wooden boat: Wooden-boat fans share passion with landlubbers
By Karen Gaudette
Adrian Ahlstrom built his first wooden boat in about 15 minutes — masts, sails and all.
His mom, Delmar, wasn't sure it would be seaworthy. She turned it over in her hand to reveal a little secret: a hole where the hand drill had gone a bit too far.
"I think it's gonna sink," she confided with a grin as her 2 ½-year-old clambered onto a giant propeller on the grass nearby.
But no matter. Wooden boats have a long tradition of coming back from the deep, of being rebuilt, repainted, renewed.
Just ask fans at the 30th annual Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival, many of whom described owning such a vessel as embarking upon a passionate relationship, one complete with sleepless nights, thousands of dollars spent and a love that requires constant attention.
"It's a love affair, really. You're never done," said Craig Kinnaman, an engineer aboard the Sand Man, a 96-year-old tugboat from Olympia that he helped restore after a failed bilge pump sent it foundering up to its smokestack at the city's Swantown Marina.
The festival runs through Tuesday at the Center for Wooden Boats along the south end of Lake Union. It features tours of historic vessels and speedboats, jaunts around the lake in rowboats, boat-building demonstrations, displays of nautical art and equipment and a model-boat pond.
History floats
Like floating museums,
wooden boats reveal their histories everywhere: in the smoky walls of galleys, in the pitted, aging decks where lumbermen stomped around in cleated boots, in the worn spots of captain's wheels where weathered hands once grasped.
"If God had wanted us to have fiberglass boats, He would have made fiberglass trees," said a placard on one boat.
Handmade canoes agleam with varnish sat in the sun, ready to be caressed and ogled. Richard Cleveland of Klamath Falls, Ore., crafts and restores wooden canoes. Nothing glides along the water as quietly, he said. He remembered once he and his wife, Lorena, surprised an otter that glanced up and suddenly realized it had company only an arm's length away.
Walt Plimpton, a festival volunteer and wooden-boat aficionado, likes to admire the design of many boats docked near the center. You can judge a boat's quality by its proportions, Plimpton said, by its blend of form and function. He stops to admire the smooth lines and colors of a fishing boat, the Molle B.
"It's a work boat, but it has wonderful aesthetics," he said.
Landlubber questions
A stroll around the festival grounds offers a tour of some of the more interesting detritus of seafaring: Piles of rusty chains, a propeller the size of a child's sandbox, random anchors strewn about with bits of rotting rope.
Exhibitors at the festival cheerfully explain mysteries to landlubbers. For instance, how do pots and pans cling to stovetops when the boat's afloat? Answer: Usually, they're penned in by little guardrails. One booth offers free temporary pirate tattoos. All the Jolly Roger pirate flags were gone by lunchtime.
Back at the boat-building tent, Ethan Merchant, 10, of Spokane, put the finishing touches on his creation. After cruising Lake Union earlier in the day, he says he wants a houseboat and a sailboat.
What would he name that sailboat?
"Maybe the Waverider," Ethan said.
Karen Gaudette: 206-515-5618 or kgaudette@seattletimes.com
or call 206-382-2628 for more information.
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
