PORT TOWNSEND — The schooner Adventuress has officially shut down its 2012 season.
The 100-ton vessel was hauled out Friday and put on the hard at the Boat Haven in Port Townsend for winter repairs.
Next year is special for the ship: It will be celebrating its centennial.
“We are already playing that game, saying that when she next goes into the water, she will be 100 years old,” said Joshua Berger, one of the ship’s two captains.
The Adventuress had her maiden voyage in February 1913.
Berger expects the 100-year commemoration to begin with a launch sometime in March.
The Adventuress was built by John Borden with the purpose of sailing to Alaska.
Instead, a year later, the schooner was sold to the Port of San Francisco as a pilot ship.
It was sold again in 1952 and moved to the Pacific Northwest.
The nonprofit Sound Experience, based in Port Townsend, has operated the schooner for educational purposes since 1989.
In recent years, an average of 5,000 people annually have participated in its sailing programs, with that many again visiting the ship in port.
The Adventuress was in the news recently after its ship’s wheel was stolen while it was in port in Olympia on Oct. 6.
According to Catherine Collins, Sound Experience’s executive director, the wheel has not been found, but Ben & Jerry’s ice cream stores in Washington pledged to give anyone with information leading to the recovery of the wheel one free ice-cream cone per day for a year.
Collins also said she will be visiting Edson International in New Bedford, Mass., in November. The 125-year-old company manufactured the schooner’s original wheel hub, which is an unusual size.
“If we can secure a hub, we can have a new wheel fitted” before the centennial launch in March, Collins said.
The main repair to be done this year, however, will be to replace the red planking below the waterline on the port side.
Berger said that it will require swapping out 1,800 linear feet of wood.
Sound Experience is raising money now for the same procedure on the starboard side, expected to be done in the next few years.
“We don’t have to replace the starboard side right away but I wouldn’t want to sail around like that for 20 years,” he said.
Berger said that the $300,000 for this winter’s upgrades have been raised, with the same amount needed to finish the starboard side.
Berger said that the Adventuress supports the local economy, hiring four to six shipwrights at any particular time.
“The Adventuress is part of the region’s identity,” Berger said.
“It’s amazing to see the educational and economic and historical aspects that the ship represents, it’s a pretty powerful thing.”
For more information, go to www.soundexp.org.
Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
News Editor Margaret McKenzie assistedi in the reporting of this article.
