PORT TOWNSEND — The sponsors of this fall’s Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival are looking for stories and photographs to mark the upcoming 40th anniversary.
“We started working on our 40th festival a week after last year’s festival ended,” said Barb Trailer, who is entering her fifth year as festival director.
“We want to have a big reunion party and want to find people who were at the first one who can tell us stories about what it was like.”
This year’s festival is scheduled from Sept. 9-11, the same dates as the first event in 1977.
While Trailer wants to gather specific stories and observations, photographs are at a premium.
“People didn’t take a lot of pictures back then as they do now,” Trailer said.
“They didn’t want to waste film, which was expensive to develop.”
Trailer said the festival was a success from the start, drawing a few thousand people the first year — more than expected.
“A lot of people just wandered in and stayed for the weekend,” she said.
The festival grew steadily until reaching an estimated plateau of 30,000 to 35,000 people over the past decade.
The exact numbers are never available, Trailer said; the open gates before and after the festival make counting all attendees impossible.
Trailer predicts this year “will be the biggest one ever.”
“We are at capacity on Saturdays but want to give people more incentives to come on Friday and Sunday,” she said.
One attraction added in 2015 was a paddleboard pool where attendees could practice their technique in a controlled area.
It’s too soon to say what special events will be created for this year’s festival, although there are already several ideas in play.
“We want to make it vibrant and exciting and are looking to get people to come back year after year by offering something a little bit different but with the same themes,” Trailer said.
One planned event is a special alumni reunion party the festival’s opening day, which Trailer expects will draw first-year attendees who want to relive the moment.
This year’s program will contain original art from the 1977 program, which Trailer said “was more like a brochure.”
There are no plans to publish a commemorative volume this year from the gathered material, Trailer said, although that is under consideration for the festival’s 50th anniversary.
“Publication takes a lot of work,” she said.
“And we are a small nonprofit that doesn’t have a lot of manpower.”
Anyone who has a story, a picture or a recollection from the 1977 Wooden Boat Festival can contact Trailer at barb@nwmaritime.org or call 360-385-3628, ext. 106.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
