PORT TOWNSEND — Two days before the opening of the 39th Wooden Boat Festival, organizers say they still could use a few good volunteers.
“We could really use help,” said Barb Trailer, the festival director.
“It’s so much fun to work the Wooden Boat Festival,” she added.
“It’s such a community event.”
While boats will be moving in on Thursday, activities begin Friday and continue Saturday and Sunday in and around Point Hudson and the Northwest Maritime Center, 431 Water St., Port Townsend.
Volunteering “is the best way to get to know people. We laugh a lot even when it’s chaos,” Trailer said.
“We are happy if people sign up ahead of time — I sleep better that way — but we are also happy if people just show up at the volunteer tent.”
It’s not skilled labor, Trailer said. Help is needed in greeting people, taking money, making change and parking assistance.
A volunteer shift earns free admission for that day.
Training is on the fly and usually takes about 15 minutes per person, Trailer said.
Preparation for the festival is nothing less than a transformation, she said.
“There is a lot going on right now,” she said.
“We are working to take a marina that has 50 slips and packing in 150 boats in that space,” Trailer said.
“We shut down the whole marina and make room for 50 or 60 vendors and three bars, put up tents and create this party space, which takes a lot of energy,” Trailer said.
It takes a lot of work and organization to make it safe and secure.
Once that is accomplished things changed.
“On Thursday night the pace changes, everyone relaxes and it becomes the Wooden Boat Festival,” Trailer said.
The standard estimate for festival attendance is 35,000 people although Trailer said an exact number can’t be pinned down.
“We try to count but it’s an impossible task,” she said.
“We may get a handle on how many people come in during the day, but at night we open it up and everyone gets in and we don’t have anyone there with a clicker.”
Trailer said the festival could accommodate more people but Port Townsend cannot.
“It really stretches the town’s infrastructure,” she said.
Trailer said that staff, volunteers and community members contribute to the event’s success.
“People have a lot of perseverance and make this happen, no matter what is happening in their own lives,” she said.
Some of the highlights of this year’s festival, according to a press release:
■ The first Western Flyer Exhibition, celebrating the restoration of the famous John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts boat Western Flyer, and book The Sea of Cortez. There will be presentations, historic artifacts and photos.
■ Michael Tougias, author of The Sinking of the Bounty and The Finest Hours, will give two presentations.
■ In the technical realm, Ralph Naranjo, author of The Art of Seamanship, Garret Hack, and others will share their skills and expertise in a number of one-hour presentations.
■ Vixen, a 36-foot Atkins design will return to the festival after being discovered at the 2001 version, purchased and taken on an 11-year circumnavigation with two children aboard.
■ Two of the wooden boats which participated in the first-ever Race to Alaska will be displayed.
Racers will be on hand throughout the weekend. Presentations and a celebration are planned.
Details of details of next year’s race will be announced.
For the weekend’s schedule, see www.woodenboat.org. Information also can be found on the Wooden Boat Festival Facebook page.
For more information, or to volunteer, contact Trailer at barb@nwmaritime.org.
________
Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
