PORT TOWNSEND — John Harvey Doney III, who died Monday night when his sport utility vehicle crashed in Beaver Valley, was remembered as a kind and thoughtful person with a strong business sense and a passion for saving the lost art of Vietnamese boat building.
He was 66.
A Vietnam War veteran and retired Navy commander, Mr. Doney was president and broker of the property management company he founded in 1993, Townsend Bay Property Management Inc.
He operated the company with his wife, Donna.
He also founded the Vietnam Wooden Boat Foundation, and was a Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding board member for the past five years, recently having been elected board treasurer.
The Kala Point community member also was a founding member of Port Townsend Sunrise Rotary, and belonged to the Elks and American Legion.
Mr. Doney was driving northbound on the Beaver Valley Road stretch of state Highway 19 near Embody Road at about 5:55 p.m. Monday when his 2007 Nissan Xterra crossed into the southbound lane and went over an embankment, crashing into a tree, the State Patrol said.
He died in the wreck, according to the State Patrol, which on Tuesday was investigating the cause of the crash.
No one else was injured in the one-car crash.
‘A very gentle soul’
“He was a very gentle soul,” said Dave Brader, Sunrise Rotary past president and assistant governor of Rotary District 5020 who worked on Rotary projects with Mr. Doney.
Brader was a member of the Vietnam Wooden Boat Foundation.
He helped Mr. Doney develop that project, which led to a boat being displayed at the Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend and Hadlock Days festival in Port Hadlock.
“It was a real passion for him,” Brader said.
Mr. Doney also was heavily involved with Real Estate Professionals for Affordable Housing.
His was the only company solely dedicated to property management in Jefferson County.
Mr. Doney was born on Oct. 15, 1942 in Seattle to John Doney Jr. and Jean Alexander Doney, and grew up around salt water, including during his high school years in Puerto Rico.
He attended the University of Washington from 1959 to 1963, was commissioned into the Navy in 1963 and retired as a commander in 1983.
Vietnam boats
In 2002, Mr. Doney formed the Vietnam Wooden Boat Foundation, www.vietnamboats.org, a nonprofit organization to help preserve the maritime heritage of Vietnam.
In 2004, he worked under the foundation to build a “sewn plank” in central Vietnam, a boat unique to the area and likely never to be built again.
Mr. Doney believed that preserving the art of wooden boat building was vitally important, his wife Donna said.
He had returned to Vietnam in 1999 with a nonprofit group dedicated to helping Vietnamese children, Kids First Vietnam.
“While there, he found that the art of Vietnamese wooden boats were dying out,” Donna Doney said.
“He saw this as a lost art and he tried to salvage that.”
He met up with an old Vietnamese boat builder who built a craft with him, which Mr. Doney shipped back to the U.S.
Donna Doney suggested that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to Kids First Vietnam, 3720 N.E. Trout Brook Lane, Bremerton, 98311.
She said she also hoped that the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building would exhibit the Vietnamese wooden boat that her husband brought back from Southeast Asia.
Bill Brock, outgoing president at the boat building school in Port Hadlock, said that Mr. Doney “seemed quite excited” about having been elected the board’s new treasurer.
Brock said that the school supported Mr. Doney in his efforts to save the Vietnamese art of boat building.
“He was quiet and thoughtful. He’ll certainly be missed because he was a steady contributor.”
Brock said Mr. Doney was “always level-headed about issues, not one to be provoked by emotion.”
The boat building school board considered Mr. Doney a highly qualified business adviser, he added.
“He was a knowledgeable source about land and rental issues,” Brock said.
“He actually steered us away from making some dumb mistakes.”
Services are pending and a full obituary will be released. Kosec Funeral Home in Port Townsend is handling arrangements.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
