PORT TOWNSEND — During a visit to Port Townsend on Tuesday, Rep. Norm Dicks will tour the dry-docked Adventuress to see the completion of restoration work on the 100-year-old schooner.
Built in 1913 and now owned by the nonprofit Sound Experience, the Adventuress has been in dry dock this year at the Port Townsend boat yard, undergoing $360,000 worth of work as a “centennial restoration project.”
Secured grant
Dicks — who was instrumental in securing a $180,000 National Park Service “Save America’s Treasures” grant for the project — is scheduled to tour the Adventuress in dry dock at 9:45 a.m. Tuesday.
He will meet with Port Townsend Mayor Michelle Sandoval at Fort Worden State Park at 10:30 a.m.
The two will discuss development plans at the park and other preservation projects of the public development authority that the Port Townsend City Council formed in January to assist in improvements at Fort Worden State Park, the historic Customs House and the development of affordable housing in Port Townsend.
“I invited him to come and see what our economic development plan is regarding the fort and the PDA,” Sandoval said, adding that she also wants to talk with Dicks about securing affordable housing in Port Townsend.
At noon, Dicks, D-Belfair, will talk to the Port Townsend Rotary Club membership at the Masonic Hall at the corner of Jefferson and Van Buren streets.
George Behan, spokesman for Dicks — who represents the 6th Congressional District, which includes the North Olympic Peninsula — also will try to visit the historic U.S. Customs House.
Behan said Dicks has scheduled some flexible time during his visit and hopes to swing by the Northwest Maritime Center.
The congressman worked to secure a federal grant for the purchase and cleanup of the industrial site on the Port Townsend waterfront before construction of the center began.
Adventuress
The Adventuress grant has been matched so far by $100,000 in private donations, said Catherine Collins, executive director of Sound Experience, a nonprofit organization that runs educational programs aboard the 133-foot ship based in Port Townsend.
She said another $75,000 has to be raised by November.
“We’ll probably focus on showing [Dicks] what federal funds accomplished this winter,” said Collins, who will conduct the half-hour tour.
Dicks likely will talk to Stephen Gale and Julia Maynard, owners of Haven Boatworks, about the work and the four full-time jobs it created.
“It’s probably the biggest job that has been done on the Adventuress in quite some time,” said Maynard at Haven Boatworks at the Boat Haven work yard Thursday.
“It’s close to done,” Maynard said, with some rigging work to be done when the schooner is back in the water next week.
The newly restored Adventuress will be hauled back into the water for its seasonal launch at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at the Port of Port Townsend’s haul-out dock in the boat yard.
The two-masted, gaff-rigged schooner was pulled from the water in late December for the winter work.
Paid workers and volunteer crews replaced the ship’s stem and frames; rebuilt bunks in the forecastle, or the bow below deck area; and replaced large steel fore chain plates, which reinforce the rigging points inside the ship.
Phase two, to be done next year, involves replacing the starboard bow and transom.
The work is expected to last at least another 50 years, although maintenance and repair is an ongoing process.
More than 3,000 participants sail on the Adventuress every year.
Those wishing to donate can reach the Sound Experience office at 360-379-0438, e-mail to mail@sound exp.org or send to Sound Experience, P.O. Box 1390, Port Townsend, WA 98368.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
