A video record of Ashlyn and Russell Brown's sailing trip on JZERRO to Haida Gwaii and the west coast of Vancouver Island along with Alex Spear on VITA DUMAS. Well worth heading over to the PT Watercraft site to read the entire post. This last June and July, Russell and I sailed our multi-hull from Port Townsend to Haida Gwaii/Gwaii Haanas park (also known as Queen Charlotte Islands) and back down the west coast of Vancouver Island. There is really no way to accurately describe what it was like for me, or the feeling that we dropped off into another [...]

A winter scene by Sean Trew. Click for larger image.

By Marty McOmber on July 28, 2015 in Three Sheets NW The U.S. Coast Guard helped rescue six people, including four children, from a 32-foot recreational boat off Point Wilson yesterday afternoon. No one was hurt in the incident. The vessel Kloshi Bay reported a fire aboard around 4:20 p.m.  Coast Guard and local fire departments responded, helping put out the blaze while transferring the four children to safety.  The vessel was eventually towed back to Port Townsend. story continues here

More information after the break. […]

Fairly often we get emails from folks looking for a bareboat charter in Port Townsend. This morning we noticed a post on GeekWire for a new AirBnB like service that makes it possible for individuals to charter their boat. A good idea? Who knows. But interesting. This 2007 Catalina 320 out of Edmonds is listed at $256 a day bareboat. If you’re looking for some serious return on investment, owning a boat isn’t a great idea. Not only are there storage and maintenance fees to pay every year, but a boat typically isn’t used all too often — especially in a [...]

T37’s racing at Port Ludlow It was a beautiful day to be on the water’s edge. The forecast proved out as advertised: 5-8 knots of steady (±) wind, nearly 70° and lots of sun. We had a small showing; maybe summer vacations are taking their toll. Nevertheless it was a good regatta and fun was had. Plenty of visitors and some expressions of interest, so maybe we’ll continue to see fleet growth (42 fleet members now). Since both fleets were small, we started them together and ran 12 races in our 2 hour window. It was a mix [...]

Photo by Satch Yarbrough So I thought this was an interesting perspective, a World War One fort in the background (Fort Warden) and the schooner ADVENTURESS sailing behind a nuclear sub coming into the bay. I was standing on the bluffs at Fort Flagler, looking back across Port Townsend Bay. Camera is max zoomed, so not the clearest, but hey, this was a very long way away!

From a post by Scott Wilson on Three Sheets NW.Jak Mang passed along an article about a race participant who recent lost their life in a Wednesday night race in California. It's all fun and games on the water until it's neither. Be careful out there. A Coast Guard 45-foot Response Boat-Medium crew from Station Port Angeles, Wash., rescues a man after his sailboat overturned near Port Townsend - (U.S. Coast Guard picture by Petty Officer 3rd Class Sean Farrar) [Saturday's] high winds and rough seas resulted in at least one rescue, as Coast Guard Station Port Angeles [...]

Photo by Don Willott Dan Ginther, Piper Dunlap and two others decided to make the best of a blustery day after the Nightcap race of September 22nd was cancelled due to high winds. They report that it was a fun 20 knot southerly and warm by PT standards.

From ThreeSheetsNW Aug 26 2013 in Currents, Seamanship by Deane Hislop Several years ago, a friend and I were cruising along about six miles northwest of Seiku on the Washington coast, enjoying a leisurely day of fishing. We were slamming bottomfish and after icing our limits, we called it a day and set course for the dock. We were a mile and a half from shore when we were suddenly hailed on the VHF. “Motor vessel Easy Goin’, this is the U.S. Coast Guard,” the voice said. “Please switch and answer Channel 22 alpha.” I switched the channel and replied, [...]

The NW Maritime Center’s new boat, the Stuart Knockabout. Photo from Doughdish, Inc. From the Stuart Knockabout website. L.  Francis Herreshoff designed this stunning boat in 1932 for Mr. Willoughby Stuart. Her plans are entitled 28′ Knockabout – Design No. 53. Mr. Stuart’s boat was built in 1933 and named BEN MY CHREE*, Gaelic for “darling of my heart”, BEN for short.  He took her to his island home on Penobscot Bay, built a boathouse and railway for her, and she remained in the area for over 40 years, enjoyed by him and his family. No true sistership [...]

Photo courtesy of Patrick Young, Challam County Fire District #3 From Q13Fox.com July 22nd, about 7:39 a.m., the Coast Guard was alerted to a report of nine people missing in the water near Admiralty Bay, Wash. The people were reportedly in a canoe that overturned. The call was reported to have been made by one of the nine people that were in the water. They said they were calling from a cell phone. A helicopter, two response boats and a Coast Guard cutter were sent out for the rescue from Port Angeles. Another boat was sent from Bellingham. [...]

Jeanne Socrates has completed her goal of a solo, non-stop circumnavigation on the third try. Jeanne and NEREIDA have spent time in Port Townsend and she has a number of friends (and many more admirers of her courage, seamanship and dedication to her goal) in the area. VICTORIA - The oldest female sailor to make a solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the globe has finally reached her goal. Seventy-year-old Jeanne Socrates set out from Victoria's Inner Harbour in her 11-metre cruiser Nereida on October 2012, and a note on her website says she returned to the harbour just before [...]

From Satch and Gail's early season trip up to the San Juan Islands, a video from Yellow Island.

Tales of voyages past and present of Jim Heumann, Karen Sullivan and their trusty Pacific Seacraft Dana 24, "Sockdolager," from Port Townsend, Washington, USA. Port Fitzroy, NZ. RUAKURI from SOCKDOLAGER's porthole The good ship Sockdolager has been at Great Barrier Island for the last few weeks, and we have a different kind of adventure for you this time, one with lots of endangered birds. We are feeling the press of the season, however--it's autumn here in the southern hemisphere--so sometime this week we will head for Great Mercury Island, a couple of harbors on the Pacific side of [...]

Here's hoping 2013 brings you great times out on the water.

Jeanne Socrates on her boat NEREIDA preparing to leave on her circumnavigation by the five great capes. Photo by BRUCE STOTESBURY, TIMES COLONIST. Sue Hoover passed along this email from Jeanne Socarates who spent a number of months in PT getting her boat NERERIDA prepared for her solo navigation. You can read more about the circumnavigation and Jeanne here and here. Greetings from 'Nereida'! We're very close now to the 'Pacific North West' and B.C. - I'm getting excited at the prospect of finishing my solo circumnavigation via the Five Great Capes of the Southern Ocean: C. Horn [...]

Simple, easy and relatively inexpensive to get into, RC sailing can be a lot of fun. Now, a fleet of T37’s from Tippecanoe Boats is starting up in Port Townsend. The new fleet plans to race locally, but other fleets are active in Port Madison, Seattle and Bellingham. The Seattle Yacht Club and Port Madison Yacht Club and West Vancouver yacht Club all have impressive fleets of T37s now. Our understanding is that 9 boats are on order already and the plan is to start a regular local race series. Note that this is a plywood kit boat that needs [...]

Karen Sullivan and her partner Jim Heumann left Port Townsend in July in their Dana 24, SOCKDOLAGER, and are enroute to Mexico and beyond, in the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.  Their blog, Karen and Jim’s Excellent Adventure, is at:  karenandjimsexcellentadventure.blogspot.com/ There’s no two ways about it: being out at sea changes me. It’s hard to write about this without streaking off on a tangent of froth. To an artist, the sea is a moody canvas of light, texture, color and motion to capture, but to a sailor, it’s more than that. The surface of the sea is a living membrane [...]

Canada's Transportation Safety Board has finally released its report on the loss of the school ship Concordia, the 188-foot square-rigger that capsized and sank off the coast of Brazil back in February of last year. Charles Donne reports that he was more than a little surprised by its conclusions: a) there was no microburst, as was reported by the captain and crew of the vessel; b) the ship's officers failed to follow guidance on securing the vessel and reducing sail area prior to the capsize. You can read the whole report here. If you have the time, it's [...]

From Orca Network, a group of ~ 6 to 9  orca's were sited off Pt. Wilson, Port Townsend at 9:30 am Sunday, February 20.

Senate Bill 5436 proposing the ban on copper paint only for recreational boats under 65 feet has been reviewed by the Port Townsend Moorage Tenants Union, a loose coalition of boat owners who organized themselves several years ago after the Port of Port Townsend tripled its moorage rates in 3 years, has reviewed the bill and issued a position paper. While the position paper reflects the work of many, the careful crafting by lead author Karen Sullivan should be noted. In the PTMTU’s view the bill is a hastily written, deeply flawed attempt to let everyone except recreational boats under [...]

Hopefully you got to meet Jeanne Socrates when she and her boat were parked over at Goldstar. Here’s an article from Sailing World. by Tim Zimmermann Let’s drink to the hard working people Let’s think of the lowly of birth Spare a thought for the rag taggy people Let’s drink to the salt of the earth—Rolling Stones It’s so easy to be preoccupied with the hot-shot professionals that are the royalty of sailing. They have commercial backing, the latest technology, and cutting-edge boats that just keep going faster and faster. And, yes, they are lots of fun to [...]

A picture from Friday's Coast Guard rescue demonstration off the Maritime Center's dock. Most impressive and a great demonstration of the Coast Guard's professionalism. In the picture you can see the rescue dummy already in the water and the diver with fins on getting ready to jump in.

What was it like to see salmon so thick in the rivers you could “smell them blocks away”? What seafoods were harvested on the beach? What was it like during the heyday of fishing on the Strait of Juan de Fuca? “Voices of the Strait”, a documentary by Al Bergstein interviewing people who have lived out here on the Peninsula over the last 50 years will be shown on August 26th   7:30 PM – PT Marine Science Center – On the beach at Fort Worden – Admission Free. […]

Lifted from the Bitter End blog here credited to Captain Richard Rodriquez. BitterEnd has learned: The issue in this particular problem is the intermediate shaft was switched to stainless steel at the direction of WSF to save money. The original Island Home had a carbon fiber intermediate shaft for the purpose of vibration dampening (torsional vibration). The designers changed it either without saying anything or without WSF listening to why it was originally carbon fiber. Now the situation is that the state basically has to accept the ship as it is because they directed that the shaft be [...]

Saw a post this morning on a rather large Humboldt Squid that washed up onto a beach on Discovery Bay. The best quote from the article might be "There are numerous reports of the squid attacking fishermen when hunted, and it is a predator to some creatures." Maybe sailboat keels? Geoduck farmer Peter Downey called to tell me that he found an 11 foot long Humboldt Squid (Dosidicus gigas) washed up on his beach on the 26th!  The squid is not usually found around these waters, but one was caught about a year ago, if my memory serves me well. [...]

The waters of Puget Sound and Hood Canal are becoming more acidified as a result of rising carbon dioxide from industries, power plants and vehicles. Scientists from the University of Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warn that the shifting water chemistry could damage the region's shellfish industry. By Craig Welch Seattle Times environment reporter The waters in Puget Sound's main basin are acidifying as fast as those along the Washington Coast, where wild oysters have not reproduced since 2005. And in parts of Hood Canal, home to much of the region's shellfish industry, water-chemistry problems are significantly [...]