tide waits for no man.  Well, Kirk waits for no tide!

Here are a few more photos that I took of a few of the boats. This is a tiny, tiny fraction of the boats at the festival, which number in the hundreds. I really wish the festival was a week long instead of only three days!

  

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.