Lin Pardey will discuss her incredible life as an adventurer.
Lin Pardey | Adventurer and Author
Lin Pardey is one of the most influential sailors and writers of our time. With hundreds of thousands of ocean miles sailed and over a dozen books, Lin has helped inspire countless adventurers to go simple, go small, and go now.
Lin’s Books | Lin’s Website
What makes a good small boat? What are the key considerations when designing a small boat? And what are some good examples of small boat design?
Whether you’re rowing, sailing, paddling, or just floating, small craft can distill the dynamics of being on the water and provide poignant experiences often lost in the complication of larger vessels.
John, Clint Chase, and Ross use examples from their own drawing boards as well as others’ to illustrate the many different facets of small boat design. Live Q&A to follow.
Clint Chase | Owner, Chase Small Craft
Ross Lillistone | Boatbuilder (Retired), Designer, Author
John Welsford | Owner, Welsford Boat Designs
Here’s a list of the most influential books for these three small boat designers.
Kevin will help demystify the wires throughout our boats and the place individual systems make up in one large system – the boat itself! Through education, awareness, and planning, Kevin will share his knowledge and passion to help us improve the safety and functionality of our boats. Live Q&A to follow.
Kevin Ritz | ABYC Master – Systems Lead Instructor, Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding
For Kevin Ritz, helping create safe marine systems is more than a job – it’s a dedicated personal mission.
In the face of a marine-based tragedy, Kevin Ritz went from cruising with his family to an intense focus on learning all he could about marine electrical and electric shock drowning. He founded a national organization, the Electric Shock Drowning Prevention Association, and has earned certification as an ABYC Master Technician after successfully completing six certifications, including: Marine Electrical, Marine Corrosion, Marine Standards, Marine Master Technician, Marine Gasoline Engine, Marine Systems Certification. In time Kevin became the ABYC’s Lead Instructor and received their Life Service Award in 2015. Kevin founded Marine Systems program at the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding.
Jeanne will share inspiring stories from her life on the water. Live Q&A to follow.
Jeanne Goussev | Sailor, 2x Race to Alaska Winner
In 2018, Jeanne Goussev’s Team Sail Like A Girl showed up to R2AK with a buoy-racing monohull and seven adventure-seekers who flipped the race’s early conventional wisdom on its head. 3 years of multihull victories indicated the winning formula was clear. But after 6 days of smashing logs up the Inside Passage and dipping their spreaders during knockdowns in Hecate Strait, Sail Like A Girl was first across the line in Ketchikan, becoming the first monohull and first all-women’s team to take home the $10,000 nailed to a tree.
Sail Like A Girl returned for a hard-fought 4th Place in 2019 and in 2023, Jeanne led a new team, We Brake For Whales. Now aboard her family boat, the beautiful and fast Martin Custom 40 GRAY WOLF (it’s in the show!), Jeanne again denied the myriad multihulls to become one just a few 2-time R2AK champions.
Tom Robinson sits down with Luke Powell to discuss building traditional boats in a modern world, specifically the largest pilot cutter built since the 1870s, the 68′ PELLEW.
Learn more about Luke Powell’s pilot cutters on his company’s Working Sail website.
Here’s Working Sails page at the Show.
Here’s Venture Sail Holidays’ page at the Show.
Tom Robinson rows from Tongareva (Penrhyn Island) to American Samoa, confronting his first major medical issue and working to keep up his motivation to row all day, every day.
Here’s MAIWAR’s page at the Show.
Here’s Tom’s Underwood’s Marine page at the Show
Ever wonder what it would be like to get a floating tour of Center Harbor by two local guys who know the boats, the place, and the stories as well as anyone? Well here ya go . . .
Legendary sailmaker Carol Hasse shows us how to tell your jib from your genoa and how to manage headsail trim for better performance in a clear, concise way that’s been recognized as the best explanation around.
Here’s Hasse & Co. Port Townsend Sails’ page at the Show.
How do you build wooden boats to last for over a century dependably? Ask the Kiwis, that’s how they do it. So we went and we learned with inveterate wooden boat nut Maynard Bray.
Here’s Brookes Boatbuilding’s page at the Show.
Here’s Maynard’s L.F. Herreshoff Sloop LILY’s page in the Show.
An experienced Northwest shipwright and cruiser takes us aboard his own wooden motor trawler, RAVEN, in which there seems to be a compartment for everything. And then some.
Here’s RAVEN’s page at the Show.
Part of our ongoing series with lobster boat expert Peter Buxton, who shows us how he puts in the steam-bent frames that form the shape and structure of the hull.
Here’s Buxton Boats’ page at the Show.
This visit to the “World of Harry Bryan” might just get you thinking about how you can make your shop a more innovative, environmentally conscious place to work.
Here’s Bryan Boatbuilding’s page at the Show.
Jean-Jacques Chapalain takes us inside the history of the old working waterfront of Douarnenez, where the sardine and tuna fisheries were the center of life for much of the 20th century.
Here’s the Douarnenez Maritime Festival’s page at the Show.
Here’s the Douarnenez Port Museum’s page at the Show.
The Drake Rowboat is a boat we believe in. She’s a good boat to build, and row, and you can take her just about anywhere on adventures. Here we join a friend for a morning row on the coast of Maine. She bought the kit from Chase Small Craft (link below in Nav further) and then she had Eric Dow Boat Shop (link below) build it. Jump aboard, let’s follow here on an early row in the calm fog of a Maine morning.
Here’s Chase Small Craft’s page at the Show.
Here’s Eric Dow Boat Builder’s Page
Festivals are the lifeblood of the classic boat world. They incentivize boat owners far and wide to give their craft a little extra love and care so they can proudly share the fruits of their labor with friends old and new.
Some boat festivals seem to possess a special recipe. These gatherings of maritime culture go far beyond just displaying nice boats – they foster a celebratory atmosphere with music, vendors, events, and most of all community.
We’re gathering the folks in charge of three festivals which exemplify this magical confluence of good boats, people, and experiences to gain some insight into their “special recipes.”
Paul Stephanus | GM & Director, Australian Wooden Boat Festival
Loïc Hénaff | Former Président, Douarnenez Maritime Festival
Maël Terry | Maritime Coordinator, Douarnenez Maritime Festival
Barb Trailer | Director, Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival
Jake Beattie | Executive Director, Northwest Maritime Center
In 2023, a team of 4 boat-makers (Mashantucket Pequot, Mashpee Wampanoag, Togolese, and Ghanaian) collaborated at Mystic Seaport Museum to create a dugout canoe using both traditional and contemporary methods.
The ten-day collaboration explored similarities in Dawnland and African maritime histories and cultures, imagined how these maritime traditions may have continued if not interrupted, and allowed us to imagine conversations on boat construction as free and enslaved African descended people joined Dawnland Indigenous communities.
Akeia’s Article for Mystic Seaport Museum’s Mainsheet: (Life) Cycles, (Ocean) Currents, and (Ancestors’) Rhythms: Dawnland Maritime Histories through Indigenous and Black Voices
Mystic Seaport Museum Exhibit ENTWINED: Freedom, Sovereignty, and the Sea
Wikipedia’s Article on the Kongo Cosmogram
John Mbiti’s Book – Introduction to African Religion
Akeia de Barros Gomes | Director, Center for Black History, Newport Historical Society
Dr. Akeia de Barros Gomes is the Director of the Center for Black History at the Newport Historical Society and is a Visiting Scholar and Adjunct Lecturer at Brown University’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. Akeia leads the development and implementation of the Center for Black History at the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House, which will open as an exhibition space, educational and community programming space and a space for scholarship in 2026. She was lead curator for the 2024 Mystic Seaport Museum exhibition, Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty and the Sea a multi-year Mellon Foundation-funded project that recovers the history of the founding and development of the Dawnland (New England) through Dawnland Indigenous, African, and African-descended maritime narratives. Akeia taught as professor of American Studies and Professor of Psychology and Human Development at Wheelock College from 2008 to 2017. She received her BA in anthropology/archaeology at Salve Regina University and her MA and PhD in anthropology/archaeology at the University of Connecticut.
Annie Means | Multimedia Marine Journalist | Instagram | Substack
Annie Means is a Pacific Northwest-based writer, photographer, and boater. She spent 2023 and 2024 traveling the globe as part of her Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, during which she explored and reported on women’s leadership in the international blue economy and maritime sector. In 2024, she was honored as the runner-up for the prestigious Yachting Journalists’ Association’s Young Journalist of the Year Award. Annie is passionate about sharing narratives that bridge nature and culture, the sea and society. More than anything, however, she deeply enjoys connecting with and learning from the individuals and communities who inhabit these essential stories.
After languishing in a boat yard in New London CT for 30 years, DORIS, the largest all-wood sailing vessel built by Herreshoff Manufacturing Co., was scheduled to be scrapped at the end of August 2013. Given a one-year lease on life by the generous collaboration of a good friend and Snediker Yacht Restoration of Pawcatuck, a search for a new owner was spearheaded. Now, thanks to an enthusiastic client, DORIS has been saved. David will share his experience leading this massive restoration of this 1905 Herreshoff classic. Live Q&A to follow.
David Snediker – Owner, Snediker Yacht Restoration.
Veronica shares stories, images, and video from her unique, high-latitude solo cruising life and from her research for her book (currently only in Norwegian) called What I Read in the Waves – Stories from the Sea People.
Veronica Skotnes | Sailor, Author | Instagram | YouTube | Patreon
Veronica Skotnes took to the sea at the age of seventeen as crew on a schooner in the North Sea. Since then, the wind and ocean currents have taken her north of the Arctic Circle, where she now steers her own ship. For the past three years, she has been sailing and living aboard a boat along the coast of Finnmark, in the very north of Norway. Skotnes has a bachelor’s degree in Arctic Outdoor Activities.
Annie Means | Multimedia Marine Journalist | Instagram | Substack
Annie Means is a Pacific Northwest-based writer, photographer, and boater. She spent 2023 and 2024 traveling the globe as part of her Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, during which she explored and reported on women’s leadership in the international blue economy and maritime sector. In 2024, she was honored as the runner-up for the prestigious Yachting Journalists’ Association’s Young Journalist of the Year Award. Annie is passionate about sharing narratives that bridge nature and culture, the sea and society. More than anything, however, she deeply enjoys connecting with and learning from the individuals and communities who inhabit these essential stories.
This year we’re doing something special on Off Center Harbor Movie Night. Along with our regular curated playlist of a few of our favorite Off Center Harbor videos from around the world, this year we’re adding a theme of “The Boys in the Boat” after the famous book of the same name.
If you haven’t read the book, or watched the new movie directed by George Clooney, both are well worth your time – the (former) competitive rowers on our crew say: “Both set the high watermark for realistic representation of rowing, both physically and mentally. They are, respectively, the best rowing book and movie ever made.”
Movies for this day will include an excellent PBS documentary about the boys and their quest for gold medals, an OCH video with Steve Chapin who builds and restores racing shells that are true to George Pocock’s original boats. These will go live on Feb. 21st and remain open to attendees through the end of the Show.
This PBS documentary gives us a glimpse into history about the UW Rowing team that took home an Olympic Gold Medal in 1936. You may recognize the story from the book, The Boys in the Boat, also recently made into a feature length film by George Clooney. Buy a copy of of the book at your local bookshop or online HERE. The new Hollywood movie of The Boys in the Boat is available for streaming online (for a rental fee as it is still in theaters).
What do you get when you cross a violin maker with a boatbuilder? We imagine it might look something akin to what happens at the Point Hudson Boat Shop in Port Townsend, Washington. We visited Steve Chapin who has taken over producing the Pocock Cedar Racing Single after the Pocock Co. made it’s last wooden shell in 2003. Pocock Racing Shells set the standard for most of the 20th Century in collegiate and Olympic rowing. With equipment and cedar stock from Pocock and his own boatbuilding skills, Steve Chapin is carrying the Pocock Classic Cedar Single tradition into the 21st century.
Learn more about Pocock Classic Racing Shells on Steve Chapin’s website.
This library of links from Steve is a wealth of knowledge.
Bailey, Colorado would seem like an unlikely place for boat building or water sports, never mind a yacht club. But that didn’t stop the 13 tough young women and men of Platte Canyon High School who make up the yacht club, built a 40 foot triple hulled canoe, and then hauled it from the mountains of Colorado to Tacoma Washington, in order to compete in the Seventy48, a seventy mile, human powered boat race up Puget Sound. Ya gotta see it to believe it.
Rowing can be a real art form. Maynard Bray takes us for a row and describes techniques that can help you become more graceful as well as more effective behind a pair of oars. When it comes to maneuvering a small boat under oars, Maynard is a true master. This is one video not to be missed.
Here’s the first chance we’ve had to actually get aboard MAIWAR with Tom to see what it’s actually like rowing across the Pacific Ocean. First up, the fishing.
Tom will join us LIVE on Saturday, Feb. 24 at 7pm EST to share stories from his journey across the Pacific after leaving Tongareva. You won’t want to miss this presentation!
Achieving the power and speed possible with sliding seat rowing need not be limited to needle-like shells that are half-a-cheek too narrow for the normal sized rear end. This video explores sculling a kit-built wherry that’s light, handsome, speedy and a far more seaworthy boat than most high performance shells.
At his shop at Rower’s Oars, Wesley Reddick shows us how to make a flat blade oar from a few pieces of spruce.
Embracing the summertime dream, Michael and Rebecca meander their way along 624 nautical miles of Maine’s coast and step away from the traditionally bustling two-month season.
How did a sleepy little port town in the 1970s become a lively year-round mecca of wooden boat builders, sailors, marine trades, and maritime educators? What worked and didn’t? How have we weathered the storms and rallied? What gives us hope for the future?
Join legendary sailor/sailmaker Carol Hasse (co-founder of the Wooden Boat Festival and long-time board member of both Wooden Boat Foundation & NW Maritime Center), and circumnavigator/author Kaci Cronkhite (Director of Wooden Boat Festival for a decade) sharing behind the scenes personal stories and highlights from decades of involvement — in hopes it inspires and helps people in other places.