Center for Wooden Boats

Yesterday I headed down to South Lake Union to:

I met up Dick Wagner, who essentially started the Center for Wooden Boats from his back dock over thirty years ago. Now the center has it's own building and boat workshop, a full-time staff, and hundreds of volunteers. They think of themselves as a living museum. Every time I've visited, there were classes, lectures, and workshops taking place in the boathouse, and there are always boat-loads (ha ha) of people building or restoring, (their own or the center's) boats. You can also rent many of the row or sail boats as long as the weather conditions aren't too bad. Wooden boat-building is part of the heritage of the Pacific NW and the center is not only preserving it, they're keeping it alive.


I wanted to hear Dick's thoughts on using watercraft as an important part of the Un-Road Trip. He had some great recommendations and filled me in on a lot of boating history as well. I filmed it all, so you'll see that up here soon too. I also talked to a man who was restoring his sailboat that he's already used to sail the world twice. He's gearing up for a third trip, though he's not sure when he'll set sail. He's been restoring the boat for ten years already, though I thought, (and told him), that it looked pretty done. He laughed at me, but said he appreciated the encouragement...