Hooked On Wooden Boats

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Latest Episodes:

HOWB 067 – Interview | Diana Hennick, Visitor Services Guru at the Center for Wooden Boats - 12.27.12 Oct 16, 2023

Show notes

Diana is a NOAA brat – her dad was a commissioned officer in the the NOAA Corp and met her mom – a civilian deckhand – on board a research vessel in the Bering Sea.

Diana was born in San Diego, and lived in Maryland for a few years before her family settled in Seattle. After getting her undergraduate degree in Anthropology from Western Washington University, she had the rare opportunity to do an internship at the Maritime History department of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. This was a home run museum experience so Diana enrolled and completed her graduate degree in museology at the University of Washington.

After graduating, she worked for 4 years at the Northwest Seaport in Seattle where she had done her Masters Thesis on the historic tug Arthur Foss. Northwest Seaport’s mission is to preserve maritime heritage thru large craft such as the Arthur Foss.

Next stop was the Center For Wooden Boats where Diana is the Visitor Services Manager today. She loves her role of finding creative ways for the community to interact and engage with the Center as an outdoor small craft living museum. Diana loves her parents sea stories and has taught sailing in the San Juan Islands.

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You can contact me at woodenboatdan@gmail.com to share your comments, feedback, stories, and wooden boat adventures.

Keep the bright side up and the barnacled side down - Wooden Boat Dan over and out :D

PS Please note this podcast was recorded several years ago - some of the links, email addresses, phone numbers, and promos mentioned are outdated and no longer valid.

HOWB 066 – Interview | Dan Leach, boatwright and Center for Wooden Boats Community Engagement Lead - 12.20.12 Oct 09, 2023

Show notes

Dan Leach is one of those gents that makes you feel right at home from the first time you shake his hand – which for me was October 2011 when I went to the Center For Wooden Boats to interview the founder, Dick Wagner for HOWB 004. I had the privilege to interview Dan a few weeks ago – which was a real blast for me (hanging out at the CWB comes natural – haha).

Dan grew up in Seattle, the son of a woodworker and grandson of a home builder. His parents owned a 14ʹ Rhodes Bantam racing class sloop – and his grandparents a 17ʹ ski boat. Dan water skied behind the power boat, but preferred getting out on his parents sailboat and occasionally racing. After studying political science and history at the University of Michigan, Dan moved to Eugene OR, started his news radio career, got married and had a couple kids.

Eventually moving back to Seattle, Dan continued his radio career, and did a marketing stint a Microsoft before deciding to enroll in the 2 year Marine Carpentry Program at Seattle Central Community College to “learn more about boats” and gain some woodworking skills. After graduating Dan went to work at Dunbar Marine in Seattle restoring and repairing wooden vessels.

Dan had been a volunteer at the Center for Wooden Boats for years. One day in 2011, he was talking to Betsy Davis (exec director) and she said “we need you” to lead business engagement and sponsorship development to keep the programs and museum collection of small craft alive and well. Dan agreed, on the condition, that he could work one day a week as a boatwright. Dan enjoys his role and loves having his office on a floating dock. Dan has since moved on.

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You can contact me at woodenboatdan@gmail.com to share you comments, feedback, stories, and wooden boat adventures.

Keep the bright side up and the barnacled side down - Wooden Boat Dan over and out :D

PS Please note this podcast was recorded several years ago - some of the links, email addresses, phone numbers, and promos mentioned are outdated and no longer valid.

HOWB 065 – Interview | Jeff Hammond: Master Wooden Boatwright, Instructor, and Seasoned Carpenter - 12.13.12 Oct 02, 2023

Show notes

Behind Jeff Hammond’s laid back demeanor and Wisconsin drawl is a Master Boat Builder and seasoned instructor who is the Real McCoy. He’s been instructing at the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building since 1985 and retired a few years back.

As a youth in Wisconsin, Jeff built model boats and canoed with his family on local lakes. After school he entered the construction trade, building houses and cabinets and messing with a few boat building projects here and there. It was a tough time for the construction business, so in 1984 Jeff visited a schoolmate in the Seattle area to look for improved work opportunities. When he told her of his interest in boat building, she suggested they visit Port Townsend and the 4 year old Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building.

Jeff got a tour of the school one fateful day in December 1984 and knew the minute he left, that he would return as a student. Four months later he was enrolled in a 6 month course at the school with 8 classmates. At the end of the term, he enrolled for another 6 months and was asked to work for the school, which he did as instructor, shop person, and student helper.

Five weeks after finishing his second term, Jeff was asked by founder Bob Prothero to return to the school as a regular instructor to replace a retiring instructor. Jeff couldn’t have been more excited for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with beautiful woods on hand crafted boats. He taught at the school for more than 30 years!

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You can contact me at woodenboatdan@gmail.com to share you comments, feedback, stories, and wooden boat adventures.

Keep the bright side up and the barnacled side down - Wooden Boat Dan over and out :D

PS Please note this podcast was recorded several years ago - some of the links, email addresses, phone numbers, and promos mentioned are outdated and no longer valid.

HOWB 064 – Interview: Wendy Hinman; Woodenboat Blue Water Sailor, Author, and Self Confessed Tightwad! - 12.03.12 Sep 25, 2023

Show notes

Wendy grew up the daughter of a Navy dentist, who made frequent military moves. When her dad was given an assignment in Hawaii, Wendy’s parents bought a Cal ’27 sailboat and enrolled the entire family in sailing lessons. At the age of 7, Wendy was getting her sea legs sailing the Hawaiian Islands. Next, Wendy’s family moved to Washington, DC and began sailing the Chesapeake Bay on a Catalina ’30. Soon Wendy was teaching sailing utilizing the advanced skills she had learned as a youth.

Wendy’s husband Garth also grew up in a sailing family. In fact, during his youth, Garth spent 5 years circumnavigating the world with his parents and siblings. Their trip included a shipwreck in Fiji and other extreme adventures and all navigation was celestial (can you spell sextant?).

It’s not surprising that early in their marriage, Garth and Wendy made plans for their own blue water extravaganza. The first order of business was to save money and pay off their home so they could “get away” for several years and live off the modest $1,000 per month their home would rent for. In 1998 they bought a 31ʹ Tom Wylie designed cold molded cutter – Velella – and 2 years later they were off on their 7 year, 34,000 mile adventure around the Pacific. Wendy has chronicled their blue water undertaking in her newly released book – Tightwads On the Loose: A Seven Year Pacific Odyssey. You can also check out Wendy’s website: WendyHinman.com.

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You can contact me at woodenboatdan@gmail.com to share you comments, feedback, stories, and wooden boat adventures.

Keep the bright side up and the barnacled side down - Wooden Boat Dan over and out :D

PS Please note this podcast was recorded several years ago - some of the links, email addresses, phone numbers, and promos mentioned are outdated and no longer valid.

HOWB 063 -Interview: Katie Whalen of NW School of Wooden Boat Building; Wooden Boat Owner and Lover; Can’t Wait to Get to Work Every Day! - 11.29.12 Sep 18, 2023

Show notes

Judging by her enthusiasm and passion for her work at the NW School of Wooden Boat Building, you’d think Katie Whalen had been a hard core wooden boat devotee since her childhood. Quite to the contrary, Katie grew up in southern California as a complete land lubber. It wasn’t until she visited Washington state as an adult that she got a on “boat” for the first time – a Washington state passenger ferry.

Katie was first introduced to the Boat School in the early 1990’s, fell in love with it, and immediately began volunteering. She was fascinated by the school’s mission and the dedication of the small staff, including shipwright Jeff Hammond. Katie was working in Port Townsend in 2006 when she heard the School’s business manager position was being vacated. Katie applied and has loved her dream job ever since. In Katie’s own words, the Boat School “is the real deal”!

In 2011 Katie couldn’t pass up the opportunity to purchase her first wooden boat – a 26ʹ William Atkin’s designed gaff rigged cutter – Barakah. She is a traditional plank on frame carvel planked beauty that was built by the School in 1995.

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You can contact me at woodenboatdan@gmail.com to share you comments, feedback, stories, and wooden boat adventures.

Keep the bright side up and the barnacled side down - Wooden Boat Dan over and out :D

PS Please note this podcast was recorded several years ago - some of the links, email addresses, phone numbers, and promos mentioned are outdated and no longer valid.

HOWB 062 – Interview: Captain Robert d’Arcy of the Schooner Martha; 4th Generation Shipwright and Wooden Boat Master - 11.22.12 Sep 11, 2023

Show notes

Today’s interview is with Captain Robert d’Arcy. d’Arcy grew up in Rhode Island, the son of a shipwright. In fact he is a 4th generation shipwright – his great grandfather learned the trade in Scotland and the skills were passed down thru the generations. Robert worked in his dad’s boat shop as a kid starting with sweeping, cleaning, stacking, then moving on to building and restoring. After high school he worked beside his dad to restore a 1914 Nova Scotian schooner that was 46ʹ on deck. Next was a 5 year stint at the Mystic Seaport Museum (CT), doing restoration work on vessels such as the 1841 Wooden Whaling Ship Charles W. Morgan, and the 123ʹ fishing schooner L.A. Dunton.

Robert had friends who owned a 1910 Victorian B&B that needed work, so he switched gears and began using his woodworking skills to repair and renovate Victorian and Colonial homes. In 1995 he moved to the Puget Sound area and met mariners from the Schooner Zodiac and the Northwest Schooner Society. The Society was to become the recipient of a 1907 BB Crowninshield designed 84ʹ Schooner – Martha. They asked Captain d’Arcy if he would be willing to set up a sail training foundation, spearhead the restoration of Martha, and become her Captain.

The boat needed significant restoration work so Robert did his homework on her pedigree and history. She was a worthy steed with a rich and documented history, so he took on the project and established the SchoonerMartha.org Foundation. Martha has been fully restored under d’Arcy’s care over a period of several years and she is being used for sail training on the waters of Puget Sound.

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You can contact me at woodenboatdan@gmail.com to share you comments, feedback, stories, and wooden boat adventures.

Keep the bright side up and the barnacled side down - Wooden Boat Dan over and out :D

PS Please note this podcast was recorded several years ago - some of the links, email addresses, phone numbers, and promos mentioned are outdated and no longer valid.

HOWB 061 – Interview Part 2 of 2: John Lockwood, Self Confessed “Wilderness Freak”, Wooden Boat Guru, Founder Pygmy Boats - 11.15.12 Sep 04, 2023

Show notes

Today’s podcast is Part 2 of my interview with John Lockwood, founder and owner of Pygmy Boats in Port Townsend, WA. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 of the interview, I recommend you start there first by listening to Episode 60.

In Part 2 of the interview, John talks about how he excelled as a computer programmer for 12 years (although it drove him crazy to be indoors all that time), and programmed the first commercially available Plate Expansion Software for “developable surfaces”. He also got the bug big-time to blend his passions and skills together to start a business where he was in control. The result was the 1986 birth of Pygmy Kayaks (now Pygmy Boats) – a stitch and glue boat kit business in Port Townsend. Pygmy Boats offers a large selection of kayaks kits to choose from in addition to a canoe and WineGlass Wherry kit. ------------------------------------------------

You can contact me at woodenboatdan@gmail.com to share you comments, feedback, stories, and wooden boat adventures.

Keep the bright side up and the barnacled side down - Wooden Boat Dan over and out :D

PS Please note this podcast was recorded several years ago - some of the links, email addresses, phone numbers, and promos mentioned are outdated and no longer valid.

HOWB 060 – Interview Part 1 of 2: John Lockwood, Self Confessed “Wilderness Freak”, Wooden Boat Guru, Founder Pygmy Boats - 11.08.12 Aug 28, 2023

Show notes

Today’s interview is with John Lockwood, founder and owner of Pygmy Boats in Port Townsend, WA. John is originally from St. Louis, Missouri where he bird hunted, and played and fished on the lakes and rivers with his family in their 20ʹ canoe. During this time, John got HOOKED (no pun intended :)) on exploring, fishing, swimming, camping and enjoying the great outdoors.

After a one year stint at Union College in New York, John launched into a 5 year adventure of traveling and exploring the mountains, rivers, wildernesses, and outdoors of the US and Mexico. The recurring theme was to work and save, then travel and explore until funds needed replenished; then work and save, and repeat. John’s stops included the Palouse in eastern Washington (wheat farm), the Snake River (drillers helper), the Wollowa Mountains in Oregon (horse packing fisherman to high lakes), and Aspen, Colorado (ski area), among others.

In 1968, John broke his hip and was on crutches for 7 1/2 years. This turn of events took John abruptly out of the wilderness and to the halls of Harvard where he studied Anthropology and Computer Science. He was especially intrigued by his studies of the Pygmy people (thus the company name: Pygmy Boats) who are “hunter gatherers”.

During his years in Cambridge, he yearned to get back to the wilderness. In spite of his limited mobility on crutches, John knew he could propel himself thru the water in a kayak using his upper body strength. So in 1970, he strapped a collapsible Klepper kayak on his back, took a train to Whitehorse, Yukon Canada and solo kayaked 900 miles down the Yukon River.

This was just the beginning of John’s many adventures on and off the water designing, building, and using small boats.

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You can contact me at woodenboatdan@gmail.com to share you comments, feedback, stories, and wooden boat adventures.

Keep the bright side up and the barnacled side down - Wooden Boat Dan over and out :D

PS Please note this podcast was recorded several years ago - some of the links, email addresses, phone numbers, and promos mentioned are outdated and no longer valid.

HOWB 059 – Interview: Sean & Inger Rankins, Sail and Canvas Makers, Wooden Boat Lovers, Spissgatter owners - 11.01.12 Aug 21, 2023

Show notes

Today’s interview is with Sean & Inger Rankins of Port Townsend, WA. The Rankins own and operate Northwest Sail and Canvas Makers.

Inger is originally from Norway, and as a youth was regularly rowing the families wooden clinker workboats to and fro the island her grandparents lived on. Inger learned to sew her own clothes at a young age, and in 1990 began applying those skills to marine canvas work. She has had her own marine canvas business since 1999 and enjoys the creativity of making sail covers, boat covers and other canvas boat parts.

Sean grew up in southern California boating and fishing in his dad’s classic woody boats. After college, Sean began sailing and became a sailmaker apprentice at North Sails in San Diego. Sean crafts custom sails from his loft in Port Hadlock, WA. He enjoys working with his hands, and getting out on the water every chance he gets.

Among other boats, Sean and Inger own a 26ʹ Danish Spidsgatter 38 meter class – Cito, and a 20ʹ Norwegian Spissgatter keelboat - Havhesten.

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You can contact me at woodenboatdan@gmail.com to share you comments, feedback, stories, and wooden boat adventures.

Keep the bright side up and the barnacled side down - Wooden Boat Dan over and out :D

PS Please note this podcast was recorded several years ago - some of the links, email addresses, phone numbers, and promos mentioned are outdated and no longer valid.

HOWB 058 – Interview: Kaci Cronkhite, wooden boat lover, former wooden boat festival director, circumnavagator - 10.25.12 Aug 14, 2023

Show notes

Today’s interview is with Kaci Cronkhite of Port Townsend. Kaci grew up on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma riding horses and waterskiing behind her family’s Chris Craft runabout. Her ancestors were dutch, and the first family emigrant to the US was a shipbuilder.

When Kaci was in her 30’s, she sailed for the first time and it felt eerily familiar to horseback riding – position, balance, wind in your hair. She was intrigued and hooked at the same time. A few years later she sailed Australia to Hawaii upwind with a friend (with 10 days “hove to”) and then was on to a 6 year circumnavigation which included training others to sail.

When Kaci arrived in Port Townsend in 2001, she was asked to become the Wooden Boat Festival Director. She dove in head first and for the next 10 years gave it 110%. In 2007 Kaci purchased her first wooden boat – a 28ʹ Danish Spidsgatter “Pax” built in 1936. Kaci is finishing a restoration on the boat and is writing a book about her history – Finding Pax – to be published shortly.

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You can contact me at woodenboatdan@gmail.com to share you comments, feedback, stories, and wooden boat adventures.

Keep the bright side up and the barnacled side down - Wooden Boat Dan over and out :D

PS Please note this podcast was recorded several years ago - some of the links, email addresses, phone numbers, and promos mentioned are outdated and no longer valid.

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