Schooner Adventuress to be Hauled Out on February 8th in Port Townsend
The 133-foot schooner Adventuress is scheduled to be hauled out on Monday, February 8th at Boat Haven in Port Townsend for a routine U.S. Coast Guard hull inspection. While the 1913 wooden sailing ship underwent a complete $2.3 million restoration – including hull and deck – she is inspected for seaworthiness every two years as a passenger vessel. Adventuress carries the National Historic Landmark (NHL) designation and is one of only two NHL sailing ships still in active commercial operation on the West Coast. Nonprofit Sound Experience owns and operates Adventuress as its on-the-water platform for maritime and environmental education. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than a thousand children and teens sailed aboard each year on day and overnight programs throughout the Salish Sea.
While “on the hard” for roughly two weeks, Adventuress will have the bottom painted, and Captains Katelinn Shaw and Nate Seward will oversee a project to revise the ship’s cathodic protection plan – the method of protecting the underwater metals from corrosion. The project has received guidance from Kevin Ritz, the lead marine systems instructor at the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building, who brought students to the ship as part of their education. Financial support for the project has been provided by the Staton and Ernestine Bennett Trust.
Haven Boatworks, which completed each phase of the ship’s decade-long restoration, will utilize Adventuress’ time out of the water to plan for the topmasts to be rigged for the 2023 season. The topmasts were removed during the final “deck phase” of the gaff-rigged ship’s restoration in 2019. The replacement of the topmasts is estimated at $65,000 and will require re-ballasting of the ship with the addition of 2,800 lbs. of lead to the keel. Sound Experience’s board-led Ship Committee oversees project timelines and priorities and is currently led by David Jackson of Pacific Rim Marine Surveyors.
The public can learn more about Adventuress’ haul-out on Saturday, February 20th at 10:00 a.m. PST during a virtual “Dock Talk” with Captain Katelinn Shaw. This YouTube live seminar will cover bottom paint, the propeller shaft and stuffing box, how to clean the sea strainers and empty the chain locker, and more! The one-hour event is free and offers a unique chance to see what goes on behind the scenes – or under the water – to keep Adventuress in top condition. Visit www.soundexp.org/docktalks to learn more.
Sound Experience plans to have Adventuress underway beginning in April this year, and will be offering week-long dockside and underway experiential education programs for schools, families, learning “pods” and community-based organizations with which it partners in cities around the region. To learn more, visit www.soundexp.org or call the Sound Experience office at 360-379-0438 x2. Sound Experience’s values include the belief that we are all shipmates. With a commitment to serve diverse young people throughout the region, Adventuress sails “not for one, but for all.”
Sound Experience was launched in 1989 to inspire stewardship of Puget Sound and the Salish Sea in young people, and is modeled after Clearwater, a program by legendary folk singer Pete Seeger on New York’s Hudson River. Over the past 30 years, more than 30,000 children and teens have sailed aboard Adventuress on day and overnight programs throughout the region to learn maritime skills, marine ecology and what it means to become a “shipmate.”
###