PORT TOWNSEND — Voyaging around the world the old-fashioned way, electrifying your boat, making your way as a woman in the boatbuilding community: These are a few of the topics in the online “Ask an Expert” winter series starting today at 5 p.m.
The Northwest Maritime Center and Wooden Boat Festival crew are presenting the six-part series via Zoom, at $35 for the series pass, which includes on-demand viewing of most of the programs through mid-April.
Single programs are $9.99 each — except the final installment on March 17. That presentation, “LGBTQ+ and Finding My Way in the Maritime Industry” with Susan Brittain, is free to the public.
To purchase, visit www.woodenboat.org/ask-an-expert.
“It’s a very exciting lineup this year,” said Barb Trailer, the Wooden Boat Festival director who collaborated on the series.
Here’s the schedule of programs, all to be livestreamed from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
• Today: Mariner and author Nigel Calder discusses electrifying boats — with existing and foreseeable technology — to reduce their carbon footprint.
• Jan 20: “She Builds: Wit & Wisdom from Three Port Townsend Woman Boatbuilders” brings together female shipwrights and boat designers for a conversation about projects large and small as well as the challenges they have faced. Kaci Cronkhite moderates the discussion with Julia Maynard, Diana Talley and Esther Whitmore.
• Feb. 3: “Voyaging Revivals of Oceania: How Ancient Navigation and Boatbuilding Is Useful Today” with sailor and cultural anthropologist Mimi George exploring how ancient navigation and boatbuilding knowledge can be applied to today’s problems.
• Feb. 17: “Create a Vessel Stewardship Plan” with Andy Stewart and Zachary Simonson-Bond delves into managing the competing interests of ownership and ownership succession; audience questions will be encouraged.
• March 3: “Northwest Maritime Center Adventure Races: 2022 Is Not Going to Suck” features Race to Alaska and Seventy48 boss Daniel Evans and marshal Jesse Wiegel. The two will talk races, racers and odds.
• March 17: “LGBTQ+ and Finding My Way in the Maritime Industry,” an open discussion with a panel of LGBTQ+ mariners, is moderated by Susan Brittain of Marrowstone Island, a transgender woman who has been in the industry for more than 40 years.
Jefferson County senior reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz @peninsula dailynews.com.
