Below is a short film documenting my visit to this year’s Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival. I lived up to my promise to Stamps-With-Foot again this year and did not buy a wooden sailboat, but there was 2-3 in my price range (and about 100 waaayyy out of it…) that made me drool.
Tag: Puget Sound
A Weekend On and Around Puget Sound
I spent this past weekend ignoring my grass, projects in the house, and garage organization/completion and took to the road.
Saturday afternoon found me at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival. There were no puppies allowed at the show, so Stamps-With-Foot stayed at home for a grueling round of puppy sitting/reading in the sunshine duty. Despite a serious and prolonged case of Wooden Boat Lust, I succeeded in not buying a wooden sailboat at the show. It was the ONE thing that my wife made me promise before leaving the house, which means that since I was able to fight off the boat-buying minor demon on my shoulder, am staying married.
While packing/planning the night before going to the festival, I decided it was a fine venue to work on a short YouTube film ( which will be uploaded by Friday), so I took a couple of GoPros, camera mounts, my drone, four extra SD cards, and a bunch of batteries. The weather kind of sucked, but between pockets of rain/mist I shot the whole festival and some of the boats out on the water from the sky as well as the dock-side happenings.
There were so many cool boats and interesting folks in for the weekend! My favorite trailer-sailor, OPUS, was there and the museum boat PIRATE from the Seattle CWB made it. I really enjoyed talking to Tim Lemon, the owner of a Devlin Sloop named MR. MALLARD. His sculling prowess on a sailboat is impressive. Designer and builder Graham Byrnes, of the cat ketch CARLITA was probably my favorite builder that I talked to. I would definitely buy a boat from him if not for the above mentioned promise to my wife… Pygmy Boats has a stitch&glue wineglass wherry rowboat that I would love to spend part of the winter building and I MAY be putting some funds back to do just that. Howard Rice and his Scamp SOUTHERN CROSS had a fantastic story story to tell about adventures in Terra del Fuego. Really enjoyed the Festival and love Port Townsend! Stamps-With-Foot is definitely coming next year.
Side note: If Lee Bjorklund & Larry Goerss ever decide to sell OPUS, my wife has given me permission to buy her. She is the only wooden sailboat that I am “allowed” to purchase. Just saying is case Lee and Larry and hankering to move on…
Sunday afternoon was spent on Vashion Island and both my bride and the furry monsters puppies came with. We really like the island and the coffee produced by Vashion Island Roasters. After a short ferry ride, we went over, drove a round a little, took in the sites, had lunch near the marina, and bought 10lbs of Guatemalan medium-roast coffee. We sampled the goods while there, played a little chess, and split a cinnamon roll before heading back to the ferry and back home for dinner.
Film Friday – Lincoln Park in West Seattle, Washington
OK, so it is not Friday, but I started working on this video Friday night… Does that count?
Lincoln Park in West Seattle is one of my favorite spaces in all of the Seattle metro area. It is a phenomenal urban space: Stamps-With-Foot and I go there all the time just to hang out, I used to run there along the beach and through the trees in the mornings, it was my first outing after hip surgery, our monsters puppies love it there, it is romantic, great for picnics, strolling hand and hand along the beach, a fine hour+ long hike after work, a protected kayak launching point, good fishing spot when the salmon are running (the pink run started earlier this week…), there is a public pool, bald eagles nest in the trees along the shore, and sometimes I go and watch the sunset from on e of the many benches when I have had a bad day. I hope this little film captures part of the magic of the place.
Boat Lust
So, you may or may not know this about me, but even though I currently own a couple of small boats, I have MAD Boat Lust. I am a member of the Center for Wooden Boats, I get Wooden Boat Magazine & Small Craft Adviser Magazine every month, go to the Lake Union, Seattle, Portland, and Port Townsend boat shows every year… I follow four sets of Blue Water sailors on YouTube, am trying to con my wife into taking a sailing vacation (I am getting a hard NO! on that one currently), and almost bought a used 22′ lead keel sailboat last summer for “my son.” I tried to sell it as his “learner Boat” and play up the father/son bonding time angle with it and my wife saw right through it. To date, however, I have not come home to tell my with that “We” just purchased an Amel 55 blue water sailboat, a 47′ diesel powered Cabin Cruiser, a Chris-Craft in need of some “light repair”, or a Hans Christian 33 kept in Bristol Fashion that “I” am planning to live on since said purchase would leave me homeless, devoid of my puppies, and divorced.
If my son, The Ruminator, lived in Seattle I wouldn’t mind a swing keel Columbia 22 or a Catalina 22 to gunk hole around the Sound in with him. A Catalina 270 LE would make my heart go pitter-patter as well, but I am a realist (-ish) and very aware of my current budget and available storage space. A sailboat that I would only use a few times a year and have to pay moorage on, would make me very unpopular at home. But, if someone has a 19′ WW Potter taking up space in their life that needs a new home, I would be game…
While what I WANT is a sweet little sailboat, what I NEED is a small outboard that that sits on a trailer in or beside the garage, that I can pop over to Blake or Vashion Island on, run up the Duwamish River a little piece, do a little salmon fishing on with my son or friends, haul a crab pot or three in season, find a secluded weekend beach for summer camping, etc… It needs to have a cuddy cabin to get out of the shifty weather here in Puget Sound, some storage space to keep gear dry, needs to be light enough to be pulled behind the jeep when fully loaded, and fast enough to handle the tidal flow in the PNW.
Buying a finished boat, even used, like a Ranger Tug 21, a C-Dory 19, or a Boston Whaler 21′ Cuddy are WAY out of my price range, I have been perusing Craigslist for a 16′ -21′ hardtops, but the ones I have found are either gold plated & upholstered in unicorn foreskin or needs to be sunk. So, in due course, I have been thinking about building the boat of need mentioned above. I know, I know… I have a shit ton of projects already with the shop and house, but I won’t start the boat until Stamps-With-Foot agrees that the house is good and all the little projects at home are squared away. Happy wife, happy life.
To digress a bit, my current home-built boat want is a Devlin Boats Dunlin 22 Cruiser with all the bells and whistles, but that too would be spendy, require me to quit my J-O-B to obsess over the details properly, I would have to rent out boathouse space for the duration of the build, have the time to build it, and would probably cause my sweet bride to up my life insurance just before “accidentally” pushing me into a wood chipper.
Back in reality, I am looking hard at building a couple of boats, including a Devlin Noddy 18. It is something realistic to build over the fall and winter, in the space I have available in the F-Bomb Garage, and within my current budget. Powered by a 4 stroke 50HP Honda or Yamaha, with homey little extras like: a sardine wood stove in the cabin, a crab pot winch arm on the stern, and lots of LED lights. 
Devlin Boat Works in just south of us in Olympia and in addition to being a design house, they are a boat works and build all manner of craft there at any given time. I sent a couple of e-mails and made some calls about the possibility of going down this summer if they have a Noddy or similar hull under construction. We will see if it can be arranged.
I will have to wait just lust a little while longer to satiate my boat lust…
Update: May 2017
Nope. Devlin is off the list. I can’t find anyone on the boat forums that has built the Noddy AND I have not had a single phone call or e-mail replied to. I don’t need to do business with someone who I have to beg to take my money.