Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival 2012

This year's festival in Port Townsend, Washington State was the 36th celebration of wood boat craft in this famous maritime town. It's a huge show requiring constant year-round planning, hundreds of volunteer hours and consumes the entire community for three days every September. Many of the vessels in attendance come time and again because the whole event is like a huge reunion.

Whether you are a wooden boat fanatic like myself or simply like to stroll around on a nice day and enjoy a beautiful setting, there is something there for everyone. In fact there are so many boats, displays and lectures you could never take it all in.

 There were no Doryman boats entered in the show but I took the rowing shell, Finesse so I could view and photograph the boats from the water. Joel Bergen was kind enough to take me sailing in the small boat race in his John Welsford Navigator, Ellie so some of the photos came about that way. I see that Joel has already begun his coverage of the show, which will no doubt be excellent. Be sure to stop by and see navigatorjoel's version of the weekend.

(No we didn't take any prizes in the race but I'll leave it to him for that story.)

My voice is completely gone from talking about boats for days on end. Positively heaven for Doryman.

I can't add much to the photo essay. But you know what they say about pictures.


This essay is worth close to 150,000 words, please enjoy:

More photos of the 2012 Festival from John Kohnen: