Before he was hired here (and helped us improve event security), Northwest Maritime Center Executive Director Jake Beattie brought boats, volunteered, and snuck into Wooden Boat Festival for the better part of a decade. “I’m a festival fanboy.” After getting him off of his soapbox (“What do you mean I only get five?”), Jake shared his top five can’t-miss activities …
The Harbormaster’s Picks
Header photo by Mitchel Osborne Harbormaster, Daniel Evans, has scoured over every boat application—learning about each vessel and filling this year’s harbor with wooden boats from near and far. Through this process, he’s compiled his five must-see boats at this year’s festival. Introducing the Harbormaster’s picks: Lady Washington Owned by Grays Harbor Historical Society, Lady Washington is the official tall …
Get inspired at the Adventure Stage!
Header photo by Thomas Hawthorne We have an epic line-up of speakers on the new Adventure Stage across the harbor in the newly renovated Pygmy building. Some of the speakers on the Adventure Stage this year include: Karl Kruger The only stand-up paddleboarder who has finished the 750-mile Race to Alaska on a paddleboard. Karl is currently attempting to become …
A Member of the Family: Wooden Boats and the Legacy of Ownership
By WBF staff As anyone with a wooden boat will tell you, owning one is like having another member of the family. A little high-maintenance, yes, but strong and beautiful, with captivating stories and the scars to go with them, not to mention the kind of charisma that would induce you to expend a nice weekend going through stacks of …
Building a batana: a symbol of Croatian heritage takes shape in Gig Harbor
Michael Vlahovich says “from design to construction, from launch to adventure, from maintenance to restoration, wooden boats are what maritime stories are made of.” A master shipwright, commercial fisherman, and Tacoma native, Mike has dedicated his career to the preservation of maritime heritage from the Chesapeake Bay to the Pacific Northwest. Now living in his father’s birth village of Sumartin, …
Announcing This Year’s Festival Headliners!
Lin Pardey A pioneer of long-distance voyaging and longtime Wooden Boat Festival icon, Lin Pardey is most certainly the real deal. Since the 1960s, Lin has accrued more than 217,000 sea miles sailing on boats ranging from 24 feet to more than 60, the majority without engines on two wooden cutters she and her husband Larry built: Serafin and Taleisin. …
Riptide
By Pete Leenhouts, owner RIPTIDE was built in 1927 by the Schertzer Brothers Boat and Machine Company, then located on the north shore of Lake Union near the foot of Stone Way in Seattle. She is planked in Port Orford cedar, copper riveted to white oak frames over an Apitong backbone with a marine plywood pilothouse and a western red …
Meet the Artist: Steven Dews
Bio Famed for his spectacular maritime paintings, Steven Dews is one of the most successful living maritime artists in the world. After graduating art school and returning to his childhood home, he turned to art to express his love for the sea. He studied photographs, reference books, model ships, and architectural drawings while producing hundreds of pencil sketches, becoming a …
Meet the Artist: Chris Witkowski
Artist Statement Two years ago, when the Wooden Boat Festival team and I were brainstorming a concept for the 2020 Festival, little did we know that the image I created would be even more perfect for this year’s Festival. With research, we knew there were female ship captains in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and we decided to …
Feeling the love
By Bruce Bateau When I pulled up to the customs dock on San Juan Island on a sunny September afternoon, I was feeling good. Over the past six weeks, I had traveled some two hundred miles down Vancouver Island, traversed five major rapids, and used mostly paper charts to do it. Now, I had completed the final major crossing of …