August, 2021
The small town of Chimacum, where I was camped, is just a very few miles south of Port Townsend. Port Townsend is known among probably all wood boat owners in Washington State (USA) and British Columbia (Canada) as one of the premier locations to have your boat taken out of the water and have excellent work done on it (by you or by the excellent mechanics and shipwrights here). There are many separate businesses in this huge shipyard that do all manner of work on every system in all types of boats and all ages of boats, although the emphasis is on wood-hulled boats.
As a former wood boat owner, what could I do but take an afternoon and drive up to the shipyards at Port Townsend and wander about. I found a number of boats I was familiar with, whose owners had been or still are friends of mine. And I found lots of other interesting things too. I’ll share just a few photos here to give you an idea of what sorts of things go on here.
Built in Seattle in 1947, the 60-foot tugboat Susan H towed logs out of Ketchikan, Alaska, and continued to be a working tug in Puget Sound, Washington, until very recently when her new owners decided to make her shipshape again and use her for personal cruising.
The Hawaiian Chieftain was built in 1988 in Lahaina, on the island of Maui, Hawaii. She has the rig of a 19th century sailing vessel, but she has a very moden triple keel which keeps her steady without needing a deep keel. Her draft is only 5.5 feet and so she’s highly maneuverable in shallow water. She’s 65 feet long on deck, and 103 feet long including the bow sprit.
Pooka is a gorgeously maintained boat originally built by the Matthews Company in Port Clinton, Ohio. I can’t find it online, but if memory serves it’s about 38 feet long and was built somewhere around 1947 or so. Friends tell me that “pooka” or “puka” in Hawaiian, when used as a boat name, means “a hole in the water”. In Irish folklore it’s a magical, mythical creature that lives in the bog waters of Ireland.
Above, Savona was designed by Ed Monk, Sr., and built in Seattle in 1942. She’s 39 feet long and is currently home-ported in Bremerton, Washington.
Wow, look at this sailboat below. I walked around the corner and practically fell over backwards looking up at her!
I couldn’t find a name or a registration number, or any other information about her. I bet she’s a world cruiser and possibly a racing sailboat. Given the size of the red SUV vehicle in the photo below, I’d guess this sailboat might be about 90 feet long.
Besides work done by several companies on all types of boats in this yard, the Port Townsend yard hauls really heavy boats out of the water. My 40-foot Matthews boat, Pied Piper, weighed about 12 ton.
Another old thing on the property was this great old truck/van below. I’d guess it’s from 1950 or so. It still runs. My big white truck is a Dodge too, albeit a RAM but still a Dodge. π
The fellow in the photo below was filling the space/seams between wood planks on the hull of this wood trawler fishing boat. Because wood planks are curved (horizontally and vertically) and the space changes in size too from the front to the back of the boat, this work must be done by hand … every inch of it, every seam, by hand.
Jollydogs, a 2008 38-foot catamaran sailing vessel, collided with an unidentified floating object in the Pacific Ocean on its way from Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest (and Puget Sound). Thank heaven there was a collision bulkhead just a foot back that stopped water ingress. The owners reinforced that inner collision bulkhead, then fashioned a crude bow structure to cover the hole as best they could, and also filled the cavity with everything they could spare that had flotation stuff in it. Remember, they were out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just the two of them, and of course one of them had to be in the water to do much of the work. Obviously, they arrived safely at Port Townsend where the boat was hauled and repaired.
I’ve been on the vessel below. It was owned by an acquaintenance/friend of mine. It’s absolutely gorgeous inside. The 70-foot Hecate Ranger was built in 1962 as a Forest Ranger Vessel for the British Columbia Forest Service in Canada. She was eventually sold to private owners and came down to Puget Sound in Washington for private cruising. New owners in 2021 (when I was here at Port Townsend and took these photos) hauled the boat and had loads of work done on the hull and other systems. After the work was done, the new owners moved her to her new home, back up in British Columbia, Canada.
The silver-colored metal squares on the keel of the boat (photo below) are sacrificial anodes designed to deteriorate more quickly than any other metal on the hull of the boat any time there is even the smallest electrical current in the water.
The green stripe in the photo below, is not the top of the hull, it’s just the water line. The draft of this boat is probably about 10 feet (when the boat sits in the water, the bottom of the keel is about 10 feet below the top of the water). This is one heavily-built, sturdy boat!
A fire axe (you can see it in the photo above, and there’s a closeup below) is common equipment on these old wood boats. In case of fire, you can use an axe to free up a stuck door on the boat. It can also be used to open up layers of the hull so you can put out a fire between the layers of the hull (parts of my “small” 40-foot boat had dual layers of hull), or to cut a mooring or towing cable during an emergency. Any type of axe is acceptable (including a small axe), but it best be extraordinarily sharp.
Besides old boats, this shipyard works on cool new stuff like the boat below … an inflatable boat with an aluminum hull. I’d bet this private fishing boat is fast!
No information was available about the boat below. I’d guess it was about 26 feet long, and I’d bet there isn’t much headroom inside. Looked like a very sweet little boat.
The vessel below had just been put in the water as I walked past. It was brand new, had a plywood hull, and was about 30 feet long. The black bags are filled with air and are temporarily tied on to make sure the boat floats while the wood planking swells and the boat becomes water-tight. Notice the water being pumped out of the boat in between the two black bags. Bilge pumps inside the boat pump out any water that does enter the boat. Since only two of the three pumps are pumping, that means the level of water inside the boat is dropping. Not long now and they’ll start the engine and get ready to move the boat to a temporary mooring spot on the dock in order to finish the work.
The boat below, Water Mark, was unknown to me until I spotted her in the shipyard today. As many years as I was involved in the classic wood boat club that I was in, you might think I’d know every wood boat around Puget Sound. But there are hundreds and hundreds of them here … the weather here is perfect for wood boats … and salt water is much kinder on wood than fresh water is. So I suspect only a small fraction of the wood boats around Puget Sound are in that old wood boat club. Mostly, I loved the name of this boat, and the way the name was displayed on the transom.
Of course, I chatted with a number of folks here in the shipyard … owners and workers. And I reveled in the smell of wood … newly sawn oak and mahogany and pine … and I especially loved the smell of old wood, solid old dense grain wood, with maybe a touch of the smell of dry rot but with years of solid service still in the wood. My attitude about my old wood boat was that, if I took care of her, she would take care of me. And she did, we always found our way to safe harbor at the end of every day. May it be so for every wood boat here today in Port Townsend.
These boats are gorgeous! And so beautifully photographed, it’s obvious you love and appreciate wooden boats. Thanks for taking us all on the tour. I didn’t think a boatyard would let just anyone wander around, but you being a boat person probably got special dispensation. Do you miss your boat ever? I think I would. It must have been a wonderful life to be on the water so much of the time. On the other hand, your life now is pretty wonderful too.
Oh, yes, Dawn, I do love wooden boats. π You picked that up!
Actually, most boatyards hereabouts let anyone wander about. It’s rare that anyone who isn’t connected to one specific boat wanders about, and of those folks who do wander about (like me), we’re pretty much all wood boat lovers. Boats in these yards are always blocked up on land, so they are difficult to get into from the ground, and workers are careful to lock the boat when they aren’t working on the boat. It might seem a place for shenanigans, but they very rarely, very rarely, happen.
Ah, sigh, yes, sometimes I miss my boat/s. But not often. On the other hand, I do miss being on the water! I have a bazillion photos of my boating years (28) so I can reminisce to my heart’s content. AND, I have a wonderful Stearns inflatable kayak that I keep in the back of my truck. For some odd reason, I’ve never used it since I’ve owned an RV.
Ok, truth-be-told, I’ve had opportunity to see my old wood boat Pied Piper but have not had the heart to go see her. I think I would cry. So, yes, I miss my boat, but I don’t miss the cost and the extraordinary amount of time needed for maintenance, and the risk of boating alone. But I sure do love her. π
An extraordinary tour! Fascinating information and beautiful boats.
Thanks, Henry. Yes, they are beautiful boats. π
Great pictures!
Thank you. π
Oh Ann, you know I love boats …. ooooh. This was really super!
I figured you’d like this post, Rob. π
Pooka looks a lot like your boat Pied Piper. They are both built by Matthews, yes? Handsome boats. I like your connection with your friend that used to own the Hecate Ranger. Very impressive how much you know about old wood boats.
Yes, Pooka and my boat (Pied Piper) are both Matthews boats. And they sure are handsome. π That friend of mine has passed, but every time I hear anything about Hecate Ranger, I think of him. When I was in the shipyard today and saw the boat, I walked over and patted the hull of the boat and spoke my friend John’s name. I knew the boat would hear that.
Ann, you got me again. I know nothing about boats like the ones you show here, but they are gorgeous and the stories you tell are fascinating. Ok, Port Townsend shipyard is now also on our list of places to visit in the Pacific Northwest, so many places to visit. How do you just happen to find stuff like this, or walk into a place like this and find such great stuff to show us? Everyone here needs to share this blog with everyone they know! We have. Ann’s our favorite. π
Oh, Tim, I don’t know how I find stuff like this. Sometimes online research and sometimes I’ve heard things from friends and sometimes I just drive around and find stuff, or … another really great source of info is the local folks where I’m camping. I always, always, talk with the park rangers/staff and ask questions. But this boatyard has been in my history for almost 30 years, so I couldn’t stay away. π Thanks for the nice words. And yes, please, every reader here, share this blog with everyone you know who might enjoy it. Thanks Tim. π
Great photos! I’m not familiar with boats much. This makes me want to learn.
Bill, I don’t know where you live, but if you live anywhere near water, then head to a boatyard or a marina, and ask questions. I can assure you that real boaters love to talk about boats. You will be welcome there!
I’ve been wanting to buy a camper of some sort, but in the back of my mind I’ve always wanted to buy a boat. This makes it hard to choose, camper vs. boat. Help! π
Oh, Emily, what a question. How to choose between a boat and a camper. Wow.
I would pose two questions to you … how much time have you spent on a boat that was a size you could live on even temporarily? … and how much time have you spent with a camper (trailer or van) that you could live in temporarily? Find friends who own such conveyances and then bring food and money and spend time with your friends and see how each choice feels. Or rent/charter RVs/boats.
Boats are a lot more maintenance than a camper. In addition, one of my reasons to sell the boat and buy a camper was … an accident on the boat could cost me my life … an accident with the camper probably would likely result in my walking to safety. On the other hand, I wouldn’t trade my boating days for anything.
Depends on how old you are, too, and how handy you are to do your own maintenance. So many questions. In the end, I hope you buy either one and go! Keep in touch. π
I lived on a 42 ft Matthew in st. Thomas USVI in the 70s. It had no engine so it just lived o the hook. After it had been lightly damaged during a hurricane, it was pulled out and lived in Antilles boat yard for where worked on all parts of her. It was quite an experience, living in the boatyard caulking the seams , learning about mosquito coils, being woken intermittently by roosters crowing!!!!
You owned a Matthews! How cool. π And a 42 … that’s a great size for a liveaboard … did it have two cabins forward? Mine had only one. Yes, I can imagine living in a boatyard, the workers and other boat owners, caulking seams, sanding, painting, all the work needed, and yet it was probably really quiet in the evening and at night. I grew up in the Philippines and we had more than our share of mosquito coils. What was the name of your boat? Roosters eh? How rude. π Thanks Carol, really appreciate your comment.