The schooner Adventuress is nearing the completion of a ten-year, on-and-off restoration. The 106-year-old schooner has had every structural piece of wood replaced except forthree, according to Blaise Holly, lead shipwright at Haven Boatworks, the Port Townsend, Washington, boatyard in charge of the restoration.
“We’ve done every frame, every plank, the horn timber, the transom, the stern, we built both masts and did 5,400 linear feet of old-growth Douglas Fir decking,” said Holly in an interview with the Peninsula Daily News.
The restoration of the 133-foot Adventuress has taken a decade because work could only be completed during the off-season; she has continued to serve as a learning platform during the boating season. The Adventuress is owned by the nonprofit Sound Experience, who employs the tallship to introduce kids and adults to the area’s marine environment and nautical heritage. The restoration cost about $1.5 million, with approximately $400,000 coming from the state, as the Adventuress is a National Historic Landmark, and the rest coming from donations by foundations and individuals.
Catherine Collins, the executive director of Sound Experience praised the work of Haven Boatworks, saying they have worked on the Adventuress nearly every winter for the past ten years, logging over 10,000 hours. Volunteer crews also put in hundreds of hours of work on the restoration project. The restoration should keep the schooner on the water for another 50 years, given it receives the regular maintenance it requires. The project allows Sound Experience to continue its mission to encourage kids to get out on the water.
“There aren’t a lot of ways to get kids on the water these days,” said Collins. “A lot of kids are within a stone’s throw of the water, but never have any relationship with it — and we change that on the Adventuress.”
The Adventuress is back in the water now and will return to Port Townsend for the Wooden Boat Festival on September 6-8.
