PORT TOWNSEND — The opposite of the Wooden Boat Festival is the Pocket Yacht Palooza.
From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, an informal group of small-boat enthusiasts will occupy the same space that fills with some 30,000 people in September.
The event is free to the public.
“This is the largest small-boat gathering anywhere on the West Coast,” said Marty Loken, who founded the event that is celebrating its fifth anniversary.
“There are no complications.”
The event takes place on the First Festival Commons behind the Northwest Maritime Center, 431 Water St.
Loken said it is a celebration of interesting small-craft design, featuring wooden, fiberglass and skin-on-frame watercraft in the 6-foot-to-24-foot range, with some emphasis on camp-cruising abilities.
Sixty participants
He expects about 60 participants, who will park their boats on the courtyard behind the maritime center as well as adjacent beaches.
There is a wider geographical range this year, he said, with boaters traveling from Oregon, California, British Columbia, Idaho and possibly Texas as well as from throughout Washington state.
Lokens said about half the group hangs around for the four-day Palooza Crooza, leaving the maritime center no later than 10 a.m. Sunday.
This year, the group will sail to Discovery Bay, Sequim Bay and Dungeness Bay, spending one night at each.
The Port Townsend PT Pocket Yachters is an atypical club, Loken said, if it is even a club at all.
There are no officers, bylaws or membership dues, and they can be impetuous.
“During the Palooza Crooza, we might just change course at the last minute,” he said.
“We’re that kind of loose group.”
For more information, go to http://tinyurl.com/PDN-pocket.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
