PORT HADLOCK — The energy levels inside a tall, U-shaped canvas shelter on a hillside are matched only by the whining grind of the power tools students and mentors use to cut, shape and smooth what shipwright Wayne Chimenti calls the “ultimate” youth expedition boat — Journeyman.
The Port Townsend Community Boat Project was at full tack last week as students and adult-mentor volunteers chiseled and sanded the bow of a 24-foot dory, while others cut pieces for the longboat-style main mast and plane oars being built in the temporary structure that the nearby Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding loaned to the program.
Green sailing
“We’re going to shoot to be the greenest boat on the blue,” said program coordinator and affable seafaring man Chimenti, a rigger, sailmaker and former longtime captain of Sound Experience’s 133-foot Port Townsend-base educational schooner Adventuress.
This includes efficient design, sustainable materials, eco-friendly products and cutting-edge technology blended with traditional style, Chimenti said.
“We are dedicated to creating the most sustainable boat with minimum negative impact on the environment, but one with maximum impact on the students,” he said.
“As we voyage, we will have a positive effect on Puget Sound through the work we do and as a floating example to other boaters. We hope our work will lead the marine trades into a greener future.”
High school students
High school students from Chimacum schools Partners in Education program, or PIE, and Port Townsend schools Individual Choice Education program, or ICE, are working under the tutelage of local master trades craftsmen to design, build and — by April — sail the dory that will float eight paddlers and up to 12 people altogether.
Students earn high school and Running Start college credits through the programs.
Eight enthusiastic youths and five patient mentors on Friday marked a milestone in the project launched in September — they turned over the boat in progress after laying sheets of apitong, a commercial species of a Malaysian hardwood, on a carefully designed framework lofted with the guidance of Jeff Hammond, a Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding instructor for 25 years.
“It’s something the kids can get hands-on with,” said Hammond, who has led hundreds of students through the lofting and building of more than 75 vessels ranging in size from 8 to 50 feet.
The program is about community working together to benefit youth, said Marci Van Cleve, who coordinates the Port Townsend ICE and Chimacum PIE programs and is acting as a liaison between the schools and marine trades education.
“They are learning things they don’t learn at home but can take to the outside world,” Van Cleve said, adding that the project aims to build a bridge between high school youths and the marine trades, a growing industry in Jefferson County.
When the boat sails around Puget Sound, students will have an opportunity to study and monitor the marine ecology, increasing environmental literacy and awareness.
Julieanne Gurnee, 17 and a Chimacum High School PIE student, worked carefully with a circular power sander, smoothing the Journeyman’s freshly laid bow.
“It’s great to be able to work with all of these people,” she said, adding it was her first experience with a power tool.
Considering a career in marine biology, Gurnee said she thought having knowledge of boats from the ground up would be valuable.
Jedediah Sexton, a 17-year-old Port Townsend High School ICE student who was hand-chiseling bumps in the boat’s joints on Friday, said he had helped his father and brothers fix boats at home, but he had never been involved in boat building.
Along with the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding, other partners in the project are Chimacum High School, Port Townsend High School, Peninsula College and Washington State University, Puget Sound Voyaging Society and Youth Adventure.
Boat’s design
Chimenti said the boat’s basic lines are of the classic, traditional dory used for hundreds of years.
The boat’s hull lines come from Kit Africa and Jim Franken, two well-known Port Townsend designers.
The sailing rig will be a traditional gunter yawl, he said.
“Handy, yet not boring for a bunch of students, it will even have a small squaresail for fun and a nod to sailors of yore,” he said.
The boat will have a centerboard to add weight low and perform to windward, with “a new German Torqueedo electric auxiliary outboard, sustainably recharged to match the vessel’s eco-appropriate character, for that rare occasion we need a little boost.”
The vessel will be mostly an open boat, but with positive flotation with watertight compartments in the bow and stern and under every thwart, he said.
The three-eighths-inch plywood will be glassed over for durability and strength, he said.
The finished craft will be virtually unsinkable, easily trailerable and light enough to pull up on a beach for camping, he said.
“This is not just any little boat project,” said Chimenti, who hopes to showcase the Journeyman at the annual Pacific Challenge in late May in Anacortes.
The event celebrates Captain George Vancouver’s exploration of Puget Sound with several maritime events and activities, including rowing and sailing.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
