In America, 50 miles feels like a stone's throw, but 50 years is considered "an eternity and a half" in this fast-paced country. The organisers of the wooden boat festival in Port Townsend - just a stone's throw northwest of Seattle - are therefore proud to be able to look back on half a century of their event and that they have been able to keep it alive despite political and economic upheaval and a pandemic, without throwing their principles overboard: All are welcome here. Almost any vehicle is accepted, the main thing is wood. Clear varnish and polished brass are not compulsory, ironed uniforms stay in the wardrobe and nobody takes themselves too seriously. When the brass band in the marina asks you to dance, it's simply time for a break.
"We're not celebrating who we were, but who we still are," says Jake Beattie, who heads up the organising Northwest Maritime Centre (NWMC). "The festival feels authentic because it stays connected to the place and its people, while being intellectual and popular at the same time." His favourite anecdote dates back a good 20 years and is about someone who arrived with a raft made of lashed-together driftwood logs, adorned with a pallet and powered by an outboard motor. "Hilarious, but technically a wooden boat, so okay."
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The NWMC, a modern watersports and training centre with an attached wooden boatyard, was opened in 2009. Funded by donations, it was built in a prominent location on the waterfront, firstly to pre-empt property sharks who wanted to plaster flats there, and secondly to preserve the historic harbour of Point Hudson for the wooden boat culture. More than ten million dollars were raised from ordinary citizens and tradespeople, but also from benefactors such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chandler family. The latter are the former owners of the "Los Angeles Times" and the relatives of Alex Spear, who owns "Vito Dumas", a cutter designed by the Argentinean designer Jorge Campos (YC 21/02). Today, the NWMC employs up to 120 people and manages a fleet of around 45 boats. The Race to Alaska organised by the NWMC, a 750-mile ordeal for boats propelled solely by muscle or sail power, is widely known.
Wooden Boat Festival is biggest event for Port Townsend
A year earlier, around 300 boats were on display at the Wooden Boat Festival, including the "Cito", a Hansen design from 1936 (YC 18/01), the Norwegian Sjekte "Havhesten" (YC 22/02) and the Lind folk boat "Lorraine", which everyone knows here. A contrast is provided by unusual modern vessels such as "Whisper", an LA 28 built in Waren an der Müritz, or "Electric Philosophy", a solar-powered cruising cat made of plywood.
Also on board is "Ziska", an antique cutter with a yacht stern, which was built in 1903 as a crab fisherman in the north-west of England and came to Port Townsend via many detours (YC 20/01). A younger congener, "Vixen", a 10.6 metre Atkins design from the 1950s, is also a welcome guest. A family of four sailed it around the world for eleven years and were honoured with the Bluewater Medal (YC 20/02).
Schooner enthusiasts will meet "Pacific Grace" (43 m, built in 1991), a replica of a traditional Grand Banks schooner that serves as a training ship in Canada, or "Fame", a delicate racing schooner just 12.3 metres long, which until a few years ago was owned by America's Cup legend Dennis Conner, who had the boat extensively restored for its 100th anniversary.
For Port Townsend and its approximately 10,000 inhabitants, the festival is by far the biggest event. Between 20,000 and 30,000 tourists and wooden boat enthusiasts crowd into the tiny harbour of Point Hudson over three days in early September to view the flower-decorated exhibits, chat with owners and be invited on board. There are also exhibition stands selling kits, accessories and equipment, a boat-building tent for children, a rowing regatta, the schooner race and a race for classic small craft. Information-hungry visitors can choose from seminars on the topics of cruising sailing, boat building and woodworking - including a live demonstration of the correct bending of steam-treated frames.
City has a nautical history
Visitors are sometimes amazed by the genuine hippies who are also part of the inventory and arrive on adventurous vehicles on land and water, just like 50 years ago. Their presence is reminiscent of the festival's beginnings in 1977, two years after the traumatic end of the Vietnam War, at a time when young Americans were all about freedom, women's rights and lived individuality. If you wanted to get away and seek adventure, you could do so on the water, but you had to build a boat, alone or with like-minded people. "We helped friends out on the coast finish a concrete hull, and they helped us cut trees for the wooden boat we were building in Bellingham," recalls Carol Hasse, a retired sailmaker who is now a harbour commissioner in Port Townsend. "We were hippies and dreamed of building a boat and sailing off."
It was no coincidence that some of them moored in Port Townsend. The town had a nautical history, but fell into a long slumber because it was never connected to the railway network. "If you know how to use wooden tools, you can find work here," says 80-year-old master boat builder Ray Speck, who lived on a houseboat in Sausalito in the 1970s, right on San Francisco's Golden Gate. Today a suburb for high earners, back then it was an enclave for people with alternative lifestyles and a penchant for wooden boats. When he travelled to the first Port Townsend Festival, he felt right at home.
The story of the festival would not be complete without Tim Snyder having his say. At the time, he was head of sales at "Wooden Boat Magazine", which was launched on the east coast in 1974. "You can learn to build a house in a year, but it takes at least ten years to build a boat, so people were looking for information," laughs the aged Snyder, who helped build a Blue Jay out of plywood as a boy. He later learnt how magazine distribution works at "Reader's Digest" and helped his childhood friend Jon Wilson, who wanted to start a specialist magazine for wooden boats with a box full of typed manuscripts. Magazines and subscriptions sold like hot cakes at boat shows because "people had money in their pockets but no idea," Snyder recalls. "Only one in ten started a building project, the other 90 per cent sat in their armchairs and dreamed."
They agreed that a festival was also needed where hobby boat builders could show off their products and exchange ideas with like-minded people. They knocked on the door of the Small Boat Shop at the famous but somewhat cumbersome Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut first, and Snyder scouted the West Coast. He had actually already decided in favour of Anacortes on the mainland, but Sam Connor, a boat builder who ran a workshop in Point Hudson, persuaded him to pay a visit to Port Townsend, which he did.
"I got off the ferry, walked up Quincy Street and dropped into the Town Tavern, a pub that was kind of the living room of alternative culture at the time," Snyder recalls. "Then they showed me the town with the Victorian houses and the harbour of Point Hudson, and I knew this was the place." Judging by the success of the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival so far and hearing the optimistic voices of visitors and organisers, there is every reason to suspect that it will last for at least another "eternity and a half".
A feast for wooden boat lovers
The Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival is the largest classic event in North America. The organisers are not interested in an elitist gathering of like-minded people, but in bringing the maritime culture of wooden boat building closer to everyone, especially children, and making it a tangible experience. This is achieved through numerous activities in which visitors can participate.
