Boats of all sizes show their stuff at the Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival
A Festival to Celebrate Wooden Boats
The Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival has been happening on the fourth of July weekend for 31 years now. If you have never been, you owe it to yourself to go sometime. It is a festival in the best sense of the word, with live music, art exhibits, and workshops to pass on nearly forgotten skills. It is a time for people with an affinity for the water to come together and share the experience of being surrounded by gorgeous wooden boats, and maybe take a free ride on a New Haven Sharpie, a 36-foot cat-rigged ketch designed for harvesting oysters on the Chesapeake.
The Festival is hosted by the Center for Wooden Boats (CWB), and is staged by a small, hard-working staff and boatloads of energetic volunteers. I love to go to the festival because I get to see all the friends I've made hanging around the Center for Wooden Boats for years. I taught sailing there for a long time, and my kids Skyler and Sara pretty much grew up there. The festival gives CWB a chance to spotlight its own collection, and dozens of classic boat owners from all over the northwest cruise to Lake Union to exhbit their yachts.
Pirate Gets a New Lease On Life
One of the most historic boats on view at the festival was the legendary R-boat, Pirate, designed by Seattle naval architect Ted Geary, built by Lake Union Drydock and launched in 1926. In her day, Pirate was a racing boat to be reckoned with. She was the first west coast yacht to compete on the east coast, where she topped L. Francis Herreshoff's Yankee to win the R-boat national sailing championships in 1929. Scott Rohrer, long-time CWB volunteer, found Pirate in California in less than pristine condition and formed a syndicate of donors to finance bringing her back home to Lake Union. After years of hard work, Scott's volunteer team and generous donors have Pirate in bristol condition. While I walked the festival, I happened to be at Pirates's slip just in time to hand crew member Paul Marlow a mooring line as they returned from a jaunt on the Lake.
The legendary R-boat Pirate after a sail on Lake Union
Pirate Pond Yachts Born Again
In 1927, at the urging of a sports writer for the Los Angeles Evening Herald, Pirate designer Ted Geary copied her lines in a 1/12 scale pond yacht. School boys at Westlake (Now MacArthur Park in Los Angeles) and on Seattle's Green Lake raced their Pirate pond yachts for a chance to ride on the real Pirate. CWB volunteer Paul Marlow has helped bring Pirate pond yachting to a new generation of kids, who now race the models they build at school to earn a coveted summer internship at the Center for Wooden Boats. At the 2007 Festival, kids got to use sticks with tennis balls on the end to keep Pirate pond yachts on course.
Kids playing with Pirate pond yachts, a tradition started by designer Ted Geary in the 1927
Live music plays as the Arthur Foss tugboat puffs away
The 1899 tugboat, Arthur Foss, was on display at the Festival, with her stack puffing away. I was standing next to the Arthur just as her whistle shattered the airwaves, causing small children to run for their mothers. Foss Tugs was started by Thea Foss, the real-life person after whom the fictional character Tugboat Annie was based.
Virginia V Just Keeps Steaming Along
Another vintage work boat at the festival was the Virginia V, the last remaining commercially licensed passenger steam vessel in the U.S. She was built in 1922 for the Mosquito Fleet, small passenger ferries that served communities on Puget Sound and Lake Washington. I can remember cruising on the Virginia V when I was about ten years old, crossing Shilshole Bay on Puget Sound, sailing under the Agate Pass bridge connecting Bainbridge Island to the Kitsap Peninsula, and landing at Kiana Lodge for my Dad's company picnic.
The Virginia V, the last operating commercial steam passenger vessel in the U.S.
Floating Wood Sculptures
The Seattle Art Museum recently opened the Olympic Sculpture Park, overlooking Seattle's Elliott Bay. On this weekend, there was another sculpture park in Seattle,with wooden sculptures afloat on Lake Union.
Sexy curves of a water taxi from Venice, Italy
About the Center for Wooden Boats
The Founding Director of the Center for Wooden Boats is Dick Wagner. CWB started at the house boat on the northwest shore of Lake Union that Dick and his wife Colleen still call home. Dick was an architect and urban planner with collection of small, wooden boats that he rented out to visitors. When his passion for wooden boats exceeded his desire to be an architect, Dick found a way to follow his heart. He approached the Seattle City Council with an offer they could not refuse. The deal? An affordable lease for the most blighted part of the industrial shoreline of Lake Union to Dick's new non-profit organization, the Center for Wooden Boats, in return for making it the most beautiful part of the Lake. Dick and his legion of volunteers exceeded that promise.
Today, the Center for Wooden Boats is an oasis in the middle of urban chaos. As you walk down the gang plank toward the floating docks and buildings of the Center, you can feel the stress of city life dissapate. By the time you reach the clubhouse, you are transported into a different time and place. The architectural style is that of a turn-of-the century boat livery. As you walk the docks, you pass by wooden row boats, a floating workshop, and a fleet of classic sailboats.
At most maritime museums, the collection is viewed from behind ropes, where the boats collect dust sitting in cradles ashore. At CWB, people are encouraged to get out on the water in this museum's collection. CWB makes boating accessible to a lot of people would not otherwise be able to have this joy in their lives. The Center keeps the flame alive for wooden boats by hosting workshops to pass on skills that are at risk of being forgotten: lofting, carvel-plank boat building, sail making and even casting of one-of-a-kind bronze marine fittings. Families can come to the Center and build their own sailing dinghy. The SailNow program has taught hundreds of people how to sail instinctively. I taught there for 11 years, and my son Skyler starting teaching adults to sail there when he was only 11 years old.
CWB serves some very special groups. They sponsor a program for at-risk youth; kids who have had little in their lives to be proud of. The first time these kids succeed in landing a boat under sail, you can see their sense of self-esteem multiply. The residents of Bailey-Boushay House, an Aids Hospice, come to the Center for sailing lessons that give them something to look forward to. The Footloose Sailing Association helps their members leave their disabilities ashore with sailing events hosted by CWB.
The Executive Director of CWB is Betsy Davis, who has helped the Center become an even more vibrant place with her energy and enthusiasm.
