Shavings Volume 31 Number 2 Festival 2011

THE CENTER FOR WOODEN BOATS

SHAVINGS

LAKE UNION WOODEN BOAT FESTIVAL Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Seattle, WA Permit No. 1583 1010 Valley Street, Seattle, WA 98109-4468 www.cwb.org • 206.382.2628

W The Center for Wooden Boats 1010 Valley St., Seattle, WA. 98109 (206) 382-2628 www.cwb.org Volume XXX1 Number 2, Summer 2011 ISBN 0734-0680 1992 CWB

our mission

To provide a gathering place where maritime history comes alive through direct experience and our small craft heritage is enjoyed, preserved and passed along to future generations.

CWB Staff

Betsy Davis Executive Director Dick Wagner Founding Director Amy Arrington Sailing Instructor Shane Bishop Cama Beach Livery Manager Logan Cadorette Livery Assistant C. Lewis Cunningham Cama Beach Assistant Boatwright Oliver Davis Sailing Instructor Megan Duncan Volunteer & Visitor Service Coordinator Steve Greaves Boat Donations & Boat Sales Manager Joe Green Boatshop Assistant Eric Harman Cama Beach Boatwright-in-Residence Craig Hood Cama Beach Boatman Kyle Hunter Boatshop & Livery Manager Jill Jacobson Festival Assistant Andrea Kinnaman Bookkeeper Dan Leach Community Engagement Lead/Boatwright Chris Maccini AmeriCorps Youth Educator Erik Neumann Livery Assistant Edel O’Connor Skills Workshop Program Manager Aislinn Palmer Development Assistant Judith Rickard Member/Donor Relations John Riley Nightwatch Mindy Ross Education Director Sāādūūts Artist-in-Residence

Erin Schiedler Communications Coordinator Eldon Tam Operations Manager & Festival Director Tyson Trudel Youth Program Coordinator Andrew Washburn CWB Cama Beach Manager

Board of Trustees

Mark Barnard Alex Bennett Chris Butler Chad Cohen Jim Compton Caren Crandell Elsie Hulsizer Andrea Kinnaman David Loretta

Robert Merikle Mark Nowlan Lori OTool Walt Plimpton Noah Seixas Johnathan Smith Denise Snow Tim Yeadon

The Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival issue is a special edition of Shavings, the newsletter produced by The Center for Wooden Boats.

Shavings is published several times a year and is one of the many benefits of membership.

CWB encourages members to contribute to Shavings. Articles can be sent either in the body of an email message or as a Microsoft Word file (or delivered on a disk). Photos can be sent in as email attachments in .jpg or .tiff format, minimum 300 dpi. Include captions (naming people and places) and photo credits. Phone editor Dick Wagner at (206)382-2628 to discuss your ideas or email dick@cwb.org.

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All Aboard and welcome to our 35th birthday party!

Our first Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival was an experiment to find out if we had the public support to create a museum where visitors could play with the collections. There were about 100 reasonably normal people who thought we were the saints of maritime heritage. The rest of the world was amused about our mission or assumed we were crazy.

The idea of a wooden boat festival was the joint brainstorm of my wife, Colleen, wooden boat nut Land Washburn and me.

Digging into our collective pockets for the festival funds we came up with less than a dollar. Feeling lucky, I borrowed more money from another of the wooden boat clan to buy liability insurance and toilet paper. The Naval Reserve Commanding Officer allowed us to use their base on south Lake Union but their stores of restroom supplies were low.

Borrowing was also my means of getting floats from the Lake Union boatshops. I also borrowed the skills of friends. The Coast Guard laid out concrete anchors for the floats and volunteers built a workshop for toy boat building, an information booth that looked like a lighthouse, a skills demonstration shop and a food booth. Yet more friends were the food staff, offering coffee, chocolate chip cookies and hot dogs. Signs were painted on canvas by Colleen on our living room floor.

About 75 wooden boats from skiffs to schooners were seen, boarded and tried out by about 2,000 visitors. They left with great interest in our mission as well as leaving donations in our volunteerbuilt sea chest. At the end of the three-day show, after paying back the loan, we had a fair profit to get operations started. We also gained the confidence to create The Center for Wooden Boats.

We have grown a lot in 35 years, with a site on Lake Union, a site at Cama Beach, an armada of boats afloat that people can see and, better yet, use. About two million visitors have come to CWB for fun, relaxation, adventure and education. At The Center for Wooden Boats, maritime heritage is an experience that makes a difference, at the Boat Festival and year-round.

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It is a privilege to serve at The Center for Wooden Boats, within this vibrant community of spunky iconoclasts, passionate craftspeople and ready hands. Together we are changing lives, one boat at a time. And, of course, having fun.

Our Festival highlights what CWB loves to do year-round. We relish creating an environment where kids grow their self-confidence through hands-on experiences and adults try their hand at boatbuilding and sailing and more, combining recreation and lifelong learning. At CWB, the public has access to boating and the waterfront; it’s a place where community forms daily as people share the joys of “messing about in boats”.

CWB preserves a unique part of Seattle’s waterborne history - both the historic small boats and also the skills involved with building and using them.

Sometimes I am asked whether CWB is a “Learning Center”, a “Museum”, a “Community Center” or a “Park”. I think the answer is: “Yes!”.

I hope you enjoy your time at the Festival and that you will feel welcome to return year-round.

Betsy Davis

Fes tiv al Shavings Contr ibut or s Joseph C. Baillargeon, Shane Bishop, Bill Black, Robbie Bumpus, Kevin Campion, Todd Croteau, Betsy Davis, Kris Day, Chas Dowd, Patrick Gould, Jacky King, Dan Leach, Pete Leenhouts, Chris Maccini, Art Nilsson, Edel O’Connor, Aislinn Palmer, Mark Reuten, Judie Romeo, Tyson Trudel, Vern Velez, Dick Wagner, Andrew Washburn

Festival Shavings Staff Dick Wagner

Dick Wagner, Editor Edel O’Connor, Managing Editor Erin Schiedler, Special Layouts Judie Romeo, Publications Assistant

Inside This Festival Issue of Shavings: T r a d i t i o n a n d E v o l u t i o n .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Legends of the Lake: The Houseboats.. . . 4 - 5 My Life in Boats. .......................... 6 A M o d e r n “ F e r r y t a l e ” .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 News from South Lake Union. ............ 8 Beneath the Waters........ ............... 9 A i r p o r t L a k e U n i o n .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Pond Boats Are Back in Seattle. .......1 0 SailNOW! SailMORE! GetZAPPED!........1 1 Working Group at Lake Union Park. ....1 2 A Parting of the Stay. ...................1 3 U p c o m i n g C l a s s e s & E v e n t s .. . . . . . . 1 4 - 1 5

N e w s f r o m C a m a B e a c h .. . . . . . . . . . . . 1 6 - 1 7 J u n i o r S a i l o r s .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 8 What’s in a Name: The Story of Kelpie.. . . . . . . 1 9 M y s t e r y o f t h e M o u n t a i n s .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 0 Inuvialuit Qayak Project. ......... 20 - 21 Journey with Orion.......................2 2 A Victorian Replica. .....................2 3 CastOff! For New Experiences..........2 4 T h e C a r e & F e e d i n g o f C W B .. . . . . . . 2 5 - 2 7 C W B B o a t s f o r S a l e .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 7 2011 Festival Highlights................2 8

Tradition and Evolution b y

Traditional boats are so called because they carry with them a history of permanence or evolution. It is difficult to think of hearing permanence and evolution in the same breath but permanence is the RNA of the DNA of traditional vessels.

In the Fall, 2010, issue, Shavings carried my story “Why I Love Classic Boats”, based on a photograph taken in Guanica, Puerto Rico, around 1940 highlighting a sailing fishing boat. That design probably traces its pedigree to the workboats of New England and to British, Irish, French, Spanish and Portuguese working fishing boats. The straight sheer and low freeboard of the sailboat in Guanica Bay indicated its lobsterboat occupation. A native of the southern (Caribbean) coast of the island, the design slightly modified its freeboard and sheer line for use on the northeastern coast of the island where the fishing was in rougher Atlantic seas. These boats also dragged nets; ergo, the enormous sail plans.

The fishing work for these boats diminished as more of the fishermen moved to powerboats, but these fishermen felt a great love for the sailboats. To keep them alive they created sort of a racing society.

This was nothing new because, when these boats were not fishing, they raced among themselves – for money. And thus, a class of Puerto Rican racers was born.

Now these sailboats are built for racing under some loose rules, which try to make them “evenly matched”. Although the length can vary between 28 and 35 feet, each boat must comply with these “rules”: The mast must be at least 1.5 times the length on deck (LOD)

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The new class of Puerto Rican racing boats makes its home in Las Croabas Cove on the northeastern coast.

- photo: Patrick Gould

The boom must be the same as LOD Length/beam ratio must be 3:1 Draft must be no less than 6’ Freeboard is not specified There must be enough inboard or outside ballast to keep the boat upright.

In the photo we see a pronounced sheer with a very high bow. The stem is the beginning of a full keel, which gets deeper as it progresses toward the stern. It is deepest at the stern. The rudder is usually outboard; it also can be keel-hung when the boat has a longer stern overhang.

The newer (built in the past 40 years) boats are planked with mahogany on local hardwood frames. They are bronze fastened.

Some of the boats are glassed on the outside.

Inboard engines are not allowed.

The rigging is stainless cable with swept-back spreaders; most of the boats

have running backstays. The sails should be Dacron but Mylar and Dynel sails are allowed. The mainsails are marconis; in their origins they were sliding gunters. They hoist on sail slides, where they used to be laced around the mast. With a very tall solid raked mast and a very long boom, we know a lot of strength is needed to hold that tiller in most weather conditions in the area. The boats also carry genoas with long overlaps.

No spinnakers are allowed for racing, although some of the boats have them for pleasure sailing.

These types of converted fishers are found all over the Caribbean Islands and also in the Bahamas (remember, the Bahamas are in the Atlantic) and in Bermuda.

Of course, when we talk about racing different types of sailboats, we cannot get away from that dreaded word: handicap.

Since the great majority of the competitors have sailed against each other for a long

time, they handicap themselves using the time-honored time-on-time system. Don’t forget: all this competition is for money!

We see how a sailboat design that very likely traces its DNA to the workhorses of the 19th Century has evolved to become pleasure horses in the 21st Century. These boats are pampered and receive a lot of attention – and it shows.

The boats featured in this story are “residents” of Las Croabas Cove in the northeastern coast of Puerto Rico. There is a narrow entrance, which these sailors manage without the use of engines. Most of the time, they drift in under bare poles until they reach their moorings. The bay itself looks east-northeast and you can see Culebra Island, 13 miles away, and halfway to St. Thomas, another 15 miles past.

Happy Sailing!

Vern Velez, one of the creators of CWB’s SailNOW! Program and mentor to thousands of neophyte and veteran sailors, currently is enjoying the waters of Puerto Rico.

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Shavings

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Legends of the Lake: The Houseboats b y

It’s astonishing to think that a small lake in the center of a vibrant city could serve as an international airport. It’s just as difficult to believe that a colony of 450 floating homes could exist on a 600-acre lake that is not only a runway for seaplanes but is also densely ringed with tall commercial and laboratory research buildings. Residential neighborhoods are typically tucked into green and quiet sections outside of urban centers and include playgrounds, schools, buildings of worship, parks and retail stores. Lake Union is an exception to the rule. It probably has the greatest diversity of waterfront and on-water uses on a lake smack dab in the geographic center of a thriving city.

For Lake Union, the seaplanes came first.

Bill Boeing’s three planes dominated the lake in1915. After the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks and the Ship Canal opened in 1917, the lake became a perpetual boat show, but the seaplanes never left.

Houseboats became popular summer homes on Lake Washington in the early 1900s. They were the epitome of fun, relaxing getaways for the new middle class generated by the Gold Rush. Seven- and eight-room floating mansions, tricked out with Victorian carpentry, ironwork and stained glass decorations, clustered around the streetcar waterside stops at the foot of Leschi and Madison Parks. The society pages of that era were filled with news of Lake Washington houseboat parties, musical gatherings and boating events.

It was a different story for Lake Union in the early 1900s. Only one houseboat was listed there in the 1904 Census. It belonged to Rodney Allback, a “river pilot”. When the Ballard Locks and the Ship Canal opened, Lake Union’s shores of tree stumps suddenly transformed to a noisy, dusty, bustling industrial center. There were sawmills, log ponds, door and window factories,

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out and the char sealed them.

The Lake Union houseboats fit the need of the investors who, in 1907, bought the submerged property between shoreline and harbor line for $10 per front foot. Renting moorage for houseboats was a high profit opportunity. The owner only needed to install a floating sidewalk. Moorage owners rented space on a monthly basis, anxiously awaiting more profitable opportunities.

The mill and boatshop workers had the

The houseboat on the right has belonged to Dick and Colleen Wagner since 1964.

This photo was taken by James P. Lee in 1912, when the houseboat was on Lake Washington, most likely moored on the Seattle side north of Madison Street.

– photo: University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, PH Coll 294 James P. Lee Collection, Negative #Lee 20035.

were cheap; they were castoff from the surrounding sawmills because they either had lots of knots or were charred from forest fires.

These logs, unfit for quality lumber, floated just as well as flawless logs. The charred ones actually were better floaters; fire dried them

In Print & Online www.48north.com Call (206) 789-7350 Shavings

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barrel shops, shops building yachts, shops building fishing boats, dry docks and piers for maritime commerce.

Industry meant jobs. Right on the lake.

Houseboats sprouted on the clear lake water, alongside the industrial operations. They were small, symmetrical one-story rectangles with decks on all sides. The roofs were gable or arched. Ornamentation was nil. These were cheap and simple floating homes. The flotation was red cedar logs, but even they

Sailing Magazine Just like the wind... it’s free!

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skills to build their homes. They were moored as closely as possible because landlords wanted to maximize income. The small homes, as tightly packed as sardines in a can, did not look like a Norman Rockwell scene.

And yet they were sought after by more than the blue collar, callused-hands workers.

There was an appealing chemistry of snugness, of human scale, and the wonders of the lake with its ever-changing colors and reflections, the intimate connection with the flocks of resident and migrating waterfowl, the vitality of having neighbors, close as dormitory residents, but still separated in floating cottages. There also was the sense of excitement from seizing the experience of this unique environment because the landlords were on the lookout for better income.

For some, there was concern that Seattle was changing too fast and the houseboats symbolized a simpler and more collegial lifestyle. The lake houseboats soon drew in writers, visual artists, musicians, students and those more inclined to philosophize than work. Their common denominator was an encompassing love of life and a tolerance for poverty.

Out of the mélange of Lake Union residents a houseboat culture began to evolve. It involved sharing responsibilities, skills and ideas within their tightly packed moorages. Each moorage became a village.

There were maintenance parties, potluck dinners, group skinny dipping and beer brewing gatherings. Houseboat moorages were islands of utopia in the midst of a city exploding with growth.

The moorages were growing too, some expanding into the publicly-owned street ends and waterways. Some went beyond the harbor lines into the navigable water.

At some choke points, such as the Fremont and University Bridges, houseboats had to be temporarily moved to allow large ships to pass through. In 1957, about 1,200 houseboats were moored in Lake Union, Portage Bay and the Ship Canal. Back in 1907, people had purchased pieces of Lake Union frontages with the idea that a big payoff was coming, but the month-to month moorage of houseboats prevailed for more than 50 years.

Houseboats, Seattle style, needed ongoing work on flotation. The top logs got waterlogged and lost some buoyancy. The owner’s collection of National Geographic

magazines was more ballast than needed.

Rain increased the weight of the houseboat, as moisture saturated the wooden roof, walls and decks.

Houseboaters ingeniously figured out how to add flotation. They built floating winches powered by hand or gas engines.

The winch had a horizontal axle with a drum on each end for rope or steel cables. A new log would be brought alongside the original logs and continuous loops of cable would go around each end of the new log, run under the existing layers of logs and back to the winch on the opposite side.

The winch rolled the new log under the old ones. The winch operator knew where the flotation was needed and would count the bumps as the new log was dragged across the corduroy old log surface. When the log got to the right place, one end of each cable was cast off and pulled back to the winch. Eventually houseboats acquired an upside down pyramid of log flotation. Only in Seattle’s Lake Union could one see signs advertising “Logs Put Under Houseboats”.

Although Lake Washington was lowered nine feet when the Ballard Locks were completed, the Lake Washington colonies just moored offshore a bit more and continued their sybaritic lifestyle. During Prohibition in the late 1920s some were brought into Portage Bay. Because of their elegant style and commodious space, the new arrivals became entertainment centers. Seattle police had unofficially designated Portage Bay as a tolerance zone. One could buy alcohol and companionship at these places.

In 1938 Seattle built a sewer line along its Lake Washington coast. Most houseboat colonies didn’t have the means or could not obtain permits to attach to the sewer, so there was a mass movement to Lake Union, where there was no sewer until 1967. The city had no rulebook on Lake Union houseboat sewer connections, so they let the houseboaters write their own rules. The city’s policy was that if it worked, it was approved. Hooking up to the Lake Union sewer eliminated about half the houseboats because they were on publicly owned street ends and waterways, or bridge rights-of-way. The city would allow only houseboats on private property to connect to the sewer. The former cityoperated asphalt plant at south Lake Union was used to deconstruct the abandoned houseboats. The summer houseboats of Lake Washington probably never needed a heat source, but the year-round Lake Union ones did. The most common source of heat was stove oil. Some houseboats actually had monster-size wood-burning cast iron ship’s stoves, which they used both for cooking and heat. Others had oil-burning stoves and heaters. These heaters were about four feet tall and two feet square. The oil tank usually was a steel 55-gallon drum on a houseboat’s deck. Fuel was delivered by the world’s two smallest tankers, Blondie and Dagwood.

These wooden flat-bottomed boats with low freeboard and springy sheer began their life as tenders or pot scows for fish traps in Puget Sound. They hauled the salmon from the traps to the fish houses on Elliott Bay. When the traps were outlawed in 1933, two of the tenders became tankers. Gas engines were installed and drums of oil loaded aboard.

The entrepreneur who dreamed up this idea was Had Wolfe, whose Portage Bay marina was surrounded by houseboats. Wolfe soon switched from 55-gallon drums sitting on deck to recycled fuel oil truck tanks – a 1,000gallon tank for Dagwood and a 650-gallon tank for Blondie. These vessels became the Tiny Tankers of Lake Union.

Overseeing public safety on the lake became the duty of the Fire Department, for good reason. Seattle woke up to fire safety after the 1889 firestorm that decimated downtown. Boatshops and lumber yards were prime candidates for hard-to-control fires.

There was plenty of each on Lake Union. The Fire Department already had its big pumpers, the 1909 Duwamish, and the 1922 Alki, on

Legends of the Lake: The Houseboats C Elliott Bay. They needed a scout boat on Lake Union and chose a 16’ lapstrake open boat, Union Flyer, with an air-cooled gas engine and a top speed of a brisk walk. Each day a couple of firemen in blue work jeans, blue denim shirts and red suspenders would prowl the lake looking for hazards. If they saw a fire beginning they could stop at a nearby houseboat and call headquarters.

In the early1960s Colleen Wagner was giving weekday evening painting instruction in a houseboat on Westlake Avenue. The firemen stopped there regularly to check for safety, have some coffee and cookies and admire the works of the students, all women.

The Lake Union Fire Department matched perfectly with the folksy scale and style of the houseboat villages. Eventually the public safely role was taken over by the Police Department. The change was generated by the appearance of water skiers on the lake.

Complaints of boat and wharf damage due to the wakes of the speedboats alerted our city to the need for enforcement boats that were at least as fast as the water skiers. So came the Harbor Police and their base on the west side of Gas Works Park.

I gave a sailing tour of Lake Union to some Russian sailors just prior to their hammer and sickle flag going down. They saw houseboats with people feeding the ducks, reading the newspaper with their toes dangling in the water, taking off on their skimming windsurfers. One Russian said, “This would never be allowed in our country.

It’s too much fun.”

Our Lake Union floating homes communities are a charming culture, an icon of Seattle. They are floating on a cloud of euphoria, but in the late ‘60s they were teetering on the brink of extinction.

The houseboat community came under siege from the city and was in a state of confusion and resignation. After all, you can’t

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fight City Hall. Plans were laid to redevelop Lake Union as a dense urban center and to remove houseboats that were blocking economic opportunities. Houseboaters couldn’t stop this plan; they were a bunch of romantics with no political or financial power. But out of the midst of hopeless romantics arose Terry Pettus, a genius

and convinced the houseboaters to join the Floating Homes Association, for in numbers there is power. Then the makeover. Terry made houseboaters believe they had to dress for success. That meant not only painting and cleaning up the houses and docks, but also cleaning up their message to the government and to property owners who were eagerly

For more than 90 years Lake Union has been home to floating buildings where people live, work and recreate. CWB’s floating buildings, the Boatshop (at left) and the Boathouse (center), were designed to evoke the early days of Lake Union’s houseboats. Visitors to CWB not only get to view and use classic boats, they experience the community setting where people used to do the same things we are doing now. Folks at CWB don’t just preserve history, we live it. – photo: Edel O’Connor

political strategist and the last, best hope of the houseboat community.

Terry didn’t give the impression of a hardened guerilla leader. He was a retired newspaper writer, a tweedy, pipe-puffing academic, calm, confident and succinct in speech.

But he knew how to coach the underdogs and how to win the big game. First was the organization. He literally knocked on doors

anticipating financial windfalls. They had to stop whining, stop sarcastic remarks about and hostile accusations against the pro-development side. Finally, they were required to respond to the situation with a positive, cooperative party line and to do so frequently. Soon letters and phone calls to the media and government were being sent at machine gun tempo. Their message was: Give houseboaters a chance to survive by not allowing arbitrary evictions or

arbitrary moorage rate increases. A few months after the houseboaters’ Emancipation Proclamation (the Equity Ordinance) was signed by Mayor Charles Royer, the Mayor attended the Floating Homes Association Annual Meeting. The attendance at the meeting was about 100. Royer expressed surprise at the number of attendees. He and the City Council had assumed from all the correspondence, phone calls and buttonhole encounters that there were at least 20,000 houseboat residents.

The party line that Terry outlined was that one unified community was speaking and that they provided values to the city. Most important of all, the houseboaters were to advocate a planning partnership through democratic discourse, with its premise being the most good for the most people.

Houseboaters were to support diverse uses that would contribute to the social and economic welfare of this city. That was Terry’s game face. But in debriefing sessions with the Floating Homes board, after a typically stressful planning meeting with his opponents, he was known to conclude, “We’ll pee on their graves.”

Terry Pettus and his brigade gave the Lake Union houseboats the same iconic status as Pioneer Square and the Public Market.

The Lake Union houseboats will always attract a special brand of people. The experience of houseboat living leaves longlasting memories and the effects of a special free-and-easy lifestyle that can’t be found elsewhere. My children grew up in a Lake Union houseboat. The first child’s first words were “quack quack”.

After more than half a century of houseboat living, CWB Founding Director Dick Wagner knows a lot about Lake Union. This story is just one of the many in his book, “Legends of the Lake”, available at the CWB gift shop or online at www.cwb.org

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My Life In Boats b y

My name is Bill Black and, as I approach age 88, I still hold many memories of my life in wooden boats.

When I was bucked off a horse named “Smoky” on Bainbridge Island at about age nine, I decided it would be more fun to fish for perch with a pile of worms off the nearby dock. This was followed by trolling a Pearly Wobbler behind the family’s 12’ clinker-built rowboat. At some point I was trusted with a small electric outboard motor and I went farther afield.

In our early teens, my sister and I were presented with a 20’ Blanchard Junior Knockabout. It had a keel and an open cockpit. Because our parents weren’t sailors and we had never sailed, my mother asked Norm Blanchard to give us a lesson in the new boat. He did – by simply pushing us away from the dock and turning us loose in Lake Union, saying we could best learn by trial and error! And we did. Even got back to the dock.

I can recall many adventures in this 20footer, including a cruise in the San Juans

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with a friend. We anchored off Possession Point on our first night and were forced to move at midnight when confronted with strong winds and rain.

Several years later the family upgraded to a 24’ Blanchard Senior Knockabout, which we named Blackfish, and enjoyed more years of local cruising and racing other boats.

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precautionary sweeps for magnetic mines in the Kobe and Osaka harbors. The mines we were sweeping for had been planted by our own planes and, for the most part, were timed to be deactivated before our precautionary sweeping. I was more concerned about maneuvering our 1,880foot-long magnetic tail in the confined space behind the breakwater. As skipper,

Whale’s Tale on a usual Northwest summer wind on Puget Sound.

B-22 Blackfish outsails a Thunderbird.

At the delivery of the Cal 30 Whale’s Tale.

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My further adventures in Blackfish were postponed for a number of years by college, where I enrolled in the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps. This was followed by Mine Warfare School and then assignment to an 80’ minesweeper (wooden hull, of course) on the East Coast, where we swept for contact mines in the shipping lanes. For the most part we swept crab pots while hoping for the occasional mine. Then duty aboard another wooden boat, this time a 137’ Yard Mine Sweeper. After the Japanese surrender, our YMS was assigned

– All photos courtesy of the author

I sailed YMS 349 back to San Francisco, where it was decommissioned.

After two more years of college my wife and I reclaimed Blackfish and began our many years of racing in Lake Washington and Puget Sound. I recall the countless hours spent each spring scraping, recaulking, sanding and painting the bottom – and also the topsides, though to a lesser perfection. We faired the hull so well that when I was winning races my competitors accused me of deliberately shedding many pounds of boat weight in the process. My attention to the hull as opposed to the topsides resulted in Blackfish winning the “Most Disreputable Boat in the Fleet” trophy. Several years later, after I had replaced the broken toilet with a concrete block and a bucket and won the trophy three years in a row, it was retired.

So much for wooden boats, 12’ to 137’. My move from wood to fiberglass occurred when I acquired a Cal 30, which we named Whale’s Tale and in which we continued our racing and cruising. A family clockwise circumnavigation of Vancouver Island with our four children was followed by two Victoria-Maui races. In the 1967 race, Whale’s Tale was the smallest boat in the fleet. We languished in the Pacific high and took 23 days to finish. Two years later, in our new Cal 33, Cherokee, our fortunes

changed and we won on corrected time.

When our sawmill, Seattle Cedar, closed down in 1975, we seized the window in our lives. With children in college and a brother-in-law managing the business, we took off for a four-year circumnavigation in our new Valiant 40, Foreign Affair: the South Pacific to New Zealand and beyond, the South Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, the Straits of Magellan, Hawaii, Kodiak, Alaska, and home.

A postscript came 10 years later when we made a one-year loop of the North Pacific Ocean: Hawaii, Micronesia, Guam, Japan, Russia, the Aleutians and home.

After many more years of cruising, we sold Foreign Affair in 2010. Her new home is in Bamfield, Barkley Sound. Same name and happy to be near the ocean.

Note the slippery hull of B-22 Blackfish

When we asked Bill Black for a short biographical note, he quickly replied, “You just read it.” He’s right but perhaps readers also would like to know a bit more. Bill was a long-term Trustee of Northwest Seaport, collecting and exhibiting the historical schooner Wawona, the Lightship Swiftsure, the tug Arthur Foss, the ferry San Mateo and the Buoy Tender Fir.

The Black family gathers at Tofino, Clayoquot Sound, B.C., on a 1967 circumnavigation of Vancouver Island.

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A Modern “Ferrytale” b y

Rowing against a strong tide is hard enough, but rowing across a strong tide can be heartbreaking. Heading toward your goal, you’re relentlessly driven off course, carried inexorably to one side or the other, a distance you must make up by rowing against the tide when you’ve finished your crossing. I’d done it before and admitted that it made a lot of destinations impractical, many of them places I had visited in Sea Scouts and wanted desperately to show my wife, Deborah. Places such as Sucia Island in the San Juans.

For those of you who don’t know Sucia, it’s a rocky shred of island just north of Orcas, now a Marine Park but originally preserved from development by the efforts of Puget Sound yacht owners who clubbed together and bought it. It surrounds three long bays opening toward the east, each with its own unique charm. One is a sheltered anchorage protected by steep bluffs, one has a series of ledges that taper off to small rocky islets, ideal for pottering around and one is my particular favorite, Fossil Bay, where the conglomerate is studded with clam and mussel shells all turned to stone. Unhappily, it’s situated in a tideway too vigorous to row across, a strong tide flowing straight into the Salish Sea through the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It was unreachable - until Deborah and I learned about ferrying.

Ferrying is the property of canoeists.

No sailboater, powerboater, or rower I know has ever heard of it. We learned it from Earl and Tena Doan, canoe builders and CWB members whose shop was on the north shore of Rich Passage, which separates Bainbridge Island from the Kitsap Peninsula. When you ferry, you point the bow up-tide at an angle dictated by the state of the tide, its speed and the distance of your crossing. It’s a delicate balancing act, but, properly done, it turns your hull into a rudder and the tide carries you crabwise on a straight line toward your destination. It’s simple, it’s elegant and it takes surprisingly little effort.

Armed with this new technique, which we’d practiced with the Doans off their beachfront, we set out one morning from a boat launch in a narrow channel at the north end of Orcas Island called Smuggler’s Cove.

The San Juan Weather Gods gave us sun and just enough wind to make little windrows on the water and there’s no better form of outdoor exercise than rowing on a day like that. From our position low

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in The Lady Deb, our 17’ Piscataqua River Wherry, we really couldn’t see the island, but there’s a lollypop stand midway marking a submerged reef, so I aimed at that. Or rather, I aimed our boat at an angle relative to it and where I knew the island to be and we moved sideways toward it. As bow oar, my job was to keep recalculating that angle as the tide strengthened. Deborah, who has a

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reef shaded down into a deep ultramarine blue you don’t even get in the Bay of Naples. This is the sort of thing you see from a shallow draft rowing boat, a view few Plastiform Giganticraft powerboaters or deep-keeled sailboaters even know is down there.

With the tide at full spate, casting off was a tad tricky and our up-tide angle was fairly steep, but it was balanced by the

The Lady Deb and her crew in their younger days drawn up on Yellow Island, one of the Wasp Islands west of Deer Harbor. Jones Island is in the distance.

-photo courtesy of Chas Dowd

metronome in her head, kept the stroke.

By the time we got to the reef, the tide was coming in at a great rate so, to take a mid-crossing pause, we added our anchor line to our painter, looped it around the easternmost piling of the lollypop stand and let out a goodly bit. The water was clear atop the reef; looking over the side of our boat we could see anemones, many-armed starfish in a rainbow of colors, crabs, cod, sea perch and red snappers - even a wolf eel peering out of its den. Red kelp and green seaweed streamed east in the tide. The edge of the

speed of our sideward progress. I put us smack dab in the eddy at the entrance to Fossil Bay. The sun shone. Deborah was charmed by the views. And I was feeling pretty damn proud of myself, especially when a Midrange Plastiform Giganticraft skipper asked if we’d rowed “all the way

out here in that little boat”.

Since there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, we elected to get swept down-tide toward Matia Island, now, like Sucia, a Marine Park. Its bay is so small it only accommodates two buoys and its steep cliffs make it even harder to land on than its neighbor to the west. But its madrones, pines and firs, all turned into bonsai by the wind and a lack of soil, are just as lovely.

By the time we’d gotten there, it was slack water and we rested on our oars until the tide began flowing out again.

Then it really got golden. We were able to ride the tide back again, ferrying just enough to keep from being swept past the entrance to the Smuggler’s Cove channel. It was much easier than rowing over. A following breeze - an unheard of luxury for rowers - helped us along. As we reached the cove, the sun began to set and a tiny rim of sunset clouds obligingly accented the horizon.

From anybody’s boat it would have been a real breath-taker. But from a yare wooden wherry with muscles stretched out from a long and eventful day’s row, delighted to have shown Deborah something I had wanted to show her from the day we got our boat, it was a sunset to beat all sunsets.

Chas Dowd is a CWB plank owner (and a former editor of Shavings). After 17 years of rowing, he has swallowed the anchor and is now owner, compositor and pressman of Cold Garage Press, an antique handset letterpress shop.

Mini-ferry service from Lake Union Park to the UW on the M/V Mocha 206-713-8446

Lake Union tours (ice cream cruise) on the M/V Fremont Avenue from Lake Union Park Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

www.SeattleFerryService.com

Visit Hasse & Company Port Townsend Sails for all your sailmaking needs. www.porttownsendsails.com ● 360-385-1640 ● ptsails@olympus.net

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News from South Lake Union MOHAI Hits a Milestone b y

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The sun shone brightly, the winds kicked has been opened up to the walls and the up whitecaps on Lake Union, the tugboat roof. MOHAI representatives say the new Arthur Foss, the Mosquito Fleet steamer configuration will provide “a light-filled Virginia V and CWB’s steam launch Puffin four-story atrium gateway to interpretative blew their whistles, galleries that will and the Lightship engage visitors with Swiftsure pealed her the stories of the bell in celebration unique and diverse the afternoon of June peoples who live 3. Governor Chris and work here, G r e g o i r e o ff e r e d who made history congratulations, and who continue as did Seattle City making history here Councilmembers every day.

Tim Burgess and MOHAI will make its home in the former Naval “In addition to Jean Godden. And Reserve Armory adjacent to CWB. transforming the they were accepted Armory into a center for exhibits, public

by Museum of History & Industry Executive programs and educational experiences, Director Leonard Garfield.

MOHAI also will replace other functions The occasion was a ribbon-cutting that cannot be located at the Armory in an (actually a log sawing) celebration to off-site facility nearby.” mark the end of demolition and the start You can watch the construction progress of construction inside the former Naval live on MOHAI’s construction cam at www.

Reserve Armory next door to CWB, seattlehistory.org (click Construction soon to be MOHAI’s new home. The Camera Here) and get updates on the new reimagined, redesigned regional history museum at www.historyismoving.org. museum is scheduled to open in 2012. (In We are looking forward to welcoming the meantime, the old facility is still open at our new neighbors next year. You don’t McCurdy Park in the Montlake area.) It is need to wait that long; you can say hello expected that the new facility will welcome and get an update on the new museum at 120,000 visitors annually. the MOHAI booth at the Wooden Boat The inside of the Armory building Festival.

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CWB Welcomes New Staff Summer has arrived and with it, three new staff members to help us keep CWB that great place you always want to visit. The Center for Wooden Boats is pleased to welcome: Megan Duncan, the new Volunteer and Visitor Services Coordinator. A native of Eastern Washington, Megan holds two bachelor’s degrees from Central Washington University, one in Psychology and the other in Political Science. She has been a Seattleite since 2008. Megan says she has had a passion for non-profit work since college.

She served as the Volunteer Coordinator of the Adult Activity Center of Ellensburg and also at Gilda’s Club Seattle.

When she isn’t working, Megan is deeply committed to several local social activist organizations, most notably as board member and Volunteer Director of Seattle Out and Proud. Megan notes she doesn’t have much experience with boats, but she is excited about having a job that encourages her to learn new things.

During his sophomore year at Port Townsend High School, new Livery Assistant Logan Cadorette enjoyed onthe-water activities aboard a variety of

vessels from longboats to tall ships such as the Schooner Adventuress. He also began building traditional wooden boats.

After graduation he enrolled in the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building on the Olympic Peninsula, where he earned his Associates Degree in traditional small boat construction.

He wasn’t finished with school just then.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Ecology at Seattle Pacific University before joining the CWB staff The new Boatshop Assistant, Joe Green, is a fifth generation Puget Sound native. He too is a graduate of the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding. He must enjoy working at museums; previously he has worked at Uitgeest in the Netherlands and the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Maryland.

Joe says he is “thrilled to have this opportunity to work on boats that are part of my own personal history - and to share my love of our maritime heritage with others.”

Beneath the Waters b y

The Center for Wooden Boats has wrapped its arms around Lake Union since we received our permits to occupy Waterway #4. We send people out on the lake in our traditional boats and give them the history of the lake. We send people out in our traditional boats to clean up the floating debris on the lake. We even published a book “Legends of the Lake”.

But the story doesn’t end there. We have asked ourselves what cultural materials may be resting on the lake’s bottom.

I have lived in a Lake Union houseboat for more than 50 years. I heard many tales from the old-timers when I first came to the lake. When I told stories to my children at bedtime, I borrowed the tales I had heard and embellished them a bit. When my kids started writing essays in Grade 3, they put down on paper the preposterous stories I had told them, including giant sturgeons, sunken pirate boats and mermaids.

Years later, when we began the Lake Union Archaeology Project in 2008, in our first survey we discovered that the old tales were not all make-believe. And, better yet, since then we have discovered new stories inside Lake Union, stories that could be themes for movies.

So far we have found the tug J.E. Boyden, built in Seattle in 1888 for towing sailing ships through the Strait of Juan de Fuca into and out of Puget Sound. The Boyden also once assisted Natives in a carved canoe off our Northwest coast in towing a whale to Neah Bay. And we know the skipper once was attacked with an axe by the chief engineer while at sea. The skipper survived and the engineer was sent to the slammer.

How did the Boyden wind up on the bottom of Lake Union? Because the tug has been divested of all useful materials, it is assumed that she was stripped and scuttled by her owners in the dead of night after she was taken out of service in 1935.

Also on a growing list of finds is Navy Patrol Craft 1138, which also had lives as the icebreaker Knik Bay and the tug Mister B. And we’ve found:

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The Foss 54, a 110’ barge, built for the U.S. Navy in 1908 in Bremerton and taken over by Foss Launch and Tug Company in 1929 The 1942 Minesweeper YMS 105, built at Booth Bay Harbor, Maine, which later became Gypsy Queen Irene, a 1900s-era gas-powered passenger launch 48’ long A 1960s-era Buick automobile, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and a Vespa motor scooter

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holidays and vacations. The work of the divers eventually will be supplemented with a magnetometer sweep. We also are planning a bathymetric map of the lake showing its bedrock bottom beneath the silt.

Lake Union was carved out by the retreat of the Vashon glacier about 13,000 years ago. We also hope to find the streams that filled the lake when it was called Tenas Chuck (little water in Chinook jargon) and Ha-AH-Chu (littlest lake in the Salish dialect of the Lushootseed language).

Former minesweeper YMS 105 which later became Gypsy Queen.

-photo courtesy of MOHAI

Research is underway on an Army LCVP World War II landing craft, resting on the bottom, as well as on a small houseboat, a 100’ sailing boat, a 22’ sailing boat, a 15’ rowboat, several 25’ seine boats, a 35’ sailboat, a 25’ motorboat, a 63’6” sailboat and a 34’ motorboat.

The lake’s bottom is a soft, feathery layer of silt. As the water moves, the silt rises as drifting clouds and blocks the view of anything more than an arm’s length away.

This makes discovery of artifacts and taking video or photos a challenge. The boats also sink into the silt, which hides their names or numbers. The process of identifying the boats begins with measurements of length and beam and a careful study of their design and construction. The next step is to pore through massive old books on Northwest boats, which list years built, names, dimensions, functions and owners.

This survey will be a slow process. The divers are volunteers who have real jobs and can explore the lake only on weekends,

The whole purpose of the Lake Union Archaeology Project is to give the lake an identity. Our community takes the lake for granted when it could become a civic commons and a living museum that gives our citizens pride of place and an educational resource for now and for generations to come. Everything we uncover about the lake will be revealed in publications, oral history, events and working exhibits that can add new dimensions to our community.

Active participants in the Lake Union Archaeology Project are: Tetra Tech; Richard Funk, Senior Geophysicist

TerraSond, Terrestrial and Sea Floor Mapping; Chris Kemp, Director EPA Dive Team; Robert Rau, Scientific Diver, and Sean Sheldrake, Diving Officer Ross Laboratories, Navigation, Survey and Research Systems; Jim Ross, Director DCS Films, Maritime Documentation Society; Dan Warter, Director The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture; Peter Lape, Curator of Archaeology S u b m e rg e d C u l t u r a l R e s o u r c e s Exploration Team; Walter Jaccard, Director Washington State Department of Natural Resources; Maurice Major, Cultural Resources Specialist Seattle Harbor Police, Lake Union Station Professional/Experienced Divers: Ron Jacobson, Sean Rapson, Timothy Nesseth, Chris Borgen, Mike Racine, Mike Hemion, Bret Eliason, Joe Radosevic, Laurynn Evans and Kathryn Arant

The tugboat J.E.Boyden, built in Seattle in 1888.

-photo courtesy of MOHAI

Airport Lake Union b y

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Aircraft have seniority rights on Lake concentration to get over those masonry Union. Bill Boeing was flying his bumps after the plane was off the lake.

Martin and two Seattle-built Boeing & Seaplanes still rule the lake and the Westervelt biplanes with pontoons from wind direction rules the seaplanes. They the lake in 1915. take off into the wind to get a big lift on a Seattle’s first airport was on the lake run of not more than a mile of water and and operated out of the red building with they need a long glide to make a smooth white trim that landing.

Boeing built That’s why at the foot of there will be Roanoke Street. some gaps in That was two the skyline years before of the new the Chittenden buildings Locks and the at south Ship Canal Lake Union, opened for thanks to Bill watercraft Boeing. traffic.

Airport B o e i n g Lake Union moved out doesn’t have years ago but any runway Kenmore Air is lights on the keeping Airport A seaplane taxis to where it will begin a takeoff run lake to guide L a k e U n i o n just north of the CWB docks. -photo: Edel O’Connor landings in “open” by continuing passenger flights the dark so all seaplanes must land in from the lake’s south end. Aircraft taking daylight hours only, way before bedtime. off and landing is an important factor in That’s a safety factor. planning the height of buildings in the A quality of life factor in little Lake flight path. These are planes that can’t Union is the noise of the little seaplanes. climb or land like helicopters. I learned Thus, they can take off no earlier than 8 to fly at the former Kurtzer seaplane base am on weekdays and 9 am on weekends at south Lake Union. On our morning and holidays so the lakeside residents can flights, my instructor insisted I climb count on uninterrupted snoozes. to the height of the Space Needle (600 How many other cities can you name feet) and circle the restaurant while the where they relate building heights to customers were eating breakfast. In those mini-sized pontoon-landing, propdays the buildings at South Lake Union powered airplanes? were two or three stories. It took a lot of

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Pond Boat Racing is Back in Seattle b y

The best part of E. B. White’s book “Stuart Little” is when young Stuart takes the helm of the model schooner Wasp, survives a midrace collision, cuts his way out of a paper bag and sails on to victory on the boat pond in New York’s Central Park. As Stuart says to himself from the deck of his ship, “This is the life for me. What a ship! What a day!

What a race!”

Children have been checking out that book from the Seattle Public Library for decades, reading about the thrilling duel between the Wasp and the Lillian V. Womrath on that boat pond. But until recently, they rarely got to see such an exciting duel in real life. On Saturday June 4, fourth and fifth graders from the Pathfinder School launched their Pirate pond boats for the first time during the annual Pirate Cup Regatta on the new Model Boat Pond at Lake Union Park. Excitement swirled around the pond.

Spectators yearned to participate and were impressed that the fast sailing boats were built by the students themselves over the course of a school year.

The Pirate Cup celebrates the many hours and attention to detail put into each boat by the students and mentors. The new boatbuilders shifted their focus from carving, sanding, painting and sailmaking to the unique effect the wind had on their free-sailing boats. Coaching and practice races helped demonstrate the correlation between sail trim and the angle the boat sails to the wind (points of sail). Practice, observe, change trim, sail and observe again led most to mastering sailing a pond boat.

After three rounds of races, the leaders of the Pirate Cup Regatta were Sam Cleary, winning first place; Lennae Starr, taking

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Pond Boat sailors from the Pathfinder School and the boats they built formed a proud group after racing June 4 in the annual Pirate Pond Boat Regatta at Lake Union Park.

– photo: Mindy Ross

second place, and Max Rubin-Stencel in third place. All competitors received prizes generously donated by Fisheries Supply.

CWB Founder Dick Wagner just smiles when he thinks about the kids and their boats. “Building pond boats is a valuable teaching tool for both the youth and the adults involved,” said Wagner. “It teaches patience and craftsmanship. Patience is something we all need.”

Pirate pond boats that make up the fleet at CWB are 39” free-sailing boats designed in 1927 by renowned Seattle yacht designer Ted Geary. He based the design for the pond boats on the lines of his very successful 40’ R-Class racing sloop Pirate.

If boat racers in the park need any inspiration all they have to do is walk to the docks at CWB to see the full-sized version of Pirate, which was built at Lake

Union Dry Dock Company in 1926 and raced in California. Pirate returned to her home waters for complete restoration in 1999 and is now a prized part of the CWB collection.

When Geary designed the Pirate Pond Boat, the goal was to get school kids interested in woodworking and sailing.

Newspapers in Seattle and Los Angeles sponsored regattas for the boats. Geary himself oversaw the racing at Seattle’s Green Lake.

With the revived Pirate pond boat program at CWB and enthusiasm of regional model boat organizations utilizing the new pond, Seattle is becoming as big a hotbed of small boating as it always has been for boats of a longer waterline. No longer do people need to think that New York or Paris are the only places where graceful model boats ply the ponds. It happens here too.

The CWB Pond Boat Livery (rental) in Lake Union Park is open Sundays from 11 am to 2 pm. A $5 donation is suggested for rentals.

The first Saturday of every month pond boat sailing is free.

The Pond Boat Livery during the Festival will be open during all three days (July 2-4) from 10 am to 2 pm and 4 pm to 6 pm. The sailing will be free on Saturday, July 3.

Boats are available on a first-come, firstserved basis. Visitors are welcome to bring their own pond boats; gas- or nitro-powered boats are discouraged.

Groups larger than six people (of any age) are encouraged to coordinate a specific time to bring your group down outside the regularly scheduled activities for the public. This helps assure your group has access to the boats. Please email Mindy at mross@cwb.org to reserve pond boat sailing time. The fee is $175 per event for up to 24 participants. CWB provides 12 pond boats, sailing instruction and fun regatta for one- to two-hour program.

R-boats Featured at Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival!

R-boat racing on the West Coast started in Seattle in 1914 and, this year, it returns when the “new” fleet exhibits their R-boats at Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival.

Pirate, Lady Van, Aloha and Ace (R-10) are scheduled to attend. This will be the first Seattle appearance of Robert and Molly Cadranell’s Ace, recently re-built by John Guzzwell and crew. Moored together, the sight of these revived beauties is sure to please and excite many wooden boat fanciers.

The Renaissance of the R-boat Pirate at CWB In the ‘20s and ‘30s, R-class racers, as measured and rated under the Universal Measurement Rule, were the premier interclub racing class, regularly competing for major perpetual trophies and challenge cups. This is the same measurement rule that produced the majestic J-boats that raced for the America’s Cup. Pirate is a direct development of Geary’s legendary Sir Tom, a perennial West Coast R-class champion. In her first year of racing, Pirate won the prestigious San Diego Lipton Cup for the Balboa Yacht Club.

Pirate is widely acknowledged as the first yacht, designed and built on the West Coast, to compete on the Eastern Seaboard. In 1929, she was shipped to New York. Matt Walsh, skipper of the R-boat Ace, steered her to dominate a large fleet of R-Boats at Larchmont, New York, taking the class National Championship in convincing style.

Pirate’s hull is double–planked with Burma teak and Western Red Cedar subplanking over steam-bent white oak frames. Her teak deck is laid over a doublediagonal Red Cedar sub-decking and retains the original layout. In 2000, Pirate was placed in the National Register of Historic Places, the only known race boat ever so honored.

In 2010, Pirate and her documentation, prepared by CWB, was accepted by the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) certifying that Pirate’s restoration met the high standards set by HAER. Her records now reside in the Library of Congress. The boat floats very near her designed waterline and is measured, rated and certified as an in-class R-boat today.

For more on Pirate’s colorful saga, visit www.r-boat.org

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SailNOW! SailMORE! GetZAPPED! b y

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Ajay and Ashwini Varma drove past The Center for Wooden Boats many times in the past four years, but this spring they finally stopped in for adult sailing lessons. “I can’t believe I waited this long,” said Ajay. “We had an awesome time. CWB is like a jewel that’s not been completely discovered.”

The Center For Wooden Boats knows that one of the best ways to get people to help us preserve maritime history is to get them out sailing in a boat that IS maritime history. That’s why we offer so many ways for adults to learn to sail. Varma says the instructors at CWB were knowledgeable and adapted to the different skill levels of the students. He had sailed in his younger days, but his wife was more of a new sailor.

Adults who want to sail have many choices for lessons at CWB. Those impatient to get going can enroll in SailNOW! Students learn the basic boat handling skills that are the foundation for a lifetime of sailing. Each session starts with Shore School, a two-hour classroom where sail theory and terminology are explained. Following is a series of six onthe-water lessons to develop the skills that lead to sailing solo. Done that? Then enroll in SailMORE! And discover the wide variety of boats in CWB’s Livery fleet. The lessons focus on the unique attributes of gaff rig cat boats, racing sloops and sprit rigs. Students learn to properly rig and sail each design, what makes them unique and in what ways they are really similar. And this course gives extra attention to docking and short tacking up the channel.

For those who are short of time, there’s GetZAPPED!, an intensive three-day sailing course for two people. This condensed and personalized version of the SailNOW! program is

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scheduled to fit students’ needs in a combination of three four-hour lessons taught by CWB’s talented instructors. It’s a perfect way for couples, friends, parent-child duos or out-of-town guests to learn to sail in a short period of time.

CWB offers individual lessons too. Our One-On-One program is for beginner sailors with sporadic schedules or those who would like to refresh their boat handling skills. Instructors work individually with students to help identify skills to focus on and improve. Lessons are available by appointment in many of the classic vessels maintained by CWB. Livery checkouts are complimentary as part of each lesson.

Chris Maccini, an AmeriCorps Youth Instructor at CWB, learned to sail right on our docks. “The opportunity to take sailing lessons was just another reason I was interested in working at CWB,” said Maccini. “I like the quiet of sailing. It’s the same peaceful feeling I get kayaking - and yet you’re still getting somewhere.”

Maccini says taking SailNOW! at CWB was great experience. He went from not knowing how to do it to taking a boat out on his own after six lessons. “I’m impressed by the volunteers who teach at CWB. I assumed they were professionals. I only learned later that they volunteer for the love of sailing - and of CWB.” But be warned, sailing at CWB is habit forming. Ajay Varma has already started volunteering on the docks at CWB and had just spent time in the Boatshop cutting out toy boat hulls for kids at the Festival to turn into bright new boats. “Yeah, you got me hook line and sinker,” said Varma.

L E A R N - T O - S A I L SPECIAL

ONE-ON-ONE

SAILING LESSONS

OFF SAILNOW!

with the purchase of at least 1 One-on-One lesson

Discount is only available in-person during the Festival and can be purchased at the information tent.

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Working Group at Lake Union Park Maritime, cultural and recreational organizations work together behind the scenes to bring you programming in Lake Union Park and around the neighborhood b y

Most visitors to Lake Union Park have no idea how many groups are involved with programming the events, amenities and recreational opportunities that make the park such a great place to visit. Long before the park’s grand opening last September, those groups recognized the need for a collaborative brand under which they could work together to improve visitor experience and provide interactive programs beyond the scope of what a single organization could offer.

More than 20 organizations contribute to the Working Group, including groups located in the park, groups whose vessels visit the park, groups that plan to move into the park, and groups that work with park-centered organizations to enhance their programs based in other parts of the city. They have adopted a clear set of goals: • Create a powerful visitor experience • Maximize resources • Strengthen advocacy • Enhance stewardship of each organization’s historic collection As South Lake Union and the lake itself have changed over time, so has the Working Group. Our area has seen the end of one construction project (Lake Union Park), the beginning of another (Armory re-construction, making way for the new home of the Museum of History & Industry, opening in 2012), and the commencement of the Mercer Street widening project.

In response, the scope of Working Group partners expanded to include representatives from Sellen Construction and input from the Seattle Department of Transportation. Meetings are now divided into two sections. The Operational Section highlights Seattle Parks, Sellen, and SDOT updates and covers access concerns, fire safety, parking and buses, road closure dates, and park wayfinding.

The Collaboration Section, covering joint marketing, upcoming events and programmatic overlap, allows the organizations to give brief updates, discuss advocacy issues and plan marketing or programs.

Recent Working Group projects include creating marketing tools for any organization to use either individually or jointly and

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CWB salutes the Seattle Flying Dragons, shown here at a practice session, which has incorporated the Working Group’s Logo into its display banner to spread the word about their collaboration as far away as Canada. Members of the working group, in addition to CWB and the Seattle Flying Dragons, include the Museum of History & Industry, Northwest Seaport, Puget Sound Fireboat Association, Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society, Seattle Parks and Recreation, Seattle Parks Foundation, Sound Experience/Schooner Adventuress, The Virginia V Foundation, Youth Maritime Training Association, Discovery Modelers – and many, many more! collaborating with Three Sheets Northwest on a new maritime heritage network. The new resource is meant to replace the now-defunct maritimeheritage.net, which was run by 4Culture (the cultural services agency for King County) following their work with the Maritime Heritage Task Force (see inset).

4Culture has also started attending Working Group meetings, to carry on the relationships and project stewardship that began during the Task Force work.

If you are interested in presenting to the Working Group or attending a meeting, please contact the Working Group Coordinator, Aislinn Palmer, at apalmer@cwb.org.

Formed in 2007 at the suggestion of the Seattle/King County Maritime Heritage Task Force, the Working Group’s initial focus was the research, planning and discussion establishing focus and scope that led to the Group’s two landmark documents: Making History Together at Lake Union Park and Working Together to Make History at Lake Union Park.

The first document provides the historical relevance of the lake, park and region, while outlining the programs offered and planned to make that history accessible to visitors. Citing shared values as well the individual significance of the partner groups, Making History Together provides the answer to “why” the Working Group is important. The second document, Working Together to Make History…, focuses on “how”, laying out goals and three-year plans for the group as a whole and also for some of the individual organizations. To read these documents, go to www.atlakeunionpark.org/workinggroup

A Parting of the Stay b y

As a young man Art Nilsson snagged a deckhand spot on board the 108’ deep ocean ketch Atlantis, a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution research vessel operating principally in the Atlantic. On one of his voyages, Atlantis encountered the Passat, a 377’ four-masted steel bark with 32 sails set. Some years ago Art wrote a lyrical story about that encounter, which we published in Shavings. Last year he unearthed the photos shown here – and wrote to CWB Founding Director Dick Wagner with another story from that voyage: Dick, You may recall several years ago, at a [3rd Friday] Speaker’s evening, you asked for a re-telling of my encounter at sea with the great sailing vessel Passat.

At that time I could not locate my few photos of that sighting but you kindly printed my story in Shavings. Sometime later my 35mm slides arose amid dustedoff records.

This print of one of those slides [see small photo at right] views the venerable full-sailed Passat over the wheelhouse, astern of the Atlantis, after we had slowly overtaken, probably in May of 1952. On that quiet, almost windless morning, Atlantis’s mizzen boom is fixed over the port quarter with its sail loosely draped. It was this same boom and sail setting that dismasted the ketch about two months later.

After a hard blow somewhere to the south, the Atlantis was coursing north off the coast of Brazil. Late in the evening, deep into the eight-to-twelve watch, alone in the wheelhouse, I spun and steadied the wheel to oppose the yaw of the ketch as

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following seas lifted and heaved the hull forward. As in the photo with the Passat, the boom was not in its crutch, but up on its lifts and carrying [furled] wet canvas.

In a fore-and-aft arrangement that wet sail, of course, acted as a powerful lever when the steel hull hobby-horsed over the deep swells.

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the game was to keep the keel under that assigned compass heading, fend off that next yaw with a deft turn of the wheel.

On that third commanding watch, after the first and second mates had come and gone below, the bosun stood just outside the wheelhouse at the port rail, eyeing the rigging and the weather.

“There she goes!” The bellow from the bosun joined a great wrenching sound. I will never know which of us first reached the companionway starboard of the wheel.

Instinct took over and we fled below amid a great snarl and thunder of the collapsing rigging.

Passat on the horizon as seen from the research vessel Atlantis by a very awestruck young Art Nilsson.

Hobby-horsing over the swells may have contributed to the rigging disaster on Atlantis.

-photos: Art Nilsson

Was it the many years of strain (Atlantis first went to sea in 1930) on a single line of rigging? Was it questionable seamanship by an unwary crew? For me, the helmsman, it was but a rollicking rollercoaster ride. Long into the evening,

The kingstay (or is it the queenstay?) between the mast tops had parted. On a fore-and-aft rigged ship, to allow the swing of the main boom, nothing but that stay protects the mizzen mast forward.

Shrouds port and starboard support the mast across the beam but, when that single wire surrendered, the great weight of mizzen mast, boom and wet sail wanted to pull all that rigging aft as the heave of the hull attempted to hurl it forward At the precise pivot point, where the boom makes up to the mast, an

instantaneous fracture shattered the tree.

Only a splintered top post remained.

The suddenness of that event remains fixed in my mind. Upon returning to the disarray of the wheelhouse there, amid the shards of skylight glass beneath the wheel, were my pointy-toes African slippers, just where I had stood in them, mutely attesting to the speed of my exit below.

-Art [Ed. Note: The Atlantis was the first Woods Hole research vessel, serving from 1931 to 1964. Atlantis also was the first ship built specifically for interdisciplinary oceanographic research. She’s now the Dr. Bernardo A. Houssay of the Argentine Naval Prefecture, Having logged more than 1,300,000 miles, she is the oldest serving oceanographic research vessel in the world and has the distinction of never having lost a man or had a serious crew injury.

The Passat, while being used as a nitrate carrier, nearly perished in an Atlantic storm in 1957. She was decommissioned shortly thereafter. Passat was purchased in 1959 by the Baltic Sea municipality of Lubeck and is now a youth hostel, venue, museum ship and landmark moored at Travenmunde, a borough of Lubeck in the German federal state of SchleswigHolstein.]

Before he ventured to the Atlantic, as a teenager Art Nilsson worked aboard the ore boats on the Great Lakes. His voyages on Atlantis were his last time at sea. He returned to school and then enjoyed a long career in the construction business. After retirement he and his wife returned to her hometown of Seattle and now make their home in Shoreline.

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Upcoming BOATBUILDING Kayak Building: Aleut Ikyak (Baidarka) Instructor: Corey Freedman Session 2: July 2 - 10 Session 3: September 24 - October 2 Time: 9 am - 5 pm (Saturday - Sunday) Cost: $1,200 members / $1,400 non-members The Aleut Ikyak, also widely known as the Baidarka, has been used for thousands of years as the primary method of transportation in the Aleutian Islands. It is the acme of Arctic Native design. Build your own boat, designed to fit your skill level and body type. The boats are built primarily of yellow and red cedar with all joinery pegged and lashed – no metal fastenings or glues. You do not need woodworking experience; just come equipped with enthusiasm!

Limit: 4 students

Glued Lapstrake Canoe Building Instructor: Mark Reuten Dates: November 6 -11 (Cama Beach) Cama Cabin reservations available Time: 9 am - 5 pm (Sunday - Friday) Cost: $800 members / $900 non-members The design is J.H. Rushton’s “Canadian Ugo” canoe, a little under 16’ in length x 30” beam. This project will start with a mold already set-up. Backbone members will be installed and planking will begin quickly.

Construction will involve use of epoxy adhesive and 4mm marine grade plywood to create a lightweight easily-maintained hull with a classic traditional appearance. We will be using a construction method adapted from Tom Hill’s “Ultralight Boatbuilding”.

Discussions will include use of the lofting process, traditional vs modern technique, laminating, scarfing etc. No previous experience required.

Norwegian Pram Building Instructor: Jay Smith Dates: October 8 - 14 (Cama Beach)

Cama Cabin reservations available Time: 9 am - 5 pm (Saturday - Friday) Cost: $900 members / $1000 non-members Students will work together to build a traditional 10’ Norwegian pram in this sevenday workshop, which covers classic Nordic lapstrake in its simplest form. The pram will be launched on day seven and may be purchased by one of the students for the additional cost of materials.

Limit: 8 students

Stitch and Glue Boatbuilding Instructor: Sam Devlin Dates: September 26 - 30 Time: 9 am - 5 pm (Monday - Friday) Cost: $550 members / $625 non-members Sam Devlin has been a strong proponent of the Stitch and Glue method of boatbuilding for the past 30 years. In this class students will build a Peeper, a 12’ rowing skiff of his own design. The class will take place at the Devlin Boatshop in Olympia; please call Edel O’Connor at CWB for more information.

Limit: 8 students

Limit: 6 students.

W H Y TA K E A W O R K S H O P AT C W B ?

Workshops at The Center for Wooden Boats are offered year-round in a variety of skills. On a summer weekend a visitor strolling the docks at CWB might witness a student learning how to dock under sail, a bronze-casting workshop, a class of aspiring boatbuilders, and a colorful collection of El Toro dinghies with young sailors at the helm.

In additon to maritime skills, CWB also offers workshops such as Beginning Woodworking and Classical Navigation, which appeal to landlubbers as well as sailors and boat owners.

Our workshops are taught by skilled instructors from various backgrounds and trades. For example: Katey Noonan, a CWB Volunteer who works in Marine Insurance, teaches our Dead Reckoning workshop (see details at right); Corey Freedman, who teaches our Kayak Building workshop (above), is one of the foremost proponents of traditional native skin boat construction. He has overseen the building of more than 800 skin boats over the past decade. Sam Johnson, our Bronze Casting instructor, has a degree in marine biology from Stanford University and is the Executive Director of the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria, Oregon.

To learn more about any of the workshops listed here and to see others, please visit our website, www.cwb.org. Also, let us know what you would like to learn! We’re always open to new ideas for workshops and classes.

Contact Edel O’Connor at eoconnor@cwb.org with your suggestions.

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Classes SAILING & NAVIGATION SailNOW!

Get ZAPPED!

Learn to Sail at CWB

Learn to Sail Intensive

Instructors: CWB Sailing Instructors Session 6: July 9-August 13 Session 7: August 13-September 17 Session 8: September 17-October 29 Session 9: October 29-December 3 Cost: $335 members / $375 non-members

Instructors: CWB Sailing Instructors Available: April - November Cost: (for two students) $650 members / $700 non-members

Youth ages 16 -18 may take SailNOW! for $188 when registering with two adults.

This is the signature CWB learn-to-sail program for adults and families. Students will learn the basic boat handling skills that are the foundation for a lifetime of sailing. Each session starts with Shore School, a two-hour class where sail theory and terminology are explained. Following Shore School is a series of six on-the-water lessons which give you the opportunity develop your skills toward sailing solo. Lessons are taught by dedicated, trained volunteer instructors in CWB’s fleet of classic Blanchard Jr. Knockabouts.

Shore School is the first Saturday of each session from 10am to noon. Two-hour onthe-water lessons are available Saturdays and Sundays from 10 am to noon and 12:30 pm to 2:30 pm. Evening lessons are available 6 pm to 8 pm (Tuesday-Thursday) May 1 - September 1. Students choose available lesson dates and times that work for their personal schedules. Lessons are coordinated individually via email or phone prior to Shore School.

SailMORE!

Intermediate Sailing Instructors: CWB Sailing Instructors Session 1 (Beetle Cats): June 9, 16 & 23 Session 2 (Racing Sloops): July 14, 21 & 28 Session 3 (Sprit Rigs): August 4,11 & 18 Time: 6 - 8 pm (Thursdays) Cost: $130 per session member / $150 per session non-member Learn to sail the wide variety of boats in CWB’s Livery fleet. Focus will be on the unique attributes of gaff rig cat boats, racing sloops and sprit rigs. Learn to properly rig and sail each design. Extra attention will be given to docking and short tacking up the channel. Racing sloops include CWB’s Geary 18, San Francisco Bay Mercury and Lightning. Sprit Rigs will be our Woods Hole Spritsail, Plover, Hvalsoe 13 and 15.

Limit: 6 students each session.

Prerequisite: CWB checkout

Docking Under Sail Instructors: CWB Sailing Instructors Session 1: May 8 Session 2: June 12 Session 3: July 17 Session 4: August 14 Time: 6 pm - 8 pm (Sunday) Cost: $40 members or non-members Need some practice docking? Our entire Docking Under Sail class is spent gaining experience in the approach and execution of docking. A brief classroom session will be followed by practice on the water and coaching in Blanchard Jr. Knockabouts.

Single-handed docking practice can be requested.

Limit: 4 students Prerequisite: Previous sailing experience.

An intensive three-day sailing course for two people. This condensed and personalized version of the SailNOW! program is scheduled to fit your needs in a combination of three four-hour lessons taught by CWB’s talented instructors. It’s a perfect way for couples, friends, parentchild duos and out-of-town guests to learn to sail in a short amount of time. Lessons are sailed in Blanchard Jr. Knockabouts.

Call CWB at (206) 382-2628 for available lesson dates and times or email

mross@cwb.org

RaceNOW!

One-Design Racing Series Instructor: CWB Sailing Instructors Dates: July 15, 22, 29, August 5, 12, 19 & 26 Time: 6 pm - 8:30 pm (Fridays) Series Cost Per Person: $190 Crew rate / $250 Skipper rate Fun racing in classic wooden boats! RaceNOW! is an opportunity for intermediate skippers and novice crew to learn the fundamentals of sailboat racing. Each evening begins with a short classroom where you will be introduced to racing strategy, tactics and the basics of the racing rules. Sailing in teams of three per boat, we head out in our fleet of Blanchard Jr. Knockabouts for weekly races, sailing drills and on-the-water coaching to improve your sailing performance. This program is very social and popular, so register early to ensure your spot. Sign up with friends, family, or co-workers or use this opportunity to meet new people.

Prerequisite: CWB checkout for skippers, basic understanding of sail theory for crew Limit: 15 people (five boats)

Dead Reckoning

An Introduction to Classical Navigation Instructor: Katey Noonan Session 2: August 27 Session 3: October 22 Time: 10 am - 2 pm (Saturdays) Cost: $40 members / $50 non-members Have you ever wondered how nautical navigation was performed before Loran, radar and GPS became commonplace?

Ever wondered what they mean by “boxing” or “swinging” the compass? Join us as we explore non-electronic means of accurately travelling by boat from one place to another. At the end of the class students should be able to box the compass to 32 points, know the basic use and methods of celestial navigation, know the basics of Deviation and Variation as they relate to chart navigation and be able to chart a basic course heading from CWB to Gas Works Park.

Limit: 10 Students

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2011 THIRD FRIDAY SPEAKER SERIES

Home Built Boats Weekend July 23 & 24

Every third Friday of the month, CWB hosts a speaker of wit and experience to share their stories with CWB Members, Volunteers and the public. These talks are free to attend, although donations are always welcome. Refreshments are provided. There are no talks in August, November or December.

For the second year, CWB will sponsor a weekend event for people who have built small craft, and for those who want to. Hours are 10 am to 6 pm July 23 and 10 am to 3 pm July 24. The on-thedocks event will feature amateur boatbuilders and their boats, plus professionals who cater to the amateur builder. Visitors interested in boatbuilding and seeking how-to information can take advantage of skills demonstrations and Q&A sessions by professional boatbuilders and instructors.

Home Built Boats will be free to visitors, with donations accepted. A picnic area will be open on the main deck and in the CWB Boathouse gallery. A regatta sail will be organized for at least one of the days. For more information and application forms, visit www.cwb.org/home-built-boatsweekend or email the organizer, Tim Yeadon, at tim@timyeadon.com

SEPTEMBER 16, 7pm, CWB Boathouse Many sailors dream of making blue water, offshore passages. Michael Berman will present a series of large scale panoramic and multi-panel photographs that place the viewer on the deck of a small boat, sailing across the vast Atlantic Ocean. Michael will not only exhibit his work in the CWB Boathouse Gallery, but will also share slides and anectodes from his experience making a 16-day transatlantic passage. Michael’s exhibit will run September 13 2011 to January 15, 2012.

OCTOBER 21, 7pm, CWB Boathouse

Chris Cunningham has built a variety of small boats powered by oar, paddle or sail. He has cruised them 7,000 miles - and will talk about his experiences, as well as the Garvey he has built with a pop-up cabin, wood stove and hot and cold running water.

NOVEMBER 18, 7pm, CWB Boathouse Adventure, a 14’ William Garden designed pram, along with her builder and skipper Michael “Tug” Buse, traveled almost 5,000 miles across America in 2009 and 2010. Beginning his voyage in Union County, South Dakota on the Missouri River, Tug traveled to the Gulf of Mexico via the Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Tombigbee and White Rivers, around Florida and up the East Coast all the way to Freeport, Maine. Come and hear river and sea tales of heat, humidity, hurricanes, human kindness and dozens of American historical and cultural icons.

Norm Blanchard WOOD Regatta September 25 & 26 This is the premiere gathering of classic wooden (Wooden Open One Design) sailboats in the region, with two full days of racing and some dynamite social events. The regatta honors CWB’s good friend, the late Norm Blanchard, perhaps the best-known name in wooden boat building in the Northwest. Race your own boat, rent one of ours or sign up on the crew list. We welcome all sailors so there even will be a “Classic Plastic” class. Watch for more details on www.cwb.org

WOODWORKING & SKILLS WORKSHOPS Oar Making

Half Model Making

Beginning Woodworking

Instructor: Heron Scott Date: September 24 & 25 Time: 9:30 am - 5 pm (Saturday & Sunday) Cost: $290 members / $350 non-members

Instructors: Heron Scott Date: October 15 & 16 Time: 9:30 am - 5 pm (Saturday & Sunday) Cost: $260 members / $300 non-members

Instructor: Sam Laher Date: October 4, 6, 11 & 13 Time: 6 pm - 9 pm (Tuesdays & Thursdays) Cost: $230 members / $290 non-members

Traditionally boats were designed from half models. From the carved hull form, lines were drawn and scaled up to create fullsize patterns. Time will be spent laminating wood, sharpening hand tools, working with chisels, gouges, spokeshaves and hand planes to craft your own three-dimensional model. Students will mount their half models on boards, ready for display!

This class is for all you people with a hankering to make something out of wood.

First you’ll learn how to use basic hand and power tools safely as you turn large hunks of wood into useful-sized pieces. With that mastered, you’ll move on to basic joinery, laminating, fastening and finishing. Sam Laher will impart the techniques that will have you ready and able to take on your own woodworking projects and heading for the lumber store.

Good oars are hard to find in the market!

This two-day workshop provides a hands-on introduction to the craft of oar making. Learn the value of balanced oars, various blade patterns, how to choose suitable wood, how to figure the right length of oars and how to make leather oar collars. Students will lay out and build their own pair of flat-blade oars.

Learn how to sharpen and use drawknives, spokeshaves and hand planes and some good techniques for shaping and finishing wood. Take home one finished oar and one partly finished to work on after the class.

Limit: 6 students.

Bronze Casting Instructor: Sam Johnson Date: August 20 & 21 Time: 9 am - 5 pm (Saturday & Sunday) Cost: $280 members / $350 non-members Learn how to use all the tools necessary to cast hot metal using sand-casting technology.

Sam Johnson will cover the basics of patternmaking, sand molding and bronze casting during this engaging hands-on course. Students will make patterns of their designs to cast tools, boat hardware and other objects in bronze. Boatbuilders in particular often need special bronze fittings that are not available but can be cast without great expense. Anyone who has ever lost an oarlock will appreciate learning how to make copies of original hardware. Students also will learn how to build their own inexpensive furnace.

Limit: 10 students

Limit: 6 students

B.Y.O.B.

(Bring Your Own Boat) Instructors: Dave Thacker and Sam Laher Date: August 27 Time: 10 am - 4 pm (Saturday) Cost: $80 members / $85 non-members Got a boat kicking around in your backyard that you’ve been meaning to get to, but just don’t know where to start? How about a boat you tore into and found more than you bargained for? This class is designed for do-it-yourselfers who need a jump-start on their projects. Bring your trailerable wooden boat (up to 20’) and get valuable time with professional shipwrights.

You will get advice on how to begin the restoration, make repairs and move your project forward. Participants will come away from this class with a better understanding of boats, marine products and professional restoration techniques. B.Y.O.B. Hell yeah!

Great as a gift certificate! Help that special someone get their boat out of your driveway!

Limit: 6 students

Women’s Woodworking

An Introduction To The Basics Instructor: Lacey Carnahan Date: August 16, 18, 23 & 25 Time: 6 pm - 9 pm (Tuesdays & Thursdays) Cost: $230 members / $290 non-members Ladies! Have you always wanted to learn woodworking but never had the time or the encouragement? Join Lacey Carnahan for four sessions on the wonderful ways of woodworking. In addition to learning how to use hand and power tools safely, this workshop will cover basic joinery, laminating, fastening and finishing techniques. Walk away with the knowledge and confidence to embark on your own woodworking projects.

Tell your sisters, girlfriends, mothers and daughters to sign up!

Limit: 6 students

How Do I Register?

Courses are filled on a first-come, first-served basis so we recommend early registration. All workshops are held at CWB’s Lake Union, Seattle location unless otherwise noted in the course description. We are constantly adding new programs.

Please check our website at www. cwb.org for the latest listings and information or call us at (206) 3822628. The Center for Wooden Boats keeps class size small to promote quality instruction and experience.

Visit www.cwb.org to register or call (206) 382-2628

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News from Cama Beach Documenting Western Washington Watercraft b y

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The Center for Wooden Boats plays a leadership role in the Northwest in providing the tools and expertise for preserving, interpreting, and programming Western Washington’s maritime cultural resources. Through a grant from the Washington State Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation and support from the U.S. National Park Service, CWB is leading the Documenting Western Washington Watercraft Project to help build and distribute the knowledge and skills necessary for preserving information about historic boats from our region.

The project kicked off with a week-long training session held at Cama Beach State Park. Groups attended from across Washington including the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding, Gig Harbor Boatshop, City of Anacortes Museum, Washington State Parks and Seattle’s Nordic Heritage Museum. The course was led by Todd Crouteau who works at the U.S. National Park Service as the Program Coordinator for the HAER Maritime program (Historic American Engineering Record). Todd works with organizations around the country to document historic structures, ships and boats according to standards developed by the Secretary of the Interior. Once the documentation is complete, it becomes part of the public record in a database at the Library of Congress called “Built in America”.

Todd Croteau of the U.S. National Park Service demonstrates use of a LIDAR measuring tool to a class of students from six different institutions across the region. The project to document 10 historic watercraft in Washington kicked off with a week-long class at Cama Beach State Park.

- photo: Pete Leenhouts

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HAER records include several components: •

A written history of the boat

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A lines drawing with the shape of the vessel

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Sometimes a construction drawing showing the framing

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A drafting of what the boat looks like (e.g. with cabin, oarlock sockets etc.)

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A series of hand-written notes and sketches about the construction

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Photographs (film) taken with a 4x5 camera The HAER documentation provides a way to preserve and share information about specific boats even when it’s impossible to save that physical boat. The documentation also enables replicas to be built in the future. In fact the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding has lofted and started construction on the Knease Whitehall that was documented during the training session at Cama Beach. The list of boats being documented in this project include: •

Cama Beach Resort #5 (Washington State Parks)

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Cama Beach Resort #55 (Washington State Parks)

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H.A. Long inboard launch (CWB)

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Lapstrake Reinell outboard skiff (CWB)

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Knease Whitehall (CWB to San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park)

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After a week of training at Cama Beach State Park, workshop attendees are documenting boats at their own institutions. The Nordic Spirit is part of the collection at the Nordic Heritage Museum.

- photo: Andrew Washburn

Todd Croteau of National Park Service demonstrates the use of the large format Willits Canoe (Privately owned) camera. Todd works with institutions 18’ Mukilteo Boat (Privately owned) around the country to document historic ships and boats which are maintained by 16’ Poulsbo Boat (Foss Waterway the Library of Congress.

Seaport) - photo courtesy of Todd Croteau

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The Nordic Spirit (The Nordic Heritage Museum)

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Grandy Skiff (Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding)

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Rickaby Skiff (City of Anacortes Museum) Western Washington has a unique relationship with its waterways-similar in cultural and economic importance to other regions of the country such as Chesapeake Bay, Coastal New England and San Francisco. The native people of the Salish Sea as well as the European and American mariners who shaped the region confronted unique problems by developing unique watercraft. Shaped by weather, natural resources and technology the historic watercraft of Washington represent a significant cultural resource in danger of disappearing.

The first step in preserving these maritime cultural recourses is the detail recording of their form and their stories. Creation of HAER documentation is a stewardship tool.

Small Boats Saturday October 15, 2011 Cama Beach State Park

What are YOU doing on Labor Day Weekend?

Join CWB at Cama Beach State Park!

September 2-5, 2011 For cabin reservationa email cama@cwb.org

include “Shavings” in the subject line

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News from Cama Beach In a Small Boat b y

Rose twirled in the current of the Stilliquamish. Her occupants shifted. Alysha deployed the oars - slapping the water, a little frantic. After some coaching, Mayra, in the sternsheets, began barking orders. I was in the bow with an extra oar ready to fend off root wads and snags. The other boats, T. Eisenburg, Gloria, and Will Dear, fell in line downstream. Alysha bent to the oars determined to catch up.

Our party included 11: seven students, two teachers, one experienced trip leader and one CWB site manager. For many of the students - and perhaps one of their teachers - from Emerson High School in Mount Vernon, this was their first camping trip; for all but Emma Levitt (the experienced trip leader and former WB staff member) and myself, it was their first boat camping trip.

“This is really good for me,” Alysha said without pausing her oar strokes. “I am like sooo afraid of boats.” I started to worry. ”I cried the last time I went on a boat with a motor.” But there was no panic in her voice or nervous movements. I relaxed and Mayra, Alysha, and I discussed the finer points of rowing vs. motoring. The quiet, the slow pace; ultimately the reason we all felt more at ease emerged: “control.” In this little boat on this wide river we are masters of our own destiny. The boat goes where we want it to without mysteries machines or complex engines guiding it.

I will speak for many of us. The peace and sense of control in a small boat, even in difficult conditions, comes from the necessity of having to focus on the present, on one’s surroundings, without distraction.

No homework to do, no family troubles to fret about, no relationship issues to over

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think, no program budgets to write. We left all that at the boat ramp.

As the banks of the river gave way to broad sandy beaches and exposed muddy stumps and fallen trees, the river spread her

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teeter-totter out of driftwood. Emma and I scouted the next move through the transition between river and Port Susan. The wind had increased, the broad channels at the mouth of the river frothed with wind chop and

Myra, Emma, Nick, Allan, Juan, Rachaelle, Alysha, Mirna, Gabby, Hernan, and Andrew ready to launch.

- photo: Shane Bishop

arms. Our little flotilla grouped together to better navigate the tidal current and sand bars and, almost as important, to find a lunch spot. With the boats dragged high against the tide our group relaxed on a massive cottonwood snag. “Uncrustables” were passed around - my new favorite lunch food.

The joys of which are one of the many things I learned from the students of Emerson High over the course of their weekly visits to Cama this spring.

After lunch Nick led a rousing game of 500 on the sandbar with some of the students. Others constructed a makeshift

standing waves and, oddly, teemed with curious seals. We picked a route the best we could.

An hour later, the four boats were pitching in the waves at the mouth of Hat Slough, struggling against the wind to make it under the limited protection of the bluffs above Warm Beach. Leading the way, weaving between derelict pilings, the occupants of Rose became aware of a frantic screeching. Looking up we realized we had come too close to an osprey nest. The adult bird perched on the nest seemed to have a very real intention of clawing out our eyes

if we strayed any closer.

We were now firmly in the saltchuck.

Only a few miles separated us from our objective at Kayak Point. But, after rounding the small point at Warm Beach, I began to wish for the protection of the river. A strong southerly seemed bent on fulfilling my unspoken wish, attempting to push us back into the Stilly.

In Rose we rowed hard; making many crew shifts, counting our well synchronized strokes between the two banks of oars.

Looking at the shore, our progress appeared discouragingly slow - a devilish eddy must have seized our small boat and was conspiring with the wind to beat our spirits.

“I want to take us in,” Mayra said gesturing for me to switch seats with her.

I was happy to oblige, my arms were tired.

Epilogue: There was little that came easy on our row from Hat Slough to Kayak Point.

Wind and sometimes current opposed us.

Our own inexperience and fears tried to hold us back. But around the campfire that night I saw gleaming - though exhausted - smiles.

Over the semester I grew increasingly impressed with the leadership ability, openness, and determination of the group from Emerson. Each student displayed these abilities and traits differently and in different areas. Without hesitation I would jump into a small boat and shove off from shore with any one of them!

CWB would like to thank the Charlotte Martin Foundation for the generous grant which made this semester program possible!

Andrew Washburn is the manager of The Center for Wooden Boats at Cama Beach.

Mothers’ Day Sail, 12th Edition b y

On Saturday, May 7, The Center for Wooden Boats celebrated Mother’s Day as it has for the past 12 years: taking bunches of happy people out for a great free boat ride in our traditional boats. The Mothers’ Day Saturday Sail at Cama Beach is best described as a triumph of determination over adversity. For the first time in the history of this event, cold rain showers began early and continued all day long. Moreover, this year there was no large featured boat such as last year’s 101’ Baltic schooner W.N. Ragland or the historic 101’ gaff topsail two-masted schooner Adventuress, so all the sailings were in a fleet of smaller sailboats.

About 160 sturdy souls, mothers and their families, braved the weather in these open boats, far less than the usual 250280 participants. The toy boat building benches, set up in the Boatshop building that was heated by a cozy stove, proved a very popular attraction. Lots of youthful boatbuilders (and some not-so-youthful, but no less enthusiastic supervisors) were busy there throughout the day. Another favored venue was the Fire Truck Garage, where hotdogs, chili, chips and soft drinks were sold to some 300 customers. Those who did venture out aboard ship, however, seemed to enjoy the experience. As one mother said, “We had a great time, but

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The CWB sailing gillnetter Admirable and longboat Discovery, rafted to the tug Isswat, awaiting passengers. Volunteers shuttle visitors from the beach. Note full rain-gear yet ear-to-ear grins!

- photo: Erin Schiedler

it took us two days to warm up again afterward.”

Lia Stamatiou, with crew Adrian Lipp, used her trusty tugboat Isswat to tow CWB’s own Admirable and Discovery north for the day. A veteran participant, Capt. Lawrence Baum’s Samurai, and newcomers Apache, owned by Clay Gustavus, and CWB’s 23’

Cape Anne dory Spirit completed the fleet roster. Though Isswat was mainly used as a platform for loading passengers, several youthful enthusiasts spent their time aboard exploring her many fascinating attributes.

Also welcome was the return of CWB Cama Beach veterans Patrick Gould aboard Isswat and Greg Reed to skipper Spirit as

well as former CWB South Lake Union Program Director Courtney Bartlett.

While free for visitors, this event and its success could not have been possible without generous donations of time and materials. Major contributors included Parametrix, Orca Creative Group, Crochet Liberation Front, Cama Beach State Park and Camano Sail and Power. Other donations were generously provided by J.E. Hamilton & Sons, Mark’s Camano Island Pharmacy, the Camano Chamber of Commerce, Coastal Community Bank, Haggen Food & Pharmacy Stanwood and QFC Stanwood.

These sponsors and the hard work of volunteers both this year and in the past have made CWB’s Mother’s Day Saturday Sail a lasting tradition for area residents and visitors. Special thanks are due to volunteers Suzy Brunzel, Tom Eisenberg, Jacky King, Jim Karr, Bob Roth, Kathleen Stariha, Michael Scott and Janet Peterson, whose skills and enthusiasm made the day such a success.

Jacky King is one of CWB Cama Beach’s longest-serving volunteers. Currently she handles front desk duties on weekends.

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S a i l o r s

Festival Scavenger Hunt Connect the Dots

This is the first clue for Festival Scavenger Hunt! reveal the secret location. adventure! There’s treasure (though the best treasure

the annual Wooden Boat Connect the dots to Go there to start your at the end of this hunt may be the hunt itself)!

Need a hint? Visit the Festival Information Booth!

Ask the Captain!

The Book Nook!

Dear Captain Pete, I went for a trip on my Aunt’s boat and she called the toilet the “head” the whole time so I was wondering, why are toilets on boats called heads? Also, what’s up with the poop deck?

Toy Boat

by Randall de Sève and Loren Long Age 3-8 “A little boy had a toy boat. He made it from a can, a cork, a yellow pencil, and some white cloth.” So begins the story of this toy boat’s adventure.

Blown by a strong breeze out to the open water of a stormy lake, the toy boat encounters several larger boats before finally making it home safely to the boy. Vibrant, colorful pictures and an exciting story make this book the perfect counterpart to CWB’s toy boat building or any boating activity.

-Alice Dear Alice, The tradition of calling the toilet on the boat the head has been around for centuries. Before the invention of the flush toilet or marine sanitation devices, toilets on boats were usually buckets or sometimes just holes cut in the upper deck of the ship, which dumped directly over the side. The buckets were kept in the forward part or the “head” of the ship where the sailors slept, far away from the officer’s quarters in the back end of the ship.

Strangely enough the poop deck has nothing to do with poop. It comes from an old European term for the back of a ship, the “puppis”. Over time, that became the poop deck or farthest back, tallest deck on a large ship.

Fair winds Captain Pete

Write to Captain Pete at captainpete@cwb.org

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Dove

by Robin Lee Grahm Age 12+ The true story of 16-year-old Robert Grahm’s solo around-the-world voyage in his 24’ sloop Dove. The journey took him five years. He traveled more than 30,000 sea miles visiting some of the most beautiful places on earth. Along the way he has many adventures and meets his wife, Patti. This book is full of extraordinary experiences and the simple values of sailing. An inspiring summer read for any young sailor.

What’s in a Name: The Story of Kelpie b y

Kelpie was among the original yachts registered at the Seattle Yacht Club when the Club evolved from the Queen City Yacht Club in 1892. She was a 48’ (counting the bowsprit) cutter that had been constructed in 1889 by the Hall Brothers of Port Blakely for her original owner, Henry K, Sander of Seattle.

About a year later she was sold to a syndicate of Dean John Condon of the University of Washington Law School, Winlock Miller, Charles Burnside and my grandfather, Joseph Arthur Baillargeon. The exact dates of those transactions are a little uncertain but a few years later, Grandfather, who had become a widower in 1892, succeeded to sole ownership.

Before the Lake Washington Ship Canal and the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks were available, all the local yachts were moored at buoys in Elliott Bay. Typical for the times, Kelpie had no auxiliary power. My father, Cebert Baillargeon, who sailed aboard Kelpie many times during his boyhood, recalled how one never could count on the winds to be sufficient to return the boat to its moorings as planned. “If you’re going to sail, get used to that sort of thing,” he counseled. The idea of drifting about on the Sound in a small boat all night was instilled in me at an early age; to a 10-year old the prospect seemed both exciting and a bit daunting.

Lore from my father’s Kelpie days was a continuing part of my nautical education. Like his own father, whom I barely knew as a small child, my father was fastidious about sailing and

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maintenance routines, which he visited upon me when we acquired our first sailboat, Blanchard Junior Knockabout JK-10, in 1939. As a side note, our Junior also was named Kelpie and was constructed at Blanchard’s alongside

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which became the fourth family boat christened Kelpie.

Around 1911, Ted Geary, acting for my grandfather, sold the original Kelpie for $500 to a notorious waterfront character named Captain Wolf Larsen.

Kelpie I showing off her rig on a calm day.

No reefing needed with a big jib and jib topsail. - photo courtesy of Bill Baillargeon

half, increasing her length to 60 feet and rigging her as a schooner. She plied the Inside Passage as a small packet engaged in transporting general cargo and probably a few passengers. In 1916 she met her end, sadly, burning on a beach in Chatham Inlet.

The first Kelpie, circa 1900, on Puget Sound. Who needs auxiliary power?

-photo courtesy of Bill Baillargeon

a smart-looking Ben Seaborn sloop christened Romp II but later known by her documented name, Mistral. A couple of years before that, we had bestowed the name Kelpie on an 11’ Grandy lapstrake rowing boat. In 1946 we traded the Junior for a Blanchard Senior, B-25,

Larsen ran a boarding house in Victoria, B.C. Legend has it that he had served as both namesake and character profile for Jack London’s Sea Wolf (published in 1904). Captain Larsen rebuilt Kelpie at Esquimalt, B.C., by cutting her in

Joseph C. Baillargeon, often called Bill, has been sailing in and around Puget Sound since his early years. After active service in the Navy during the Korean conflict, he entered the world of banking in Seattle. Subsequently he received a PhD in English at the University of Washington. In 1962 he acquired the yacht Mistral, which he donated to The Center for Wooden Boats in 2004.

The cure for all that ails you is water.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY, CWB!

|

WWW

.VULCAN.COM

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Inuvialuit Qayaq Project b y

Last year, as the result of being awarded the CWB Ed Monk Scholarship, I made a 10-day excursion to the community of Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada. The purpose of the trip was to build an Inuvialuit qayaq (kayak) while making community contacts and hopefully unearthing anecdotal knowledge of traditional qayaq construction and use. A separate goal was to determine if there would be community interest and support for an ongoing qayaq building and traditional skills redevelopment program. Here are excerpts from the journal I kept: July 10, 2010, Victoria, B.C.: I have begun my trip to Inuvik, NWT. I have with me my clothing, coffee, a small assortment of tools and a qayaq, roughly pre-built or, rather, in kit form. For reading, “Bull Cook and Authentic Recipes and Practices” by George and Berthe Herter. Part cookbook, part history text and part survival guide, it features such subjects as how to make corned antelope, Belgian squirrel, menudo of tripe and how to survive a hydrogen bomb attack.

As for the subject of this trip, the qayaq, I’ve fabricated the kit out of #2 and BTR construction-grade spruce. The goal is to inspire the Inuvialuit youth to explore their own cultural roots through qayaq building.

I wanted to prove that you could source the required material cheaply and locally. I think I have about $25 -$30 invested in this qayaq so far. I made a point of selecting material from the top three layers of the lumber pile so as to get a reasonable representation of what might be available in Inuvik. Of course, they may have a greater ability to source material from the wild than I do. If time allows, I plan to frame my qayaq using local willow. I did bring some yellow cedar framing stock just in case.

Most of the kayak kit is in one 78” long bundle - the longest allowed as “sports gear”

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on the airplane. The cockpit hoop and curved stem horns are strapped to my pack. I made a couple of wooden jigs that are intended to clamp my hooked gunnel scarfs together, using a wedge, but as I now sit staring at my bulging pack, I think a couple of small clamps would have been a better idea.

I’ll be doing all the final joinery with just hand tools; knives and a bow drill. I’ve got a

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The Cascades, a rough and rugged range of snow-capped mountains, old growth forest and barbed wire undergrowth, are a place of natural wonder for hikers and climbers.

There are a lot of creeks and small lakes, fed by melting snow, in the folds and cusps of the mountains.

National Forest, Alpine Wilderness and National Park designations protect a good portion of the Cascades from logging, mining and development. There are a few winding, twisting Forest Roads that were used for logging a hundred years ago and now are fast being clogged with undergrowth.

The up-and-down topography eliminates any human residents but there are robust populations of deer, elk, bears, cougars, mountain goats and marmots.

At about 5,000 feet elevation in the lonely canyons and mountains, elk hunter Trent Whatley stumbled across a pair of oars leaning against a Douglas fir more than 5’ in diameter.

That is the mystery.

The oars are handcrafted and have been standing with their blades up for a long time – at least through one forest

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also because I will be studying the last qayaq built in Inuvik, which is also a short “fish net tending” model.

My contact in Inuvik is Kevin Floyd. He was born there but grew up in Victoria. It was Kevin who approached me with a request to teach a qayaq-building course for the Inuvik youth. Having done so in Kugaaruk, Nunavut, I learned a few things the hard way and, to

reception. There are some elders from remote communities who will eat nothing else and consider the offering of salad and casserole to be something of a hardship. Some won’t come in for the arts festival because they find it just too hot as far south as Inuvik.

An elder named Lena Wolki was showing off this huge skein of muskox yarn she had produced. Called kiviuk, she had spun it as

Makenzie Delta Qayaq (length 14’ 6.6”, beam 19.4”) in the Danish National Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark.

- Lines taken by David Zimmerly

little caribou sinew which I may use if only to inspire an elder to show me the “proper” way to use it. I know it often was braided to the desired length but I want to know if was ever twisted into two-strand line, much like traditional marline twine. (Note: While reading historical material after the trip, I discovered that this practice was used by the Inupiat in the Bering Strait. Many of the inhabitants of Inuvik and surrounding area trace their lineage to the Inupiat.)

I’ve built two Inuvialuit qayaqs before, both 16’ interpretations of a qayaq in the Canadian Museum of Civilization collection.

I’ve since found some more information about the joinery and will build this new qayaq more traditionally. I’ve chosen a 12’ version this time, partly to make the kit smaller but

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fire. There are scorch marks on the handles that match scorch marks on the tree. Worm and beetle holes and some rot on the handle ends indicate the oars have been in place for years.

The blades are narrow, which longdistance rowers prefer. The looms (the part of the oar that rests in the rowlock) are a bit less than 2” in diameter. The 9’6” oars are very lightweight. Because of the light weight, their long durability and ease with which it can be hand carved, the wood might be western red cedar.

On the loom, there are no signs of pressure from a thole pin, grommet or rowlock. A set of 9’6” oars would be suitable for a boat of 4’6” to 5’0” beam for pair rowing. If they were used for single bank rowing, the boat could have had a beam of 5’6” to 6’0”.

The nearest water is a shallow creek, now not navigable for any vessel. The creek is five miles of almost impenetrable undergrowth from the oars.

There is no indication that the place of the oars ever had a hut, much less a camp or a village. The nearest occupied town is 20 miles away and is reached only by an overgrown logging road.

Who made the oars?

For what purpose?

Was there a boat?

Were there other oars?

Trent Whatley and CWB can’t wait for your feedback!

that end, I thought this “recon” trip was the best way to start.

I’ll be building this boat at the Great Northern Arts Festival. Hopefully the high exposure will draw some elders with applicable knowledge out of the crowd. I also hope we’ll find some good candidates for the course lingering about. The eventual platform for this program will be a mentorship system hosted by the Inuvik Qayaq Club (IQC). They are employing a model which has proved very successful in Greenland.

Qayaq USA, the American chapter of Qaannat Kattuffiat (the Greenland Kayak Association), has invited IQC to participate in a rolling competition they will be hosting this fall. Kevin is quite keen to attend; I hope invitations such as these will encourage the youth to participate in the IQC. They need to realize that their culture has much to offer the rest of the world but it will require effort on their own part to see it to fruition. I’ll do my best to help.

July 10-11, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory: I’m not sure what I expected from Whitehorse, but it was not all the big-box stores circling the town like a wagon train under attack. In all honesty they actually clustered them at one end of town near the airport, but it has left the city center bereft of the usual expected amenities.

I find the town core disappointing. It is very spread out with most of the businesses tourist-oriented. The streets are double wide.

Perhaps they like to have snowplow races and moose stampedes.

July 12, 2010 Inuvik, NWT: We came in on the milk run through Dawson and Old Crow. My breakfast was a muskox pastie, which I created from the previous night’s dinner of muskox shepherd’s pie in a breadbowl. It was a good thing I made it because the plane food consisted of pepperoni and muffins.

Kevin was a little late picking me up and I had forgotten to bring his phone number so things got off to a normal northern start.

We wasted no time in getting to the Northern Arts Festival venue - the hockey rink - and began assembling my qayaq gunnels (in the Inuvialuit language “appuma”). Quite a few elders kept hanging around us, pleased to see our activity. Muskox meatloaf for dinner followed by an evening reception featuring fruit and “country food” consisting of dried fish, dried reindeer and muktuk (beluga whale skin with a little blubber left on the rind).

The 24 hours of daylight kept me up until about 2 am.

July 13: The day was a real grind. My head was pounding, guts in a twist. Either I’ve come down with a virus or maybe I hit the country food a little too hard yesterday. I think it was a wise decision to give the muktuk a pass, although I had been looking forward to having some again. The elders responded like kids in a candy store when it was announced that country food was to be served at the

fine as kite string. Turns out she helps with the annual muskox harvest on Banks Island. It’s a cull intended to help the caribou population, with all the meat destined to supply the surrounding communities including Inuvik.

Likewise, the reindeer I mentioned earlier is a controlled herd introduced in the earlier part of the last century. They have a Laplander or “Saami” herder taking care of the ranch.

Pretty much all of the meat is dried and used for local consumption, but the main product of the herd is antlers, harvested while in velvet [before the growing antler hardens] for the Asian aphrodisiac market. A poster down at the liquor store offered a free tongue with every 50 pounds of dried meat ordered.

My day’s activities consisted of chopping mortices into the gunnels to receive the deck beams. The mortices are tapered toward the outboard face, which makes fitting a challenge but makes sense if you are working with just a knife and bow drill as I am. Today I should be getting things into some sort of boat shape. I’m getting tired of laboring over two sticks.

This morning I’m getting interviewed by the local CBC radio morning show, “Trail Breaker”. Seems I’m creating a little bit of a buzz around town.

July 15: The last two days have been very good and productive. Many people commented on the radio interview. Elizabeth, the granddaughter of “Old Pokiak”, has come up from Edmonton. She remembers watching her dad, Bertram Pokiak, build a qayaq for her brother, Charles. We went down to the visitors’ center together to look at that qayaq and a basket sled her father had built. She couldn’t remember much in terms of detail because she was quite young when both were built but it was great spending the time with her just the same.

One of the things that has transpired over the last couple of days is that the elder ladies, including Elizabeth Pokiak and Lena Wolki, have agreed to help skin my qayaq next year. Now we just need to make sure that the required seal skins are on hand, which is relatively easy.

Lena and Elizabeth have also said that they would make sure their sons come to build another qayaq next year. This is exactly the kind of thing that I hoped would happen.

One by one, others are climbing on board this idea.

I’ve had some members of the Dene community from Yellowknife tell me there is interest in building their indigenous craft as well. What I’ve come to realize is that all that is required to get people involved is simply inviting them. In the south, people usually invite themselves or ask how they can get involved but it seems to just the opposite up here.

A man named Fred Cockney, grandson of Nuligak, the first Inuvialuk to learn to read and write in his own language, came up to me and was really pleased to see the qayaq. He and others I’ve talked to wanted to learn the

Inuvialuit Qayak Project C difference between their style of qayaq and others across the Arctic. It drives home just how far from their historical roots many of these people have drifted.

July 16: A very interesting day. At the top of the list is a long conversation with a man named Roy Goose from Uluhaktok.

He is a linguist, retired CBC journalist and photographer. His grandfather, Natkusiak, also known as Billy Banksland, guided Canadian explorer and ethnologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson on his various Arctic explorations and was given the schooner North Star of Herschel Island in partial payment for his services. Roy was very excited to see my qayaq and quizzed me on my knowledge of the appropriate use of seal skin for it. I passed with my answer of a two- to four-year-old female ugyuk (bearded seal) with the skin applied so the hair follicles point away from the direction of travel.

He strongly suggested I study basket sleds to further my understanding of structure. It turns out that the kind with a round hoop at the front are intended to be amphibious. He also told me that a single bladed paddle was standard sled gear.

Kevin and I took a look at some photos of Inuvialuit artifacts at the Smithsonian Institute.

Accompanying each of the qayaq models was a single-bladed as well as a double-bladed paddle. These paddles also are featured in most of the photos of qayaqs being used to tend fishing nets.

Many of these photos also show two boards or fiddles running down the foredeck, secured at either end with the deck lines (“tapqauraq”), forming a trough on the deck. I suspected that they hold the net when setting and the fish when retrieving. Further investigation eventually revealed a photo of a qayaq with the foredeck loaded with fish between those fiddles.

July 18, on the plane, headed for home:

I finished the qayaq frame except for deck stringers.

The material I brought just wasn’t quite right and I didn’t want to do a hack job. I’ll budget a couple of days to finish it right next year. Aside from that detail, I’m really happy with the results and the boat looks very pretty.

The elders have been abuzz over it and are excited about the prospect of skinning it next year.

Throughout the week, many have mentioned family members who have built qayaqs. I suspect many of those mentioned participated in Don Gardener’s qayaq building session back in the 1980s. It drives home just how much these people hold the building of qayaqs close to their sense of cultural identity, yet there has been so little of this activity over the past century.

Artist Robert Buckle from Aklavik expressed interest in having me come to his community to build qayaqs as well. We got into a conversation about muskrat hunting.

The tradition of hunting them from a canoe has ended, not because other methods have proven more successful but because small pack canoes were never replaced as they wore out. I talked to several other Inuvialuit and Gwich’in about this and they all commented that it would be good to have pack canoes to get into the more remote rivers and lakes. I’m considering introducing a modern interpretation of the traditional Gwich’in canoe, which sort of resembles the “six-hour canoe” in basic form.

They were propelled using two short sticks like one would use ski poles.

Dennis Allen, an Inuvialuit film maker, helped me with the last couple of construction details. He is very keen to take part in a qayaq build next year as well. I suspect that if he does, he’ll also have the camera rolling.

Dennis told me the story of how he was in charge of digging up Albert Johnson, the infamous “Mad Trapper of Rat River”. They

an irresponsibly excessive selection

started digging at the foot of a tree that was marked with his initials. After much digging in various locations, Dennis got the idea to go down to the local retirement home to find some old folks who might have been present when Johnson was buried in the 1930s. Dennis found a 92-year-old woman who was able to draw him a map. They were off target by about 15’. Dennis said when they opened the coffin, Albert still had the same scowl on his face as was shown in the last photos of him before burial.

Kevin and I have roughed out a plan for qayaq building over the winter and leading up to next year’s Arts Festival. He’ll start the kids out with some paddle (“pautik”) making and building some skin-on-frame play boats.

They’ll use these both to practice rolling in the pool and to get acquainted with basic skinboat-building techniques.

Following that we’ll get them started on building an Inuvialuit qayaq as a group with direct instruction. Then they’ll build another with a partner. Then we’ll have them guide a group of adults through the process at the Arts Festival with each of the kids spelling off as instructor.

With Kevin and myself in the background to help keep the process in check, I think this process is achievable and the Inuvik Qayaq Club then will have some mentors to begin rebuilding an ancient tradition.

It has been a great trip. I return with less coffee, dirty clothes, dull tools, some Labrador tea, dried fish and reindeer. Kevin forgot to give me the dried beluga meat he promised; instead I am lugging home a very heavy muskox skull.

I also return with a greater understanding and admiration for the Inuvialuit and all the people of the north. They are divided by miles of tundra, language, customs and race, yet it is amazing how a few people who live such incredibly great distances apart can make it

seem like they are typical next door neighbors.

I come away feeling like a new neighbor, living at the south end of the street but I suspect that street stretches right to the other pole.

The sharing of vision and material techniques, stories and ideas, songs and dances truly was inspirational. I came to learn from another culture and it turns out they were a part of my own culture all along. This trip has also given me a new direction to follow, or rather focused me on a track that I’ve been following my whole life but have wavered back and forth on over the years. I’ll be thinking about the art a lot more and involving myself in that world a bit more.

It’s time to return to my beginnings, to get back to the art. I want to bring jewelry back into my activity, sculpture and drawing. Boats will remain a thread throughout and, of course, I’ll not stop building them for use.

I left the art world many years ago because I didn’t feel that I had a vision to present to the world. Little did I know that by going into the world of boatbuilding, I was developing the very vision that I lacked.

Mark Reuten says he was “working as a freelance industrial designer, professional artist and woodworker when a series of toy-related sculptures turned my attention to wooden boats.” He built his first boat in 1993.

He graduated from the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding in 1997 and then moved around the coasts of British Columbia and Alaska to gain experience. That included learning totem pole and dugout canoe carving with First Nations artists Clarence Mills and Victor Reese. In 1999, he opened Nomad Boatbuilding in Victoria, B.C., where his work includes canvas canoe restoration, skin-onframe building and teaching, designing and building small planked craft and repair work on larger boats.

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Call (206) 624-9119 for more info, or visit

www.VirginiaV.org Shavings

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Journey with Orion b y

Those who visit my 57’ wooden yawl Orion quite often comment on her fine details, such as the bronze hardware that has worked for the past 77 years. Those who sail on Orion don’t bother with comments. They just, sit back and grin.

Orion is ideally suited for the Pacific Northwest and has adjusted to her new home in Seattle splendidly.

But that wasn’t always so. For some reason she did not want to leave her former home in southern California.

I had persuaded three of my closest friends to join me in San Diego for Orion’s delivery to Seattle. For a few days, it seemed like we were going to get the trip we had planned. Leaving Oceanside, we had sunny skies and not a breath of wind. Not ideal sailing weather but we were able to make out to the Channel Islands on the horizon, accompanied by dolphins all morning. Thus “dolphin” is what crossed e v e r y o n e ’s m i n d w h e n t h e r o o k i e onboard proclaimed, “Whale!” I didn’t even bother to look. But after some persuasion I climbed up on the doghouse top to see what all the fuss was about.

And sure enough there was a whale, a really big whale.

To me, Blue Whales have always been one of those things that I knew exist but never expected to see. But here one was. It was the first of three that morning; spirits onboard Orion could not have been higher. We were underway on a piece of history in a warm ocean looking at the biggest animal that ever lived. The trip home to Seattle was going to be a breeze. Twenty-four hours

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later we were under tow into Oxnard Harbor with major fuel issues, some disturbingly leaky seams and a deck that allowed more water below than it shed into the scuppers. It was not that we had discovered any new problems but now we understood the severity of the problems we had. The sail up the coast was not to be.

Orion under full sail in the San Juan Islands

After hauling out in Ventura California, Orion arrived in Port Townsend on the back of a semi-truck, over width over weight, over height and over length.

This was not the glorious return to the Northwest I had planned but, with Orion in her winter home, it was time to get to

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work. Orion had to be ready for her new job as the research platform for Deep Green Wilderness’s programs.

The vision of Deep Green Wilderness, the company I formed in 2009 to run youth and adult education programs, had always been to own a boat that would be a research platform for students and a charter boat for paying passengers. I

- photo: Kris Day

wanted to engage people with the Salish Sea in a way that allowed us to discuss public policy, study ecology and have a great time sailing. With a little tweaking, Orion has proven to be just the vessel to meet these goals. New Sapele decks, new deck beams, four new bunks, new fuel tanks, new electronics, new fresh water tanks, new blackwater tanks, new standing rigging, new running rigging; that’s just the start of the list.

All accomplished in seven months at the Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-Op. Orion, originally built as Edlu, was launched in 1934 and is classic example of the new design concepts of Olin Stephens as a young man. Steam-bent

oak frames, hollow spars and entirely external ballast all contributed to the many ocean racing wins in her early years, including the famed 1934 Newport to Bermuda race. More recently, she sailed out of San Diego doing day charters and memorial services. She is still very fast and handy, and there is no doubt when you are at the helm that Orion is capable of great things. It does not take long for students and passengers to form a connection with the boat.

At first glance, a classic racing yacht may not seem like the ideal sailing research vessel but the qualities that made Orion famous in her day make her an appealing vessel for our program.

Most noticeably, she sails very well and handles easily, giving the student who is new to sailing instant feedback and gratification. This also cuts down on our fuel costs, as we are able to move under sail a majority of the time. With her yawl rig she goes to weather better than many modern sailboats and allows for a variety of sail plans, depending on conditions. Her pedigree and sleek lines attract lots of attention and inspire pride in both students and passengers. And she is a blast to sail.

During four weeks in the summer Orion hosts high school students in the Deep Green Wilderness program. This college-accredited program has students completing their own research and looking at the ecology of the Salish Sea through the lens of current environmental issues. This summer’s two programs will focus on the endangered species listing of the Southern Resident Orca whales and environmental regulations in British Columbia. Of course, this gives us an excuse to spend time in some awesome places but it also provides an engaging way for students to get hands-on experience with field research and public policy. The rest of the year, we sail the boat as a charter yacht and provide adult and family education trips in the San Juan Islands and Puget Sound.

A former captain of the S/V Carlyn, 33-year-old Kevin Campion has run outdoor education programs on the water for a number of years. For a complete list of natural history and navigation classes aboard Orion, as well as trip dates for summer youth p r o g r a m s , v i s i t w w w. deepgreenwilderness.com

Orion at anchor with Mount Baker in the background.

-photo: Kris Day.

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A Victorian Replica by

R o bb i e B u m p u s

The notion of a small, beamy, ballasted chitecture” and “A Manual of Yacht and centerboard boat with heavy scantlings is Boat Sailing” are exquisitely illustrated nearly heretical. “It’s a pig looking for a and full of pithy advice regarding surly gale” or “. . . belongs on a fat farm” come forehands and setting topsails, as well as to mind. The objections are numerous informative, somewhat windy chapters on and include failures relating to economy, small boat handling. Both books are in the aesthetics, rowing and trailering. public domain and available online.

For decades, small boat designers have Kemp took the lines off fast, successful fought to lose ounces in an effort for speed under sail, minimizing displacement, scantlings, comfort and safety levels. A different sensibility holds that weight matters less than the ratio of wetted surface to sail area.

A broad-beamed, heavy displacement centerboard boat should be able to carry a lot of sail, upright in a significant wind.

I recently launched a replica of this sort of boat, designed by Dixon Kemp in 1878 for racing on the Mersey near Liverpool, England.

Kemp was a prolific designer of everything from 80-ton steam yachts and Bombay houseboats Zetta Too with her original lug rig. Note the curved yard. for Victorian gentry to

- photo courtesy of Robbie Bumpus small craft for rowing, sailing and paddling. He is best-known for his texts British fishing boats and modified siteon yacht designing and construction, specific hull forms for the earliest Oneespecially his adaptations of advances in Design Class boats for club racing on the fluid mechanics and wave form theory to River Clyde, the Thames River, in Dublin naval architecture. His books “Yacht Ar-

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I started cutting the keel in late November, 2009. She was launched the following July as Zetta Too. The backbone and spars are fir, the centerboard is 3/8” steel, planking is 3/8” okume plywood, glued lapstrake, trim is khaya and the half deck is canvased.

She rows readily in light air with 9’ oars. On her first outing from Lake Union to Port Madison and back, the 95 sq. ft. standing lug mainsail moved the boat nicely in moderate air. Later, I switched to a gaff yawl rig to let me get farther afield and then enjoyed a little camp cruise from Bellingham to Matia and Sucia Islands in the San Juans.

Robbie Bumpus hails from Sandy Creek, New York. He studied architecture in New York and London, then switched to furniture making and antique The new gaff yawl rig for Zetta Too in Lake Union restoration in New

- photo: Edel O’Connor York City for 20 years. He moved to Seattle in 2000 and now spends his time But I was seduced by an illustration of restoring and making furniture (and a yawl rig for a 17’ boat with bent yards boats) on the north side of Lake Union, for main and mizzen, which I scaled down with his boat just steps away for easy to 150 sq. ft. access.

 

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HVALSOE

     

    

Bay and elsewhere. His 15’ Mersey design caught my eye as one maybe good for camp cruising on Puget Sound and, very importantly, one buildable in a 10’x20’ shed. The statistics: 15’6”, displacing 1,400 lbs., with 600 pounds of ballast. The original carried a 168 sq. ft. balanced lug and apparently won prizes for 10 years.



 

 Skilled Craftsmanship • Modern Innovation

Bronze - Carbon - Wood - Aluminum

Chris and Kathy Grace on their Concordia Yawl Lotus

290 10th Street, Port Townsend, WA 98368. 360-385-6330 www.porttownsendrigging.com

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Cast OFF! for New Experiences by

It doesn’t matter if you’re 8 or 85, a seasoned boater or someone who has never ventured out on the water, The Center for Wooden Boats’ Cast Off! program provides new experiences that will last a lifetime.

Cast Off! gives visitors the chance to sail in boats that are historic, the types that helped develop the nation’s small craft heritage, or are just like those that created the first maps of our region. And it’s free!

“It’s a great introduction to getting out on the water,” said Mindy Ross, CWB Education Director.

The boats used for Cast Off! include Admirable, a 101-year-old Bristol Bay gillnetter. This type of boat was used as a sail-power fishing boat on the bays and rivers of the Pacific Coast from around 1868 to the 1960s. Our gillnetter, which is the boat you see on the logo of The Center for Wooden Boats, was built around 1900 by the George Kneass boatyard in San Francisco. While you’ll be sailing with up to 12 people, when Admirable was at work in Bristol Bay, Alaska, she had a crew of two and could carry three tons of salmon.

Another boat you’ll try is the New Haven Sharpie, Betsy D, a 35’ oyster boat.

Betsy D was built in the 1980s in Anacortes, but the design goes back to the 1840s. If you could sail back in time, you would have seen boats just like this looking for oysters in Long Island Sound. The design evolved from simple flat-bottomed rowing skiffs, gradually becoming longer and narrower, with an overhanging counter stern. All these elements made the boat faster and easier to power with oar or sail. In CWB’s Cast Off! Program, you’ll see just how fast she can be.

Dan Leach

If you want to see our waters from the same vantage point Captain George Vancouver and the crew of H.M.S. Discovery did during their epic 1791-95 voyage to map our region, take a pull on the oars of CWB’s longboat, also named Discovery. This is the kind of craft that carried Vancouver and his survey teams all over Puget Sound and through the waters from California to Alaska.

Tyson Trudel, CWB’s Youth Program Manager, does double duty as one of the captains for the Cast Off! public sails.

Trudel not only has his commercial captain’s license, he also worked as a crew member on the Lady Washington, our State Ship, and has spent a lot of time rowing and sailing historic longboats. “People who participate in free sails on our larger vessels are often surprised when they learn that boats such as our 26’ longboat, Discovery, have crossed oceans,” said Trudel. “The longboat that Captain Bligh sailed more than 3,000 miles across the South Pacific after the mutiny on the Bounty actually was shorter than CWB’s longboat.”

The Admirable was built to work, settting and hauling nets when the salmon run. Our visitors aboard can see the stout construction of Port Orford cedar over sawn white oak frames. This historic vessel no longer carries salmon but she will always carry the spirit of a tough boat and its tough sailors.

- photo: Edel O’Connor

If sailing or rowing isn’t your style, another boat in the CastOFF! fleet is Puffin, a 1906 steam launch. Puffin was restored by Boatshop staff and volunteers in 2006, and is operated and maintained by a dedicated group of volunteers called the Steam Team. There’s no mistaking when Puffin is on the lake as you can hear her distinctive steam whistle blowing.

Complementing Puffin in the non-sail or rowing category is the Dora. She may be 100 years younger than Puffin, but it’s hard to know that by looking at her. Her classic design is like that of the electric launches seen at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The electric-powered Dora was built for CWB several years ago by the marine carpentry students at Seattle Central Community College’s Wood Construction Center.

There’s a lot you can learn even before you even go out on one of The Center for Wooden Boats historic vessels.Walk the docks and watch as the volunteer crews rig the boats. And if you have a question, don’t be shy. They’ll be happy to answer.

Of course they might ask you to hold a line, just for a minute, to help them get the rigging set just so. There’s no better way to hook someone into the sailing life than to put the sheet or the tiller in their hand.

Come down any Sunday to enjoy a free Cast Off! sail on Lake Union. This is a popular activity so reservations are necessary. Come in person to reserve your spot. Reservations are taken day-of-sail only. We open at 10 am and sail at 2pm (and sometimes at 3 pm). We sail rain or shine, but when the winds get too high we may be forced to stay at the dock.

HOLLAND AMERICA LINE is pleased to support The Center for Wooden Boats in its mission to promote and preserve small craft heritage.

S pa c i o u s , E l e g a n t S h i p s G r a c i o u s , awa r d - w i n n i n g S e r v i c e Wo r l d w i d e I t i n e r a r i e s Extensive Activ ities and Enrichment Pro grams S o p h i s t i c at e d F i v e - S ta r D i n i n g

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The Care and Feeding of CWB Investments in Our Community The Center for Wooden Boats’ mission is to preserve our small craft heritage. CWB ensures that kids, parents and adults of all ages have the chance to gather, learn and share maritime skills and get out on the water on traditional wooden boats. It is heartening that, even in difficult economic times, our learn-by-doing programs have been recognized as vital to the health and character of the community. We could not have achieved that without the remarkable contributions of volunteer time, donated services and dollars we receive.

Our volunteers serve our community in so many ways, from teaching sailing to answering visitors’ questions, from taking people out for free rides to helping them sail pond boats. And yet we still need dollars to pay for basics such as materials for maintaining the boats, insurance to run our programs and staff time to steward members. Through King County 4Culture’s competitive grant program “Heritage Sustained Support”, CWB recently was awarded $18,000 a year for two consecutive years to help pay for these basic operating costs.

Similarly, for three years running, the City of Seattle has awarded CWB $5,000 a year through its “Civic Partners” program.

CWB not only creates opportunities for people to learn and grow, we also ensure that every part of our community shares in our history. The Paul G. Allen Foundation has provided a $120,000 grant for CWB to grow its partnerships with out-of-school-time programs to build our capacity to provide programs for more underserved youth. A companion grant from the Russell Grinnell Memorial Trust extends that reach by helping CWB create a program for “youth apprentices” who will learn to help in the Boatshop and Livery while developing leadership skills and work experience.

Each of CWB’s wooden boats requires annual maintenance and periodic repair Several boats are stewarded by a team of volunteers. In order to bring the electric Poulsbo boat Terry Pettus back into service,

the Rotary Club of Lake Union joined CWB volunteer lead Dave Barden in “adopting” its care, both by spending time helping with chores such as sanding, and also by raising $7,000 to hire a Boatwright, Brian Anderson (a recent graduate of Seattle Central Community College,) to handle the technical

Members of the Rotary Club of Lake Union are among the more unique teams of volunteers who steward the annual maintenance and repair of a CWB boat.

They joined CWB volunteer lead Dave Barden in the care of our electric Poulsbo boat, Terry Pettus, for chores such as sanding and painting. They also raised $7,000 to pay for a boatwright to handle technical repairs to the hull.

-photo: Dave Barden

repairs to the hull. Once the work is completed, interested Rotary members will get checked out in the use of the boat and then will put her to work in Lake Union cleanup projects.

A number of CWB’s supporters and friends have come together to help us make positive changes in our corner of Lake Union. CWB has been able to re-anchor our floating Boathouse, Boatshop and docks thanks to grants, cash and in-kind donations from many friends, including: Washington State Parks and Recreation, Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, City of Seattle, 4Culture, PND Engineers of Seattle, Pile Contractors of Issaquah, Northern Marine Salvage and Development of Seattle, PN Best Company of Redmond, the Fife office of Skyline Steel and Van Dyke Heavy Hauling of Seattle.

The old creosote-soaked pilings that used to

hold the Wawona have been replaced with new steel piles that hold our floating buildings in place. The same project included installation of new utilities, a new larger, wider south entrance ramp and new alignments for CWB’s floating buildings to match up to a new west entrance ramp between CWB and Lake Union Park.

At South Lake Union our attention now can be directed to our next major project: creating a new CWB Education Center in Lake Union Park. We also look forward to the opportunities that will come with the re-alignment of Mercer and Valley streets, the ongoing re-development in our South Lake Union neighborhood and the opening next year of the new Museum of History & Industry right next door to us in Lake Union Park.

Meanwhile, at Cama Beach, CWB’s volunteers continue to serve up events such as the free public sail on the Saturday of Mother’s Day weekend (150 people got free rides this year!) and June’s fishing derby.

Recent funding from the Russell Grinnell Memorial Trust, combined with the award of an AmeriCorps position for next year, signify exciting new educational opportunities for youth, and the opportunity to make the building of a new boat a centerpiece for visitors to the Cama Boathouse.

A huge thank you to all who help support CWB. Every dollar goes a tremendous distance and everyone who contributes has truly invested in their community.

Russell Grinnell Memorial Trust

Give Way Together by

CWB Founder Dick Wagner and I welcome your help as we work together to promote stewardship of the remarkable entity that is The Center for Wooden Boats.

A group of rowers who are preparing to start rowing together hear the command “Prepare to give way” and then, when it’s time to get started, they hear “Give way together”. The metaphor is appropriate for CWB’s fundraising efforts because we remain a grass-roots community-based organization that relies on the remarkable energy of our community members. If you feel enthusiasm about The Center for Wooden Boats, grab an oar.

Attend “Lunch on the Lake”. Are you interested in learning more about where The Center for Wooden Boats is headed? Twice a month we gather a group of people from the

Betsy Davis

broader community for a casual lunch, a tour of CWB and a discussion of where we’ve been and where we are going. After you’ve attended one, we’d love for you to come back and bring others who you think need to know more about our organization. This is a great event for anybody interested in the future of CWB. Host a talk about CWB at your organization. Are you a member of a service organization, yacht club or other community group that would be interested in learning more about The Center for Wooden Boats?

Dick or I would be delighted to come and speak and work with you to customize a presentation for your audience.

Host a group at your home to hear about CWB. If you have friends and neighbors who want to know more about this non-profit that seems to occupy your time, we would be pleased to come to your house and casually talk about CWB, its impact in the community and where we’re headed in the future. (This would be a time of sharing stories and plans, not asking for money.)

Pull together a table of friends for our new Fall Fundraising Breakfast October 13. We are so pleased that REI has agreed to host our new fundraising breakfast this fall in their top floor room that looks over Lake Union. With a keynote from Peter Steinbreuck and other delicious elements, it will be a fun morning event. It won’t cost to attend but we’ll be “passing the hat” for donations. This would be a great way to support CWB and see some of your good friends all at the same time.

Join a CWB event planning committee.

Do you like the satisfaction of being involved with something that actually gets done? We have small teams that coordinate each of our major events. Join seasoned veterans in helping plan the auction or be part of the innovators inventing our new fall breakfast event.

Do you have other ideas? Let’s talk!

If you are interested in any of the above, please email Executive Director Betsy Davis at betsy@cwb.org or Aislinn Palmer, Development Assistant at apalmer@cwb.org or call either one at 206-382-2628.

Thank you to our wonderful business partners who provide discounted goods and services to members of The Center for Wooden Boats

• Alberto’s Fiberglass Repair

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Art By Fire Ltd Birchard & Agee Marine Services Brilliantly Boxed Camano Sail & Power Crosscut Hardwoods Daly’s Paint & Decorating Fisheries Supply Co. GetStorganized Helly Hansen Inner Chapters Bookstore & Cafe Jillian’s Billiard Club Little Stone Flyfishing Michael Rosenberg Photography Pilates Seattle International Psychic Awakenings!

Sailing Directions Seastar Restaurant & Raw Bar Seattle Seaplanes Seven Star Women’s Kung Fu Starpath School of Navigation The Landlocked Sailor Tillicum Village and Tours, Inc. Waypoint Marine

For more information on CWB membership visit the Festival Information Tent or online at www.cwb.org

CWB Wish List Help CWB by donating your new or old items for the Office, Boatshop, Youth Programs, Adult Programs and Cama Beach.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Digital cameras Office paper - letter, legal or tabloid Card stock - Any colors Liquid chalk markers Adobe Software: (CS5 and/or Indesign and Acrobat Pro) Upright planer for the boatshop Heavy-duty cordless drills An oscillating spindle sander Western red cedar planks Gas-powered pressure washer Earmuff style hearing protection 10 gauge extension cords Anchors in excess of 50 pounds Strong line Sturdy dock carts Boat fenders

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The Care and Feeding of CWB A Great Day at CWB! It can be argued that every day is a great day at CWB – but some are “more great” than others. Saturday, April 30, was one of those “more great” days.

We had the opportunity to recognize our tremendous corps of Volunteers and to award two of them Volunteer of the Year honors. We welcomed members from as far away as Olympia to Member Appreciation Day. We had an annual meeting with some great presentations on the past, present and future of CWB. And the weather gods gave us a beautiful South Lake Union day.

The Volunteer of the Year award originated in 1991 “In recognition of the highest qualities of volunteerism: Dedication, Enthusiasm, Leadership and Commitment to the goals of The Center for Wooden Boats”. Since 2008 the award has been presented to two volunteers, one from South Lake Union and one from CWB at Cama Beach.

The winners this year were Charles Charles Fawcett, the 2010 South Lake Fawcett at South Lake Union and Union Volunteer of the Year, not only volunteers as a sailing instructor and Michael Scott at Cama Beach. Their assists with CWB’s accounting, he’s an awards were presented at an end-of-the- artist whose paintings of CWB have even day barbeque on the South Lake Union made their way to magazine covers. patio dock.

Charles Fawcett was recognized “for his great attitude while performing service in so many different areas”. He has been a sailing instructor every Tuesday for several years. He also devotes several hours a week to assisting with CWB’s accounting. Charles is an accomplished artist who promotes CWB through his paintings, even getting CWB on the cover of 48o North magazine. His peers describe him as a “role model volunteer”.

Michael Scott has been a volunteer at Cama Beach for two years. He is a multitasker, willing to take on jobs from facilities clean-up to boat maintenance. He had to cut back his volunteer time earlier this year but when the boats pulled up for the annual Mother’s Day Saturday Free Sail, Michael was right there welcoming visitors, assisting them in and out of the boats and letting everyone know just how much fun you can have at CWB. During the day, nearly 200 adults and children enjoyed Member Appreciation Day. Kids built toy boats, everyone had a chance to sail the Pirate Pond Boats on the newly-opened Model Boat Pond in the park, members enjoyed a row or a sail, took a skippered boat ride or just wandered the docks appreciating all our classic wooden boats.

Rain or shine, Michael Scott, the 2010 Cama Beach Volunteer of the Year, can A great time was had by all!

Over the Bar

Former State Parks and Recreation Bill Garden, dreamer, artist and technician, has passed away. He probably added more Commissioner – and past contributor to varied designs, more charming drawings and Shavings – Bob Peterson added his thoughts more poetic descriptions to the vocabulary of on Bill: naval architecture than anyone did in the past “I first met Bill Garden when I was at or ever will do in the future.

U.W. in 1950. I had been admiring his work Garden had visions of vessels as dense as for years in The Rudder magazine. One day I the Milky Way and they all were buildable just walked into his office in the old Bryant’s because he learned marine construction at Marina building near the U. and introduced Seattle’s Edison Boatbuilding School, right myself. He was very gracious and showed me after graduating from high school. Garden the things he was working on and asked me used his sawdust and shavings experience about the little ex-lifeboat I had rigged up. I to launch his boat design career into outer left there floating on a cloud. space. He designed “ We w e r e classic schooners, in fairly regular tough-as-nails tugs contact ever since. and fishing boats and A year or two jaunty sail and power later, he designed cruisers.At his Toad’s a rig for a dory Landing Island in I was building British Columbia, and another few he built a private years after that navy, including his he designed a 30’ grandson’s cradle sloop for my friend, with square sail, Ed Gove, and me. leeboards, rudder Bill Garden (center) and unidentified friends A picture of my and tiller; Tlingit, a relaxed on the deck of his gaff-rigged cutter boat Calypso is razor-edge launch Bull Frog. Built in 1947 in Seattle at the featured in Bill’s with a ca-chuga Lester & Frank yard, Bull Frog was recently second “Yacht E a s t h o p e g a s purchased and underwent a minor facelift Designs” book. engine; a sweet in the Los Angeles area. – photo: © Mystic “My most rolling seat and Seaport, Mystic, Connecticut recent contact outrigger wherry, with Bill was a couple of years ago when he and a cat boat named Tom Cat. called me up and said, ‘Hey Bob, I’ve got His drawings were clearly-detailed an engine here that will be just the thing got road maps for the builder but Garden also your next boat.’ It was a four-cylinder Grey embellished them with freehand drawings Marine Engine that he had gotten in a trade that made his designs look irresistible. for an Easthope engine that had been in his Garden was isolated from the crowds on shop. The new boat is nearly all planked up his island but always accessible by phone or now but I am very sorry that I will not be able post. His letters, written as an architect with to show it to him. I do feel that he is looking capital letters in pencil, were very informative. over my shoulder and giving me guidance He described to me the boatshops and shop as I go along.” characters of Lake Union in the 1930s, Bill Garden left us, at age 92, with a legacy including “Rough Cut” Charlie Parker, who of boat designs that will never die. built a 60’ brigantine.

– Dick Wagner

Congratulations Puffin!

always be counted on to lend a hand – and provide a welcoming smile.

Dunbar Marine Service Wooden Boat Specialists since 1957

Classic Wooden Boat Boat Repair and&Restoration Classic Wooden Repair Restoration 4025 13th Ave W. WA. 98119 4025 13th Ave W. Seattle, Seattle, WA. 98119 (206) 915 -7667(206) www.dunbarmarine.com 915 7667

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Kudos to the hard-working crew of our 1906 steam launch Puffin, which was awarded 1st place in the Founders Trophy Class – Classic Powerboats Under 40’ in the Seattle Yacht Club’s Opening Day Parade May 7. No wonder Puffin looked so great. She’s been receiving a lot of TLC from her crew, including Ken Duvall (left), Brian Bennett (right), and Bob Erley and Katie Noonan (not pictured).

-photo: Edel O’Connor

The Care and Feeding of CWB Buy a Boat from CWB The Center for Wooden Boats accepts donated boats that do not quite fit with our programs. We find good homes for these boats and use the proceeds to fund our operations. Contact Steve Greaves at 206-371-0486 for more information. Also check our website for periodic updates to this list. www.cwb.org

20’ Thompson Outboard Runabout 1968 classic lapstrake hull. Good shape.

Popular design. 125hp Force 2-stroke. EZLoader trailer. Ready to go. $3,900 Daisy. 30’Hong Kong Offshore Teak Sloop A 1964 traditional teak sloop built in Hong Kong. Designer: Wirth Monroe. Builder: Robin Fung. Fully rigged. Covers. Yanmar 15hp diesel.

Roller furling.

S l e e p s f o u r, 6’ 6” headroom.

Monel water and fuel tanks, SS holding tank.

New hull paint May, 2010. A classic beauty. $10,500

17’ Chris Craft Speedster 1953 classic mahogany “woody” twin-cockpit runabout on a trailer. Original gas motor. A project boat that involves both hull and motor restoration.

Wi t h s o m e TLC, she’ll be ready for cruising and being noticed. $7,900 16’ Shew & Burnham Whitehall: 1985 classic design by a top builder in Maine.

Sailing and rowing rig. On a trailer. $5,250

16’ Scheel Daysailer: Beautiful, brightfinished daysailer with a weighted “scheel keel” that can be raised like a daggerboard.

Looks brand new. A cold-molded epoxy work of art. Beautiful wood color/grain selection. Low maintenance.

Wi t h t r a i l e r. $5,500

12’ Catspaw Sailing Dinghy: A 1995 red cedar, oak frames, copper-riveted classic hull. Essentially new, very little use. On a trailer. No mast or sail. $2,900

30’ Chris Craft Sedan Cruiser 1941 Wood hull. Classic traditional Chris Craft design. Single gas Chris Craft 6 cylinder. $4,900

Matteo. 12’ Vermont Hunting Kayak Plywood.

Natural wood deck. Seat.

Needs a paddle. $275 Wood Duck. 19’ Core Sound Sharpie.

Mid ’90s construction.

9.9hp Yanmar Diesel. Gaff rigged. Cover. $10,000 Mergus. Luders 21 daysailer/racer Fiberglass. Fin keel with bulb. Rigged for single-handed racing. Sleek and fast, win Duck Dodge with this boat! $2,500

Ace. 12’ outboard runabout

1950’s Popular Mechanics plans plywood design. Inspiration for the Sande Ace. Merc 400 complete plus a second Merc 400 parts motor and two Mercury tanks. In the ‘50s every kid on the lake wanted one of these.

Now is your chance. Includes a trailer. Deck was replaced, but otherwise quite original and true to the plans. $1,250

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2 0 1 1 F estival H ighlights Boat Rides on Lake Union

It’s up to you whether you just sit back and enjoy the ride or roll up your sleeves and trim some sails. Or maybe a leisurely turn in a rowboat is more to your liking. Free boat rides run continuously throughout the Festival and it’s our greatest pleasure to see you out in a beautiful wooden boat. Sign up early at the northeast corner of The Festival!

FAMILY-FRIENDLY FESTIVAL ACTIVITIES

Explore Boats

In the spirit of CWB, where visitors have access to historic sailing and rowing vessels from our museum collection, this is a hands-on show. All vessels will have owners, builders or skippers available to share their experiences and answer your questions. Walk the docks and explore more than 100 wooden boats of every vintage and type: sail, tug, row, power and paddle.

Many of the boats will invite visitors aboard. Don’t forget to check out the onshore maritime demonstrations which include kayak building, caulking, tool sharpening and more.

Quick & Daring Race

Are they amazing or just crazy? Watch teams build a boat in 24 hours and cheer them on as they launch and compete in an exciting and hilarious race on Monday at 4 pm. The contest is a stretching exercise for the boatbuilders’ creativity, planning and construction skills but its special purpose is to provide an exciting and enjoyable experience for contestants and spectators. To participate in the Quick & Daring contest, call CWB and ask for Dick Wagner. Quick & Daring contest rules are provided on the Festival website.

...and So Much More!

Play nautical trivia or play an old-fashioned game in the pub. Appreciate the craftsmanship and variety of the displays in the Ship Model Exhibit in the CWB Boathouse. Explore crafts and artwork from dozens of vendors.

Listen to fantastic live music and enjoy breathtaking views of Lake Union.

Enjoy delicious food and drink from the diverse selection of food vendors including Lopez Island Creamery, Ballard Brothers and many more.

BUILD A TOY BOAT! Kids can build their own toy boats under the guidance of our expert toy boat builders – a Festival tradition for 35 years. They will learn how to use a hand-drill and hammer, raise masts and sails and decorate their own toy boats that are theirs for keeping and sailing.

SAIL A POND BOAT! Kids can play with pond boats and participate in games, races and contests. The Model Boat Pond is located in Lake Union Park near the pedestrian bridge.

OTHER ACTIVITIES Look for the Kids Scavenger Hunt in this issue of Shavings (Page 18) for a chance at treasure. Also be sure to join us for storytime aboard the historic tugboat Arthur Foss!

A HUGE THANKS to Our 2011 Festival Sponsors!

Seattle Office of

E x c i t e d a b o u t t h e 2 011 L a k e U n i o n W o o d e n B o a t F e s t i v a l ?

Your donation dollars help us run the annual Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival, get kids of all ages out on the water and provide other free, community-oriented events throughout the year. Please consider making a gift to CWB - you can also donate through our website.

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