PORT TOWNSEND — Luis Peaze came a long way to attend the 33rd Wooden Boat Festival — all the way from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Indeed, Peaze was the most distant visitor of those attending the three-day festival, which continues today, festival manager Kaci Cronkhite said.
The festival at Point Hudson Marina opens at 9 a.m. and runs until 10 p.m. at Point Hudson Marina. Tickets are $12 for one day.
Cronkhite estimated attendance at about 15 percent over the 30,000 who attended in 2008.
“That’s huge. I expected 5 percent,” she said.
She said the weather and the new maritime center opening were two likely factors in drawing more people.
The ferry from Keystone was “overloaded” with foot passengers Friday and Saturday, she said.
Cronkhite said the festival this year drew 163 boats in the water and about 50 exhibited ashore. About 80 trades vendors and 20 food vendors also are on shore.
There is more room for people to mill about this year, she said, with the partial opening of the Northwest Maritime Center, which now serves as the home of the Wooden Boat Festival.
The boat shop and new grounds around the maritime center were humming with people eying dinghies and other small wooden water crafts.
While no tall ships were in attendance this year, many of the mainstays were crisscrossing Port Townsend Bay, including the schooner Adventuress, the schooner Martha and the gaff rig schooner Mycia, built in Port Townsend by John Maher.
At the maritime center’s boat shop, a Vietnamese wooden boat was on display.
The boat, brought to Port Townsend by the late John Doney, a Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuiding board member in Port Hadlock, was one of the more unusual crafts exhibited.
New this year is an exhibit of alternative power sources for boats, including solar and wind.
Cronkhite said that 11 boats were on display with electric or hybrid engines.
The festival on Friday was blessed by warm weather and clear skies that revealed views of Mount Baker to the north and Mount Rainier, eastward.
The wind picked up in the afternoon, making sailors happy.
Street musicians on Water Street, including former Klickitat ferry harpist David Michael, entertained those walking to the festival and sea shanties could be heard lilting from the tent stage near the Cupola House at Point Hudson.
Cronkhite said car ferry reservations on the Steilacoom II from Keystone on Whidbey Island to Port Townsend were difficult to make after 11 a.m. Friday, but that visitors were finding ways to walk onto the ferry and leave their cars behind.
“We expect a lot of people from the Olympic Peninsula,” she said.
For more information on the festival, a schedule of events and a list of boats registered and open to the public, see www.woodenboat.org/festival.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
