Visit to Port Townsend for the Wooden Boat Festival

In the company of sailing legends Lin and Larry Pardey

I visited Port Townsend for the three days of the Wooden Boat Festival.

I arrived early Friday afternoon, purchased my three day ticket for the bargain price of $20 (for seniors), then attended talks by Nigel Calder on "Anchoring Without Anguish" and Leif Terdal on "Northwest Sea Disasters".  Shortly after 5 PM I drove to Jean's house and met Arnold, who had just arrived from Kingston.  Jean had offered to us the hospitality of her home during the festival which proved to be very helpful to us.

Barbecue at Jak and Corine's

Soon Arnold and  I were off to Jak and Corine's home for a barbecue that they were putting on for a group of their friends and neighbors.  We had a very pleasant evening with the genial group, several whom we had met on our earlier visit.  Unfortunately John and Priscilla were not able to make it from their home in San Diego because of a family issue, but I'm sure that we'll see them again sooner or later.  The night got chilly, which gave us the opportunity to huddle around the open fire that Jak had going inside of a large wheel rim.  This may be the 21st century but we have still not shed the atavistic urge to huddle and socialize around an open fire.  So much food had been laid on that Corine did her best to persuade the departing guests to take doggie bags with them. 

Watching visiting deer over morning coffee at Jean's

That night Arnold and I were both guests of Jean in her large and modern home.  It was unusual in that we each had a floor to ourselves.  Arnold slept above in the mezzanine, in a large bedroom with its own generous en suite.  Jean of course slept in the main level.  I slept in the "basement" level which was in fact built as a spacious self contained apartment with its own kitchen, bedroom, toilet, spare room, etc.  In the morning while we were having coffee in the living room we watched two deer - a doe and her offspring - mooching around the back yard having breakfast.

Then it was time for serious festival activity.  Arnold was more attracted to walking around and visiting boats for a few hours than attending presentations, so he went off on his own.  Jean and I headed off in her car for what we expected to be a long and interesting day.  The beauty of the schedule was that at any one time 6 or 7 different things were happening, so Jean and I would often attend different events.

Francis on duty flanked by admirers

For me the first presentation was "Standing Rigging", by Lisa Vizzini of Port Townsend Rigging.  I learned a lot from Lisa's excellent presentation, particularly about mechanical (as opposed to swaged) fittings.

I was walking with Jean after the presentation and Nancy Erley walked up and said "Hello, Robert".  What a great surprise.  Her partner Lynn was with her and it was terrific to see them again.  Nancy is a well respected local identity who has completed two circumnavigations and runs a sail training school.  She was on her way to deliver her talk on "Captaincy for Couples" which presented good principles of leadership and conflict management on small boats.  Jean and I both attended that one.

Immediately after that I attended "Rig Loads" by Brian Toss, a well known rigger in this part of the world.  I got very valuable insight into the relationship between angle of heel and loading on shrouds which without a doubt will help me to minimize the risk of rig failure during my upcoming long passage.  I also learned something that may be old hat to other sailors but was a revelation to me:  There is more load put on the rig by a full main and genoa in a moderate breeze than by a deeply reefed mainsail with storm jib in a storm.

Francis, Toad, and Jean

Immediately after that was Lin and Larry Pardey on "The Compelling Power of Adventure" in which they provided a broad outline of their approach to their life of adventure and enumerated principles for life decision making that they recommend.  I learned that they famously sailed without an engine not from some lofty principle of purity but because they had a choice of either installing an engine and working for another year or spending the year in Mexico.  Against all advice they sailed to Mexico, found that they could manage without an engine, and the rest is history.

By then I already felt that Lin and Larry were old friends.  I suppose that they were already old friends in the book sense, but after a 15 minute conversation with them earlier that day it was also in the personal sense because they are that kind of people: down-to-earth, open, friendly, and so easy to talk with.

During the entire festival they had a large table with all of their books on display and for sale.  Whenever they were not giving a presentation they were at the table, chatting with people and autographing books. I approached them with some books to be autographed and when I mentioned to Lin that my boat was in La Paz she asked if I knew Mac and Mary Shroyer.  I replied that I regard Mac and Mary as my patron saints of La Paz and I can't speak highly enough of them.  That launched a wonderful conversation of their early days in La Paz and the fun that they had with Mac and Mary when they also were just getting started.  I told them that their son Neil was now running the Marina de La Paz, which Mac and Mary had built.  They both asked me to pass their warm regards, and Larry gave me a firm instruction to give them both a hug on their behalf.  (I'm not sure how I'll handle that one.)  When I shook hands with Larry I told him that it isn't often that I get to meet a living legend and wished him and Lin all the best for the future.

My fifth presentation of the day was Carol Hasse's "Storm Sails" which gave me new insights into the selection, rigging, and management of storm sails.  Afterwards I told Jean that I felt like I was back in my university days, trotting from lecture to lecture.

Burl's memorial bench

On the way back to Jean's we visited the waterside bench that Jean and her sister Vi had put up in memory of Jean's husband Burl who had passed away one year and two days earlier.  It is a lovely location, on the waterfront just a few yards from the Boat Haven.  The plaque invites passers by to rest, sit, chat, and enjoy.

On Sunday Jean and I were back for another early (9.30 AM) session, on "Fiberglassing".  For the second day in a row Jean managed to snag one of only two disabled parking bays right against the main building.  Finding parking was a big deal in that small town that must somehow accommodate the 30,000 visitors to the boat festival.  Once again I learned some basic but very important principles.  I now know how to select the resin (low viscosity, no bloom), that there is no need to coat the wood with resin before laying down the mat, that there is no need to sand between layers, and that you can put down many layers in one session (50 is his record).  I also know better how to avoid bubbles and to avoid the problem of fraying edges (tape along the edges).

There was no other talk of particular interest to either of us so we decided to dedicate the day to walking the jetties and visiting boats.  We began by having coffee where we had entertaining conversations with a couple of visitors.  We then caught up with Francis and "Toad", whom we had already seen a couple of times on Saturday while he was on duty as a volunteer guide.  They invited us to their place for a visit at around 3 PM when most of the festival would have been wound down.  I visited the Pardeys again and had a short chat with Larry about their first to Fremantle, my home port, many years earlier.

Jean and I then spent a couple of hours looking at the boats then having a light lunch of fish tacos.  I went on board Elmore (built in 1890) and asked if Simeon Baldwin was around.  I had been keeping an eye out for Simeon, whom seems to be a regular volunteer at the Festival, with no success.  The volunteers on board knew Simeon quite well but said that he was not at the festival that day.  Hindsight is a great thing: I should have sent him an message about my planned visit weeks ago.  I'll be sure to catch him next time.  Back on the second floor of the main building I caught sight of an interesting looking slide on batteries, so Jean and I slipped into the presentation "Green Systems", which was actually about new developments in boating power technology.  I had thought that AGM and GEL batteries represented the state of the art, but the current best choice is TPPL (thin plate pure lead) batteries.  On the horizon is LFP (lithium iron phosphate) technology that exists, greatly outperforms everything else, but will not be practical until its phenomenal costs (and complexity of charging) come down.  With the advent of LFP technology he foresaw battery life of 40 years.

We arrived at Francis and Toad's place just before 3 PM and what a wonderful place they have.  It is a duplex where they have the top floor of the house with a generous veranda looking to Port Townsend Bay.  Toad has heavily patronized bird feeders hanging on a tree branch at one corner of the veranda.The four of us spent close to two hours on the veranda, enjoying the fresh air, splendid view, the yummy home made pizzas and dips over beer and wine, and plenty of laughter, which was no surprise because for some mysterious reason there is always fun when I find myself in the company of a New York Irishman.

We returned to Jean's place where I decided to have one more go at restoring her TV service,.  I had managed to remove all program recording schedules, which had been plaguing Jean's TV viewing since Burl's time, but could not manage to work my way up the menu back to the ordinary TV presentation.  I was at my wit's end and Jean said "Why don't you hit the 5 key and try to get channel 5?"  "Great idea" I replied, already feeling like a fool.  I hit the 5, channel 5 came on, and all was well.  Nothing like lateral thinking.

I drove back to Kingston after a memorable 3 days in Port Townsend.