PORT TOWNSEND — The crew of the schooner Adventuress is extending its January work weekend by including the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service on Monday.
That means community members have three days this weekend to help fix up the historic ship.
“Every month, we do a weekend, which is a time when our community gets together to show some love to the Adventur- ess,” said Adventuress mate Jesse Wiegel.
From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sunday and Monday, community members are invited to come down to the Adventuress to volunteer their time repairing and refurbishing the National Historic Landmark.
“During the sailing season, we don’t have time for maintenance,” Wiegel said. “We try to jam it all in during the winter, and these days, we are able to get more done.”
The event will start with coffee and small breakfast snacks on the schooner served at 9 a.m. The event will run until roughly 4 p.m. with a lunch break, according to Wiegel.
“That’s thanks to some of the volunteers who take over the galley,” Wiegel said.
Those who attend will be broken up into groups and assigned projects.
“There’s always sanding to do,” Wiegel said. “We’re preparing to varnish pretty much anything that needs to be varnished. So we’ll paint things and varnish things. There may be a little bit of woodworking and fixing of things that are broken.”
Those broken things include replacing one of the ladders leading to belowdeck that hasn’t been replaced in years and a sliding hatch.
The work weekends on the schooner have been a tradition since the 1990s, according to Korie Griffith at Sound Experience.
The winter crew of the Adventuress is made up entirely of volunteers, and this month, they have only about six people. According to Wiegel, the work weekends are a huge help in ensuring the Adventuress is well-maintained and ready for its next sailing season, which is scheduled to begin in early March.
“I’ve seen as few as 15 people, and I think the biggest work weekend I’ve seen, we had somewhere around 50 people,” Wiegel said.
The weekend is open to people of all ages, and no experience is required.
“We get a lot of the local community members from Port Townsend,” Wiegel said. “We’ve had a lot of retirees come down here during the week and take on projects.
“We also get parents bringing their kids down here for events like this so we get everybody out here.”
The Adventuress is currently docked in Port Townsend’s Point Hudson Marina at the north end of Water Street.
“She’s the biggest boat in there and covered in a big white sheet,” Wiegel said. “She’s kind of hard to miss.”
Volunteers are welcome to show up at the docks anytime between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday through Monday this weekend.
For more information, see www.soundexp.org.
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Jefferson County Editor/Reporter Cydney McFarland can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 55052, or at cmcfarland@peninsuladailynews.com.
The Adventuress is docked in Port Townsend’s Point Hudson Marina, covered in a white tarp to allow for work to happen on-deck throughout the winter months. (Cydney McFarland/Peninsula Daily News)
