Today’s featured segment is an interview with Korie and Tupper Griffith and their son Owen, of Port Townsend, WA. The Griffiths have a rich history of sailing and wooden boats. Tupper grew up in Eugene, OR and learned to surf in CA while visiting relatives. After high school, he moved to San Diego, CA and became heavily involved in surfing. He also started cutting his teeth at sailing as crew on the 1928 Alden Schooner Kelpie . Next was a stint in the USCG at Tillamook Bay, OR where he...

Today’s featured segment is two interviews. The first is with Tom & Cynthia Krehbiel from Juneau Alaska. Tom and Cynthia flew to Port Townsend in February for a one week Pygmy Boats sponsored class. During this one week class, they were able to complete about 50% of their Pinguino wooden kayak under the instruction of Pygmy employees John and Seth. Tune in to the podcast to hear more about why they took the class, why you should take one, and what’s so special about building your own...

Today’s interview is with Captain Daniel Evans of Sound Experience and the great 1913 wooden schooner Adventuress. Capt Daniel spent his formative years in Anchorage, AK and began sailing at the age of 4 while on a visit to his grandparents in Gig Harbor, WA. Evans attended Evergreen U while living on his 28ʹ Miller Marine sloop and continued to fine tune his sailing and maritime skills. Through his rock climbing adventures Daniel met some Outward Bound folks and eventually became the...

Today’s interview is with Mindy Ross of the Center for Wooden Boats (CWB) in Seattle, WA. Mindy has be with CWB for 14 years and is currently the Sailing Education Director. Mindy grew up near Cleveland, OH and is a third generation sailor/racer. Her grandfather raced Comets and Trivets in the 20’s and 30’s at the Cleveland Yacht club and later her parents raced at the Sandusky Sailing Club. As a kid she traveled with her parents racing Thistle’s in the midwest and southeast. The family...

Today’s featured segment is Part 2 of the interview with Captain Ken Greff, president of the board of Sound Experience. Sound Experience is the caretaker of the 1913 BB Crowninshield designed gaff rigged 101ʹ schooner Adventuress. Sound Experience’s mission with Adventuress is to “educate, inspire, and empower an inclusive community to make a difference for the future of our marine environment.” ------------------------------------ You can contact me at [email protected] to share...

Today’s featured segment is Part 1 of a 2 Part interview with Captain Ken Greff, president of the board of Sound Experience. Sound Experience is the caretaker of the 1913 BB Crowninshield designed gaff rigged 101ʹ schooner Adventuress. Ken spent his early youth in San Francisco and his family settled on Mercer Island, WA when Ken was in grade school. Greff stream fished with his parents and dabbled in sailing small boats on Lake Washington with his high school buddies. While attending...

Today’s featured interview is with Jim Metteer of Poulsbo, WA. Jim grew up “all over” the west coast as his dad moved from working at one hydroelectric dam to another. In 1965 the family settled in south Seattle, WA where Jim graduated from Tyee High School. Jim’s dad had a power boat and Jim liked to be “on” the water, not “in” the water. After high school Metteer landed at a local furniture company learning the furniture trade and eventually taking over their finishing department. The...

I had the rare and special privilege of meeting up with Roy Jackson who, along with his late wife Dolores built a 43ʹ Murray Peterson designed gaff rigged Coaster II Schooner – Dolores M Jackson – between 1976 and 2009. The interview and time together with Jackson was a blast! This is an amazing story! The interview is a MUST LISTEN! Roy grew up in Detroit, MI and was accustomed to the regular sight of schooners and other vessels navigating the Detroit River. His mom and dad boated (black...

Jim grew up in Bellevue, WA and at the age of 9 his parents bought a Blanchard Jr. Knockabout for $250 and spent another $250 to refurbish it. Jim’s dad taught him to sail on that wooden sloop, and at the young age of 13 “turned over the keys” to Jim and let him go out by himself on Lake Washington (wow, what a blast for a 13 year old!). As Jim became an adult, the Knockabout became his boat. He and a buddy sailed two Blanchard Knockabout Jr’s from Lake Washington all the way to Victoria BC...

Tyson did most of his growing up in Cove, Oregon with a massive population of 500 people During his youth he sailed with his family on their 21ʹ San Juan sloop. However, when his parents decided to take a year off and build a log cabin, they had to sell the family boat to pay for the new well. Tyson was heartbroken – he loved being on the water. But never fear, his parents bought him an 8ʹ Jester sailing dinghy on his 8th birthday. He was sick that day so they put the dinghy in his bedroom...

Nat grew up in Seattle and as a young kid was building boat models out of milk cartons, wood, and assorted other materials he could scrounge up. His parents and grandparents owned (and still own) an Allied Seawind 30’ which the family used to explore the Inside Passage around Vancouver Island and the San Juan Islands. When Nate was 10 years old he discovered the 1897 three masted 165ʹ schooner Wawona on Lake Union in Seattle. He fell in love with her and at age 11 built a 5’ model of Wawona....

Thanks to your support and the support of hundreds of other wooden boat lovers, HOWB has completed its first full year with flying colors. This Episode is dedicated to looking at the HIGHLIGHTS of 2012 and my Plans for 2013! Here’s Top Ten HIGHLIGHTS of 2012: 1. 52 HOWB weekly episodes were published (67 total now). 2. HOWB podcasts have been downloaded over 35,000 times by folks in 82 different countries. 3. I conducted more than 50 interviews – from wooden boat rock stars, to back yard...

Diana is a NOAA brat – her dad was a commissioned officer in the the NOAA Corp and met her mom – a civilian deckhand – on board a research vessel in the Bering Sea. Diana was born in San Diego, and lived in Maryland for a few years before her family settled in Seattle. After getting her undergraduate degree in Anthropology from Western Washington University, she had the rare opportunity to do an internship at the Maritime History department of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC....

Dan Leach is one of those gents that makes you feel right at home from the first time you shake his hand – which for me was October 2011 when I went to the Center For Wooden Boats to interview the founder, Dick Wagner for HOWB 004. I had the privilege to interview Dan a few weeks ago – which was a real blast for me (hanging out at the CWB comes natural – haha). Dan grew up in Seattle, the son of a woodworker and grandson of a home builder. His parents owned a 14ʹ Rhodes Bantam racing class...

Behind Jeff Hammond’s laid back demeanor and Wisconsin drawl is a Master Boat Builder and seasoned instructor who is the Real McCoy. He’s been instructing at the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building since 1985 and retired a few years back. As a youth in Wisconsin, Jeff built model boats and canoed with his family on local lakes. After school he entered the construction trade, building houses and cabinets and messing with a few boat building projects here and there. It was a tough time...

Wendy grew up the daughter of a Navy dentist, who made frequent military moves. When her dad was given an assignment in Hawaii, Wendy’s parents bought a Cal ’27 sailboat and enrolled the entire family in sailing lessons. At the age of 7, Wendy was getting her sea legs sailing the Hawaiian Islands. Next, Wendy’s family moved to Washington, DC and began sailing the Chesapeake Bay on a Catalina ’30. Soon Wendy was teaching sailing utilizing the advanced skills she had learned as a...

Judging by her enthusiasm and passion for her work at the NW School of Wooden Boat Building, you’d think Katie Whalen had been a hard core wooden boat devotee since her childhood. Quite to the contrary, Katie grew up in southern California as a complete land lubber. It wasn’t until she visited Washington state as an adult that she got a on “boat” for the first time – a Washington state passenger ferry. Katie was first introduced to the Boat School in the early 1990’s, fell in love with it,...

Today’s interview is with Captain Robert d’Arcy. d’Arcy grew up in Rhode Island, the son of a shipwright. In fact he is a 4th generation shipwright – his great grandfather learned the trade in Scotland and the skills were passed down thru the generations. Robert worked in his dad’s boat shop as a kid starting with sweeping, cleaning, stacking, then moving on to building and restoring. After high school he worked beside his dad to restore a 1914 Nova Scotian schooner that was 46ʹ on deck. Next...

Today’s podcast is Part 2 of my interview with John Lockwood, founder and owner of Pygmy Boats in Port Townsend, WA. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 of the interview, I recommend you start there first by listening to Episode 60. In Part 2 of the interview, John talks about how he excelled as a computer programmer for 12 years (although it drove him crazy to be indoors all that time), and programmed the first commercially available Plate Expansion Software for “developable surfaces”. He...

Today’s interview is with John Lockwood, founder and owner of Pygmy Boats in Port Townsend, WA. John is originally from St. Louis, Missouri where he bird hunted, and played and fished on the lakes and rivers with his family in their 20ʹ canoe. During this time, John got HOOKED (no pun intended :)) on exploring, fishing, swimming, camping and enjoying the great outdoors. After a one year stint at Union College in New York, John launched into a 5 year adventure of traveling and exploring the...

Today’s interview is with Sean & Inger Rankins of Port Townsend, WA. The Rankins own and operate Northwest Sail and Canvas Makers. Inger is originally from Norway, and as a youth was regularly rowing the families wooden clinker workboats to and fro the island her grandparents lived on. Inger learned to sew her own clothes at a young age, and in 1990 began applying those skills to marine canvas work. She has had her own marine canvas business since 1999 and enjoys the creativity of...

Today’s interview is with Kaci Cronkhite of Port Townsend. Kaci grew up on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma riding horses and waterskiing behind her family’s Chris Craft runabout. Her ancestors were dutch, and the first family emigrant to the US was a shipbuilder. When Kaci was in her 30’s, she sailed for the first time and it felt eerily familiar to horseback riding – position, balance, wind in your hair. She was intrigued and hooked at the same time. A few years later she sailed Australia to...

Today’s interview is with John Harris of CLC Boats. John spent his growing up years in South Carolina – the son of a “sailing obsessed father (and he still is)” who built stuff and was an engineer. He sailed with his dad on inland lakes in a Snipe, Sunfish and other small boats. John grew up thinking it was perfectly normal that if you needed a piece of furniture, you went out to your shop and built it. When he was in his early teens, he wanted a boat, so he built one (a rowing shell)- and...

The first interview in today’s podcast is with Steve Stone of Brooklin, Maine. I met Steve at the 2012 Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival and he is one of the founding partners of OffCenterHarbor.com video website. Steve grew up sailing, later studied filmmaking, and fell in love with wooden vessels along the way. Steve is super excited about the videos he is producing for OffCenterHarbor.com. The second interview is with Eric Blake of OffCenterHarbor.com and Brooklin Boatyard of...

The first interview in today’s podcast is with Thomas Scheinpflug. Thomas crews on the Pacific Grace Schooner and was one of the shipwrights who built her, finishing in May 2001. Pacific Grace is owned and operated by the non-profit S.A.L.T.S. Sail and Life Training Society of Canada. The second interview is with Dave & Linda Burright of Albany, Oregon. Dave & Linda built a 26ʹ George Caulkins designed Bartender in their outbuilding over and 6.5 year period. It is a gorgeous boat...