2022 Festival Boats

This Abaco Dinghy was built by students of the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding. The original plans used were from the Apprentice Shop in Maine but were modified to make the boat larger. The modifications required new drafting, lofting, and setup. The project is a great example of a small boat built very much like a large boat. Winer Malone, the builder who popularized the design in the Bahamas and around the world, built the Abaco Dinghy almost entirely by eye and used only hand tools. It is believed that the Herreshoff 12 1/2 derived its lines from the Abaco Dinghy. There is a following in the sail racing community. The large, unstayed rig makes for exciting sailing.

This is a 16ft Oxford Wherry sliding seat row boat built from a kit under supervision of the designer.
Constructed from fiber-glass covered marine plywood.
Carbon fiber sliding seat.
Carbon fiber professional Concept 2 oars.

White hull exterior with marine paint and beautiful natural wood interior with marine varnish.

Admiral Jack is the newest addition to Northwest Maritime’s fleet! A comfortable tour boat in the summer and a state-of-the-art floating classroom during the school year.

Sound Experience sails the historic schooner Adventuress to educate, inspire, and empower an inclusive community that works to improve our marine environment and celebrates our maritime heritage. Since her launch in E. Boothbay, Maine, in 1913, the B.B. Crowninshield-designed schooner has traveled the Strait of Magellan and the Bering Sea on an arctic expedition for naturalist Roy Chapman Andrews; served as a Bar Pilot vessel off of San Francisco; patrolled the west coast during World War II; and trained young sailors in seamanship skills in Seattle with Youth Adventure. Adventuress has sailed on the waters of Puget Sound for almost three decades under the stewardship of nonprofit Sound Experience, offering hands-on environmental education and leadership development to thousands of young people annually and partnering with youth-serving organizations to reach at-risk kids. Sound Experience offers programs for all ages and backgrounds and takes pride in providing many levels of training opportunities for volunteer and paid crew. Adventuress is a National Historic Landmark officially recognized as “Puget Sound’s Environmental Tall Ship.”

Alca i was inspired by Colin Archer and designed by George Buehler (from Whidbey Island). She was constructed in 2003 to subarctic exploration vessel standards with 2″ thick oak plank on frame construction and then encapsulated with two to four layers of fiberglass/epoxy resin for the purpose of conducting research in the Northwest Atlantic on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution. Alca i is equipped with seven water-tight bulkheads and six water-tight doors as well as redundant tankage, electrical, hydraulic and navigational systems to provide added safety and security for operating in remote, harsh environments. Upgrades by her current owner include roller-reefing jib, roller-reefing main stays’l, extensive LED lighting throughout, nine additional hatches for enhanced light and ventilation, 1,800 watts of solar cells, modification of pilothouse roof for water catchment, Wallace diesel range top and oven, dual voltage refrigerator/freezers with drawers, installation of cameras for enhanced visibility in front of the bow, remote-controlled anchor windlass, remote-controlled autopilot, Airhead composting toilet and two wood-burning Navigator stoves for onboard comfort over the winter months.

When we think about boats, we often wonder, “Is she a keeper?” Alcyone is definitely a keeper. She was designed and built by Frank Prothero in his backyard in Seattle. He sailed her for 9 years and then sold her to the Hanke family who took care of her for 22 years. We have now owned Alcyone for 34 years, major maintenance projects are continually happening, but she has always been well maintained—never rebuilt—and remains a keeper.

Launched in 1956, she is one of the first replica boats, predating the Bluenose II, Pride, and Californian. Frank designed her after the Gloucester Fishing Schooners and built her in his backyard so as not to take up room in the commercial yard he and his brother ran on Lake Union. She was designed to have a square topsail. Frank even built three yards; that aspect of her rig was never finished.

When we bought Alcyone, in 1987, we wanted to add a yard for offshore sailing. Getting in touch with Frank, we found out that he still had the metalwork and the course yard in his shop—he had cut up the top yard for a bowsprit. So we bought the course yard, made a course and rafee, and sailed with them down the coast for our first offshore trip in 1988.

To Frank, Alcyone was a labor of love. She took 6 years to build and even though there was some community help, it was his personal project. When he sold her to the Hankes she had all hand-stitched cotton sails. We still have the hand-stitched fisherman. When asked about the sails he said he would spend his evenings, for months, watching TV and stitching. Alcyone can polish up and do a boat show with the best of them, lead a fleet of gaff-rigged schooners chasing down those pesky Marconi rigs in a race, and cross oceans in comfort, all the while always turning heads when she arrives in port.

To us, she has been a business, a home, and always an adventure. We lived aboard her for 22 years raising a family, operating a charter and sail training business, and completing 5 offshore trips, 100,000 blue water miles, and more than 6 years away from our homeport. At this point, to us, she is part of the family

The Aleutian Tern was designed in 1963 by the legendary Northwest designer William Garden, for Seattle builder Warren Teller. Teller built her in the yard at his home in Seattle over the next 3 years, launching her in 1966. She is very heavily built on lines paralleling those of the halibut schooners of the Northwest.

With a wheelhouse aft, a flush deck forward housing cavernous accommodations below, she feels like a much bigger boat than she is. The Aleutian Tern is 38’ long, 13’of beam, and draws 5’. Teller built her for his own use with plans to take her to Alaska regularly. Tragically he passed away before he could realize that dream, but she has been to Mexico and was even abandoned offshore on her return from there as she caught fire and was left to burn.

Thankfully the fire put itself out and she was repaired in California before being bought by her long-term owner Pat Dana, who knew her builder, and had hunted her down hoping to buy her for himself. He and his brother, Buzz Dana, brought her home to Seattle in a rough nonstop offshore delivery from San Diego, about 25 years ago.

Pat took especially good care of her for all those years and only recently decided to sell her to us. The Aleutian Tern is a unique vessel in design and construction. “Stout” would be quite an understatement. In Garden’s own words, “The Aleutian Tern is built of massive yellow cedar construction, she is a far cry from the average glassed in power cruiser, and her plans will be of interest as another man’s solution to the perfect ship.”

Ama Natura is a 36’ custom gaff ketch motorsailer built by the NW School of Wooden Boatbuilding, launched at Point Hudson in 2008 and used each year since for marine decarbonization demonstration, clean water, wildlife protection advocacy, and exploration.

Under the expert design guidance and deep knowledge of the NWSWB’S Carl Chamberlain, AMA Natura (“She Loves Nature”) was collaboratively designed with the owner, Capt. Peter Wilcox, to be an extremely low-impact NW cruising vessel, and a floating laboratory of decarbonizing green technologies.

The 36′ LOA, 10-ton displacement nearly 14-year-old vessel has consistently utilized 100% waste source biofuels—first biodiesel (B100) and over the last two years Renewable diesel (R99)—in its 48HP naturally-aspirated, slow turning diesel, and the same for heat when needed. AMA’s sailing salmon troller-inspired hull was modeled for efficiency and with its 3:1 gear reduction and 24” feathering prop, AMA sips ¾ GPH or less at a non-cuprous bottom paint hull speed of about 7 knots. Her auxiliary is a modest gaff ketch sail rig with just over 500SF of canvas that both steadies her motion and drives her near hullspeed on a beam reach.

Even the motor oil, transmission fluid, and steering fluid used in AMA are low carbon, low toxicity, and bio-based, the same ones in fact that NOAA has employed in many of its fleet for the last 15 or so years. AMA has a composting Air Head, and 255 watts of solar PV capacity with four carbon-foam Firefly house batteries and an Optimal gel starting battery to meet her electrical needs at anchor or dock. She seldom uses shorepower while underway, and we normally only plug her in at dock for the darkest three months of the year.

AMA is the flagship of the Inside Passage Decarbonization Project, started and led by Capt. Peter and Mate/Decarbonizer Community Builder, Bridget. The “IPDP” has been building partnerships with First Nations, ports, resorts, fuel docks, environmental NGO’s like Greenpeace Canada, and boaters up and down the length of the Inside Passage to implement its 20-year vision of dramatically lowering carbon emissions, eliminating toxic liquids and implementing 100% renewable shorepower throughout the Inside Passage by 2035. The IPDP also researches and advocates for fully recyclable boatbuilding materials, including durable and stabilized woods.

ANJA’s design is based on the legendary Bristol Pilot Cutters of Britain. These boats were able to weather strong storms as well as be sailed short-handed. They would take the pilot out to large ships waiting in the Bristol Channel. Modern racing yachts evolved from this design. Construction is of mahogany plank on oak frames.
Roger Long of Woods Hole, Massachusetts designed this boat in 1976, and two have been built, a fiberglass version in Norway and Anja.

Bought by Arnt and Valerie Arntzen in 2019 and sailed to their home berth at Vancouver Maritime Museums Heritage Dock they started upgrading right away.
-steering wheel removed
-tiller added
-new mast
-new rigging
-cabin added with 7 portholes
-galley and saloon added to the interior

Arnt’s first build was a 36’ on deck steel gaff-rigged Pinky Schooner which he built with his father in their back yard.

Arnt and Valerie sailed this boat in 1980 to Monterey, California, and back. He also worked on the refit of Ancestor, a wood 40’ gaff cutter built in Grenada, WI, his brother Leif’s boat, and was in wooden boat festival.
Arnt built his last sailboat from a salvaged 20-foot aluminum lifeboat with lots of fabulous local wood most cut by himself. He is a master wood and metalworker. ODIN was featured in Pacific Yachting Magazine in June 2008. They sailed this boat for 20 years all over the coast of BC and circumnavigated Vancouver Island with ERN in 2014.  This year we plan to take her up to the Broughton archipelago and then circumnavigate Vancouver Is next year.

My Two-masted spirit sailboat was hand-made in Alaska from Sitka spruce with oak and Purple Heart blocks. The plans can be found in the book called Pete Culler’s boats, titled Skiffs for Maynard and Anne Bray. Unfortunately, Anne never saw the boat,

Ariel of Victoria was built on Vancouver Island in the 1970s at Fred Peterson’s yard near Nanaimo of Alaskan yellow cedar on oak frames. The original decks were Western Red Cedar 2x4s and she still has a marinized Perkins reclaimed from a refrigerated rail car. Since 2009, we have partially replanted, reframed and refastened. Replaced the deck, both cabins, electrical, fresh water, wastewater, HVAC, galley & head, steering & nav systems, bowsprit, and sails, with enough cruising in between to cover 10K miles and host many, many parties. During the pandemic, we decided to remodel the head again. This summer, just prior to the festival, we’ll take her to the Broughtons.

Bad Rabbit was initially a Chesapeake Light Craft Kit pandemic project but since the builder’s husband is over 6’5″ this tandem hull became his boat. In the winter of 2023, the drop-in rowing rig was replaced with an integral rowing rig (sliding seat) to help accommodate the height of the rower (adapted Angus Row Boats plan). The rowing wing is made of bloodwood and the sliding seat stand is made of mahogany plywood.

Balls is the personal boat belonging to Simon Fletcher of Fletcher Boats Inc. Primarily known for crafting many fine mahogany runabouts, building this Solo was a return to Simon’s English youth.

This beautiful dinghy’s hull is laminated Sapele and the mast and boom are laminated fir.

Barquito II is a Chesapeake Bay dead rise skiff with a D.N. Hylan design hull and a builder imagined cabin. She is intended to be a slow cruising highly efficient camp cruiser.

Barquito II is a COVID-19 project. When it became evident in early 2020 that I would have time on my hands, I ordered the plans and started construction on April 3rd. We rolled the hull over on July 1st and commenced with finishing out the hull. Cabin creation commenced on November 22nd. Barquito II slid out the shop door and onto her trailer on May 17th.

The first boat started as a classroom project that quickly evolved into an independent undertaking. It features red cedar, white pine, and old-growth cedar, with gunnels, seat frames, and portage yoke done in white ash. The seats are hand canned with waterproof canning.

The second project demonstrates the growth and development in craftsmanship and aesthetic design. This one features red cedar, old-growth cedar, and blue pine. Again utilizing the white ash for the trim packaging.

Both projects are labors of love that took many hours and enjoyed family participation in the construction process.

Built in Anacortes in 1977 (same year as the first Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival) by a 20 year old aspiring boat builder named Bo Garrison who took the lines from Chappelles American Small Craft. The boat’s design is an evolution from dugout canoes, and came into service for watermen in Long Island Sound for ease of construction, speed, ease of handling, and shoal draft- which made it ideal for tonging for oysters.

The rig is consists of two solid, unstayed spars, with sprit-booms that are tensioned with “snotter lines” against lashings on the mast. Oddly, the sails reef vertically; the snotter lines are eased and the luff of the sail is gathered at the mast. Honestly, it’s a pretty bad system since you have to strike the sail, tie every reef point as you re-raise it, and what you are left with is a bunched up sail as the leading edge of your sail. Eventually we’re going to get around to changing that.

A modern adaptation of that hull form, the Betsy D was originally named Transit and had a full cabin, and the builder cruised it extensively in the Salish Sea, making it as far north as Desolation Sound. In 1983 it was donated to Seattle’s Center for Wooden Boats where it was a long serving member of the fleet, primarily as the public sail vessel; every Sunday it would take people sailing in Lake Union free of charge. The current owners, Jake Beattie and Jean Scarboro, fell in love with the boat while employees there, and when they heard it was being surplussed jumped at the chance to be its caretakers. They traded a Port Madison pram for the boat and set in on a year long restoration. They both now live in Port Townsend and camp cruise it with their daughter in the summers.

The Hvalsoe 16 lapstrake dinghy is considered by Eric Hvalsoe to be “the great compromise,” as it both rows and sails well. This craft’s fine ends make the Hvalsoe 16 an excellent rowing boat, while it carries enough beam to make it stable under its 85 square foot sprit-sail rig.

Marked by an elegant curved stem and rake wineglass transom, the design is narrow at the ends with a powerful, stable midsection.

The rig is an unstayed, loose-footed spritsail. The spirit rig is a model of simplicity and flexibility. It features a convenient brailing line, spruce spars, and sail assembly that may be stored inside the boat. Mast, spirit, and sail come in a long canvas sleeve for tidy stowage and transport.

These boats will stand upright on the beach with their wide plank keel and are protected with tough, UHMW shoes and rubbing strips. Hull interiors are finished with Seafin Teak Oil, and exteriors are typically painted to the owner’s specifications. But don’t be fooled by all the gloss, as seats, transom, trim, etc., these boats are coated with an incredibly tough, flexible urethane coating. Results over the years have been proven excellent.

This vessel is built of vertical grain western red cedar, clinch nailed on steam bent oak frames. Its backbone is made of mahogany with a teak transom and Sitka spruce spars. The hull was built through a series of classes in 2020 with students at The Center for Wooden Boats. Several generous donors made it possible for Eric to finish the vessel at his home shop during the pandemic. It was launched in February 2021 and built-in memory of David Allman.

You can learn more about the project here: https://youtu.be/TSytGUIkog4

The Birddog is a traditional Prospector design, very stable with larger loads due to the wide beam and taller side walls. She is 16 feet and is constructed with Birdseye Maple, Walnut, Black Walnut, Cherry, and Padouk with Mahogany, Ebony, and Red Cedar strips. My passion for bird hunting inspired me to build a handmade canoe that would blend with nature. I enjoy creating artistry with wood and using unique grains and designs.

BISH is a Murray Peterson Susan schooner. Port Orford Cedar on steam-bent white oak frames. Teak decks on laminated doug fir deck beams. Hand crank SABB lifeboat engine. All standing rigging is galvey 7×7, parcel and served. Built by Karl Bischoff in Georgetown, Seattle. It’s taken 12 years so far. For each task, I had to do research and take classes… NWSWB for stream bending, surveying, planking… Brion Toss’ loft for splicing/parcel/serving. BISH was my dad’s nickname. He was an armchair adventurer… always studying the Canadien Voyageurs, Wolves, Tugboat Captains of Oakland California, etc. He also loved to start organizations like the American Whitewater Association, American Canoe Association, Square-dance Callers of America, and American Spelunking Association (cave exploring). After living aboard my 37′ cutter for 8 years, I started my first build, a 15′ Whitehall named Leslie Jean (named for my lovely wife). So now there is BISH. I think I’ll name the dinghy Helen (my mom). It’s all in the family. Check out the whole build process at bischoffboatworks.com.

In 1928, the Motor Yacht Blue Peter was built for the Seattle architect John Graham Sr. at Lake Union Dry Dock, and drawn by the famous local naval architect, Ted Geary. Four 96 foot fan-tails were built in the Seattle area during the same time, and there are several local “Cousins” active in Local waters today. The yacht has gone through several major refitting’s over the 95 years of her service, with the latest work done by Port Townsend’s own, Haven Boat works. She is constantly maintained by a small crew, and is works our local waters from Olympia northward. Normally in private service, Blue Peter has recently begun offering charters for up to eight overnight guests and up to 12 guests for daytrips. Wedding parties, dinner and wine-tasting, as well as local cruising is available with limited schedules.

1500 hours from first sketches to varnish. The boat is a cedar-strip, recreational/open-water scull, loosely based on Graeme King’s immortal Kingfisher. It’s built with 1/8-inch Western red cedar & Alaska yellow cedar pin-striping. The hull is covered with 2-oz fiberglass, inside & out. All strips are block-planed with a rolling bevel to mold into the hull shape. The soft-chined, V-hull is monocoque constructed with a hard deck. The material was provided by Joe Greenley, Redfish Kayaks. Custom riggers, sliding seat, foot-stretchers & adjustable-pitch pins are by Carl Douglas (UK). Oarlocks & carbon sculls are by C-2. Shoes are H2Row. It rows like a dream.

Bright Star is a Tolman Jumbo 24, from a design by Renn Tolman of Homer, Alaska. As are all the Tolman boats, she is a plywood stitch-and-glue wooden boat.

The Tolman Alaskan Skiffs began as 18′ open boats, built for fishing in Alaskan waters. The basic design has evolved. Most now are cabin boats 22′-24′ long, with a few built at 26′, and built by the people who plan to use them.

Ray built her on our backporch. It took 2.5 years, from delivery of plywood to launching. We customized ours as a cabin cruiser, for cruising and fishing.

The boat is powered by a Cummins diesel MerCruiser 1.7L, 120hp, inboard/outboard. Cruising speed is 18 mph and cruising weight is 3800 pounds. The boat is light for its size and is easy to tow.

We get great fuel economy. With two 36-gallon tanks, we have a range of 300 miles, at speed. So far, we have 7500 statute miles under our keel. Note: This is at WBF application time. More cruising happens before Festival 2021.

Local home area day trips and cruising have been in the Willamette and Columbia Rivers. But most of our cruising has been up north, in saltwater. Having a trailerable boat allows us freedom easily to go farther, and get into saltwater in Washington and BC. As former long distance offshore sailboat cruisers, we find it great fun to get to places faster and have more time in ports for exploring.

We’ve explored the South Sound, spent a lot of time inside, along Vancouver Island, in the San Juans, more time in the Gulf Islands, went up the Fraser River, and north on the BC mainland side. We cruised in the Broughton Archipelago, taking the ferry Coho over to Victoria and driving up to Port McNeill to launch. An outside trip was from Port Townsend to Walters Cove, almost to Brooks Peninsula. It was off of Tofino, with a front coming in, that we learned Bright Star can fly. We went back to port, for four days, and headed out again.

2020 was a bust, as far as cruising. With more time at home, Ray built another boat. Based on a Tolman hull design, it is a 21′ open speedboat, modified to be all-electric, with Tesla batteries and solar panels.

More information on the building of cabin boat Bright Star — http://www.backporchboat.org/

— Ray Brown & Anne Thompson

1963 Egg Harbor Express Cruiser was designed by Ted Haggas and built in Egg Harbor, NJ., modeled after the famous Maine lobster boats to be fast and extremely seaworthy.

I purchased Bruno from Inger McGinnis’s estate 3 years ago who had been 2nd owner since delivered new in San Diego. It is only one of 3 known to not have a fly bridge. Over the past three years extensive restoration has taken place with the majority of the work done by myself. She has been refastened, some new planks have been replaced. The bottom, hull and boot stripe were refinished, along with the top coat finishes. 90% of her systems were updated including, electrical, refrigeration, heat, pumps and engine upgrades. Bruno constructed of single planked carvel mahogany over oak frames. This is the first summer of extensive cruising for Bruno, having spent most of her time in fresh wasters of Lake Washington. Bruno is a member of the CYA (Classic Yacht Association), where she attends festivals and shows when not cruising the Salish Sea.

History of Egg Harbor Boats

John E. Leek and Russell Post initially went into business together in 1946 to build 14-foot rowboats. After two other partners joined, Ted Haggas (well known for his Jersey Sea Skiffs) designed a 28-foot skiff that the partners launched under the name of Egg Harbor Boat Company.

The company was founded by Russell Post, who had previously co-founded the original Egg Harbor Yacht Company. He was well-suited for the task, for at the age of 15, he had built his first boat in which he later won an international sailing championship.

Russell always approached boat building with the same energy and enthusiasm. For example, he sold his only car in order to purchase the cedar needed to build the very first Egg Harbor (hull #1). Other operating funds were generated by building and selling small skiffs and sailboats.

The natural inlets of the South Jersey coast, where currents scoured the channels and ocean waves crashed through unchecked, proved to be an ideal testing ground for those early models. Mr. Post made it a point to personally run each boat in order to assure its seaworthiness in all sea conditions.

After the sale of Egg Harbor, Russell enjoyed a short-lived retirement. By 1957 he was back in the boat building business with a new nameplate and company, aptly named Post Marine. With a solid reputation for building quality boats, Russell took the next logical step and opened the current Post facility located on the Great Egg Harbor River in Mays Landing, New Jersey. “Yachts of Quality, Not Quantity Since 1957” was the new company’s slogan . . . reflecting a philosophy which has remained management’s position today.

Camas Moon is the first boat built to Tad Roberts’ new CoPogy 18 design. She is 18’ LOD, 24’ LOA, 6’6” beam, and 9” draft. She is rigged as a gaff yawl, with an off-center pivoting centerboard, and has a 6 HP outboard motor in a well. Designed as a trailerable mini-motorsailer for one or two people, she will be equally at home motoring all day in the calms or sailing when the wind serves. Construction is stitch-and-glue around structural ply bulkheads, hull and deck is marine ply, with Douglas Fir for most other elements, including the spars. Extensive watertight storage compartments make the boat unsinkable. Construction began not long after the start of the pandemic and was completed in June 2022.

Celeste is the second kayak I have built of this design. The first I built for my wife and she has enjoyed it paddling around Washington and Vancouver Island, B.C. I was quite pleased with the design but wanted to change the second one to challenge my building skills a bit more and add more artistry. While I knew I wanted to do something truly unique and with a lot more artistic challenge, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I was waiting for inspiration when one morning I woke up and saw the planet Saturn lying on the deck, The Heavens had spoken! As an astronomy geek, (I built my own 10″ Newtonian reflector telescope grinding the mirror by hand), I decided to do inlays of planets, moons and comets orbiting a sun. My palette was not just woods but wood with character, knots became storms on the planet’s surface, creamy streaks became clouds flying over the surface, Spalted Maple texture became continents, and purple grain became seas. The woods also had to be special, I used extremely dark-figured Peruvian Walnut that was almost black as the background for the planets and moons but was extraordinarily lucky to get some incredibly figured Western Red Cedar for the topsides that I book matched and sequentially routered. But I also build advanced composite parts for rockets, aircraft and racing yachts so the coaming was clear finished carbon fiber.

Ceridwen was lofted in the Fall of 1982 at Magner & Sons Boatworks in Carlsborg, WA. Matt McCleary with the help of John and his son Kevin, started building the Atkins’ “Little Maid of Kent” Schooner. Poured 2500lbs of lead for Keel, Balua Keel Timbers, Oregon Oak floor timber’s and steam-bent oak frames, Port Orford Cedar planking, old-growth Douglas Fir cabin sides, Honduras Mahogany Taff rails, laid Teak decks over plywood sub deck, mahogany covering boards. All tankage (water and diesel), electrical system, and Diesel engine were installed. Pete Langley of PT Foundry cast most of Ceridwen’s deck and Spar hardware. Hassey-Petrich sails were built. Launched in August 1994, and then masts, bowsprit, and spars were finished and rigged.

Maiden voyage was in August 1996 from Port Angeles Marina to Port Hadlock Marina, Ceridwen’s Home Port to this day. Ceridwen’s custom interior was finished over many years from my garage shop in Hadlock. 20+ years now of adventures with family and friends in the San Juan Islands and Gulf Islands, BC.

Using only the lines drawing from the Dori book we measured and created a sheet of offsets to loft her. Thanks to the Newport Marine science center loft and bandsaw, I was able to fully loft her and then create her sawn frames in 1983. Thanks to Dick Tucker in Langlois Oregon I was able to order perfect Port Orford cedar for plankIng. Jamestown distributors was the only mail order supply company back then for Marine supplies (and linguica sausage)!! Coincidentally Silva Bans was being built in a nearby barn at the same time so had to have her!! The schooner Rueben de Cloux was just launched and sailed in Yaquina Bay to our delight and inspiration! Launched as an open row boat I explored the eirie Pools slough where another recluse boatbuilder was creating a wooden sailing masterpiece deep in the woods.

Chloe was launched in 1960. Details are sketchy until the late 1970’s when she was purchased by Greg Smith in Rowayton, CT. A survey identified her as having been built in Norway, but her builder is unknown. Because the original mahogany planking had deteriorated, Smith had the hull re-planked with bronze-fastened Alaskan Yellow Cedar by a shipwright called Pieter Den Hartog of Hamilton Woodworking. Greg sailed Chloe on Long Island Sound until 1985 when he moved to Seattle.

In the early 1990s, Chloe’s deck and sheer plank were damaged by a storm in Port Hadlock. A second restoration was undertaken by Greg’s brother, Charlie Smith, former captain of Neil Young’s 100′ Baltic Schooner, Ragland. The deck and house were replaced, and a self-baling cockpit was installed.

After many family adventures in the Salish Sea, Greg donated Chloe to The Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle in 2018. Brandt Faatz, then Executive Director at CWB, purchased Chloe. She was in fine condition but needed cosmetic work. After a haul-out to refresh bottom and topsides paint, Brandt stripped and refinished the mast in December 2019 using Awlwood. The house and comings were refinished as a spring 2020 lockdown project. Chloe sailed Seattle’s Lake Union through the summer of 2020 and relocated to Port Townsend in November. She now resides in Port Townsend’s Boat Haven.