Watch inspiring live presentations…
and take advantage of the rare opportunity to get your questions answered by these remarkable boaters from around the world.
Friday, Feb. 20th – 21:00 UTC (1:00 PM PST / 4:00 PM EST in the US)
Highlights from a Legendary Life of Adventure
with Lin Pardey
Lin Pardey is one of the most influential sailors and writers of our time. With hundreds of thousands of ocean miles sailed and many beloved books and videos, Lin has helped inspire countless adventurers to go simple, go small, and go now.
Saturday, Feb. 21st – 17:00 UTC (9:00 AM PST / 12:00 PM EST in the US)
10,000 Miles in a Jon Boat?!
with Robert Youens
Robert Youens has taken open-boat adventuring to a new level. North America’s premier cruising adventures like the Inside Passage, Northwest Passage, and Great Loop usually inspire large, stout, and comfortable craft choices… but Robert has done all three of those routes solo in a jon boat! His next goal is to break the Great Loop elapsed time record with a partner.
Saturday, Feb. 21st – 21:00 UTC (1:00 PM PST / 4:00 PM EST in the US)
Inside Gannon & Benjamin’s Restoration of MAH JONG
with Ross Gannon, Brad Abbott, and the Crew
Gannon and Benjamin have established one of the world’s premier wooden boat yards, combining excellence in design, building, and restoration. They’ll take us inside their 2017 restoration of the 1956 Sparkman & Stephens yawl MAH JONG, which soon after won Classic Boat Magazine’s award Best Restoration Over 40′ as well as the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta.
Sunday, Feb. 22nd – 17:00 UTC (9:00 AM PST / 12:00 PM EST in the US)
My Life with Wharram Catamarans
with Hanneke Boon
Now the head of James Wharram Designs, Hanneke Boon started building and sailing Polynesian catamarans at the age of 14. Along the way she’s sailed tens of thousands of ocean miles and has drawn the majority of the Wharram Boatbuilding Plans since the ’70s, known as some of the clearest boatbuilding instruction plans ever produce. She’ll share stories from her fascinating life and the widespread culture their catamarans have inspired.
Sunday, Feb. 22nd – 21:00 UTC (1:00 PM PST / 4:00 PM EST in the US)
Photography from Puget Sound’s Golden Age
with Richard Gray
Kenny Ollar spent over half of the 20th century speeding across the Salish Sea taking photos during the “golden age of yachting” in the Pacific Northwest, from sailing and hydroplane races to cruises and celebrations. Richard Gray – artist, photographer, and professor – is in the midst of a massive project digitizing the Ollar collection at the Gig Harbor Boatshop and will walk us through this unparalleled documentation of the explosion of boating in the Pacific Northwest.
Get the inside scoop of what’s happening at this year’s Worldwide Classic Boat Show from the full crew who’s put the Show together.
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 and has published a book (currently only in Norwegian) called What I Read in the Waves – Stories from the Sea People.
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.
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.
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. 
Off Center Harbor has released over 750 videos on great boats, boatbuilding, and more over the last 13+ years. Join us to watch (or rewatch) some highlights.
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.
For Kevin Ritz, helping create safe marine systems is more than a job – it’s a dedicated personal mission.
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?
Geoff Kerr – Teacher, Camp Cruiser
Peter Fox – River Raft Guide, Author
John Pratt – Amateur boatbuilder
Thor Jensen – Danish Adventurer, Filmmaker and Author
Sydney Fassam – Systems Apprentice (England)
Kirsten Neuschäfer
Five European boatbuilders will join us for a discussion about their work, their careers, and the new thriving community Women In Boatbuilding, a group created by Belinda Joslin to support and inspire women working in boatbuilding and related trades.
Professional boatbuilder Eric Blake will chat with amateur boatbuilder John Pratt about his single-handed build of a beautiful AROHA Coastal Cruiser. John has an inspiring background and so many good insights about a project of this magnitude as an amateur. And it’s the first ELECTRIC AROHA! So we’re as interested as everyone else to learn about the results. Live Q&A to follow.
Geoff Kerr teaches an Open Boat Camp Cruising course at the WoodenBoat School, and he’s among the most experienced camp-cruisers in this part of the world. Geoff will walk us through the most important topics, answering the top questions of those who are keen to explore far-off places in small boats. Off Center Harbor co-founder Steve Stone has camp-cruised the entire coast of Maine and will host Geoff and lead the Q&A that follows Geoff’s presentation.
There’s big news awaiting us this year with Tom Robinson, and the final recap of his solo row across the Pacific Ocean. If you’ve been following along with video series we’ve created with Tom (on Off Center Harbor), you know there was a capsize and rescue, but that’s not the end of the story. Tom will take us through the final stretch of the voyage, the discovery of his boat in Papua New Guinea, and most importantly what he’s learned (so far) from his voyage. And that “big news”? We’ll let Tom break that during his presentation. Live Q&A to follow.
Last year, Tom gave a presentation looking forward to beginning the journey he’d been dreaming about since he was 13 years old – rowing across the Pacific Ocean in a beautiful wooden boat he designed and built. Last summer, Tom met his boat MAIWAR in Peru and cleared all kinds of international challenges before shoving off into the Pacific and rowing for 160 days before setting foot on land – weeks longer than planned when he missed his original destination. Now waiting out cyclone season on Tongareva AKA Penrhyn Island, Tom will join us to share stories, impressions, and photos from his journey so far. Live Q&A to follow.
R2AK has been called “the best worst idea,” spurring all varieties of folks in boats ( as long as they don’t have a motor) to race unsupported from Port Townsend, WA to Ketchikan, AK. The Race to Alaska Movie mixes raw racer-shot footage with vast aerials and in-depth interviews to tell the story of the race’s improbable inception and the journey of the men and women who have answered the call to action. These everyday heroes challenge themselves to find their edge on an exhilarating, engineless charge through the Pacific Northwest, traversing one of the most complex and beautiful race courses on Earth. Live Q&A to follow.
