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Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op

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Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op

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A full-service shop providing quality craftsmanship since 1981.

11/03/2026

From Norway, through the Northwest Passage, to our yard. Alma ran aground in the Arctic and limped 3,000 miles to Port Townsend, and our crew got her ready for the West Coast. Read the full story at Shipwrights News and Stories on our website! Link in bio. .adventure

11/02/2026

Check out this electrical work! ⚓⚡

Since Emerald Mistress arrived at the beginning of September, electrician and electronics specialist Chris Iroz has been busy transforming her systems. She now has a Victron lithium bank with full BMS integration, a 3000W inverter/charger, expanded solar, a new autopilot, ELCI shore power protection, a watermaker, and a new bilge panel with a high-water alarm. A solar arch and wind generator are still to come.

Great work, Chris!

10/30/2026

This wooden boat sailed from Norway through the Northwest Passage, ran aground in the Arctic and limped 3,000 miles to our yard.

Alma is a 52-foot Hardangerjakt from Norway, built on the same traditional design as Roald Amundsen’s Gjøa. Her crew followed Amundsen’s route across the top of the world, then ran aground in Tuktoyaktuk, damaging her propeller and steering.

With one week in the yard and winter storms building on the West Coast, our crew fixed her up in record time. The last parts arrived the morning she splashed, and she motored out last weekend, bound for San Francisco.

Read the full story on Shipwrights News & Stories: https://www.ptshipwrights.com/alma-northwest-passage

Thank you to Captain Terje Pedersen and the crew of Alma for sharing your story and entrusting Port Townsend Shipwrights with Alma's care. Fair winds!

Voyage photos courtesy of Amundsen Adventure.

10/26/2026

Deliverance goes back in the water today! She’s a longliner that fishes for black cod in Alaska and also works as a tender, collecting catch from other boats.

She came into the yard in early September for fresh paint on her exterior, her crane and the inside of her bulwarks. The biggest part of the job was redoing her working deck, both the wood and the metal.

She got new wood deck planks and a stainless steel diamond plate overlay, which the crew pulled down into the deck’s curves so it follows every contour.

Those rows of little circles in photos 4 and 5 are plug welds. We cut holes through the plate, then welded through each one to the metal underneath.

There were always at least four people on this job, and seven at its peak. Thanks to job lead Tim Hoffmann and the crew for their excellent work! Keep an eye out for the launch video!

10/21/2026

Built in 1913. Still fishing Alaska every season. Seymour is one of four century-old halibut schooners that haul out at Port Townsend Shipwrights every year, along with Polaris, Vansee and Grant.

We visited with owner John McHenry and captain Pete Lopuszynski to hear what it takes to keep a wooden boat working in the Gulf of Alaska, from 50-knot winds during the old derby fishery to 18-hour days hauling in black cod and halibut.

Back at the yard, the work never stops. Last year, the Shipwrights replaced her forward break timber with purpleheart. This year, a new water tank that waited four years on top of a shipping container finally went in, and four planks on her starboard bow were replaced and recorked.

Read the full story on Shipwrights News & Stories: https://www.ptshipwrights.com/seymour-halibut-schooner

Thank you to John, Pete, and the Seymour crew for sharing their story, and to Brad Seamans and the whole Shipwrights crew for the work that keeps her fishing.

Fishing and break timber photos courtesy of John McHenry.

10/16/2026

Scraps from our Sail Loft, turned into museum Art! Port Townsend artist and former yacht rigger Margie McDonald built this 25-foot rope installation for the new Mariners Hall at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria. It hangs right beside the Cape Mendocino lighthouse Fresnel lens.
The piece is five panels, each about 200 pounds, with more than two miles of rope and over 5,000 knots.

Our own sailmaker Alison Wood, Margie’s best friend and fellow rigger, helped hang the panels and weave them together.

See the silvery streaks in the waves? That’s Dyneema, saved from the remnants trimmed off after splicing drifter luff lines in our Sail Loft.

Mariners Hall opens to the public Friday, November 20 at 1:00 PM. Full story coming next month on Shipwrights News & Stories.

Thank you to Margie McDonald and the Columbia River Maritime Museum!

Timelapse shared with us from Alison Wood.

10/14/2026

Ursula is stitching the leather cover by hand with needle and palm. The pennant is 1⅛" tubular Dacron webbing with Spectra webbing stuffed inside it. The Spectra runs a foot into the sail, built to handle the load from the furling drum.

The leather and Sunbrella are sacrificial layers. They take the beating from UV and chafe so the sail and its connections to the boat don't have to. Over time they'll wear, and that's by design. Because they're hand-stitched, they can be repaired with a palm and needle, and the sail stays protected for years to come.

Built to protect. Built to be repaired.

10/13/2026

Isswat is tucked in for the winter. Jeff and Anders took her through the Ballard Locks to her covered slip at Lockhaven Marina. 🛥️

This year’s work on Jeff’s 1948 Alaska-built troller included a new mast and boom. Getting the proportions right was the main challenge, since a mast shapes how a boat looks. Her winter home also has a roof, so the top section was built on a hinge and folds down to clear it. Swipe through to see the mast at full height, folded under the railroad bridge at the Locks, and settled into her slip.

She’ll be back in Port Townsend after the Bell Harbor Rendezvous in late June!

The full story of her restoration: https://www.ptshipwrights.com/isswat-restoring-a-boat-built-to-work

10/09/2026

George Pocock never wrote down how he built his legendary racing shells. So when boatbuilder Steve Chapin was hired to recreate an unfinished frame from a 1923 photo of Pocock’s workshop for the UW Shell House restoration, he needed another way to get the shape.

Our team 3D scanned Buckley, a wooden Pocock four from Rat Island Rowing and Sculling Club, to help him piece it together.

Read the full story on Shipwrights News & Stories: https://www.ptshipwrights.com/pocock-racing-shell

10/07/2026

George Pocock was rowing’s most legendary boatbuilder, and his shells carried The Boys in the Boat to Olympic gold. But he never wrote down how he built them. No line drawings, no plans. So how do you recreate one?

UW is restoring Pocock's workshop in the ASUW Shell House and hired Port Townsend boatbuilder Steve Chapin to recreate an unfinished boat frame from a 1923 photo of the shop.

There's just one catch. The forms for the larger boats are long gone! Steve learned the craft the old way, passed down by word of mouth, but to recreate this frame, he needed its exact shape. To piece it together, Steve is using the historic photo and surviving Pocock shells as clues to how George built it.

That's where the Shipwrights came in. Griz met Steve at the annual Boatyard Barbecue and connected him with Grayson. Last Friday (Oct 2nd), Grayson brought our 3D scanner to Rat Island Rowing and Sculling Club to scan Buckley, a wooden Pocock four, capturing her shape at all 37 rib positions. The scan saves Steve the time of having to measure it all by hand and leaves behind something Pocock himself never had: a complete record of the boat.

Steve has built the strongback and is starting on the frame, which will go on display in George's workshop so visitors can finally see inside one of these remarkably spare boats.

Read the full story on Shipwrights News & Stories: https://www.ptshipwrights.com/pocock-racing-shell

Thank you to Steve Chapin, Noah Seixas, and Rat Island Rowing for letting us be part of it!

Historic photo: MOHAI, PEMCO Webster & Stevens Collection.

Address

919 Haines Place
Port Townsend, WA
98368

Opening Hours

Monday	8am - 5pm
Tuesday	8am - 5pm
Wednesday	8am - 5pm
Thursday	8am - 5pm
Friday	8am - 5pm

Telephone

+13603856138

Website

http://www.ptshipwrights.com/

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