Launching Friday September 5, 2025, the region’s beloved (also the nation’s largest) Wooden Boat Festival is ready to welcome you and there’s a ton to make it a great experience.

Through the morning mist, the unmistakable electricity of the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival emerged this morning. Crowds lined up outside the gate prior to opening and, within minutes, the festival’s earliest birds emerged as shapes veiled in fog on schooners, launches, cutters, trawlers, and nearly every type of wooden craft large and small. Seminar audiences assembled and soon the live music will kick-off a weekend of non-stop entertainment. Giddy is a fair description for the vibe.

Is Festival more special for the boats or the people? Yes. Add to that the learning, discovery, inspiration, and unambiguous fun, and there’s no better place to be this weekend.

2025 Festival Highlights

Of course, these are the trappings of any Wooden Boat Festival, and this one brings its own highlights and draws. The one-stop shop for the best presented info is the Festival’s own Ultimate Guide. But here’s a short version:

• Kiana Weltzien Brings Women & the Wind: Join Kiana at this year’s Festival for special presentations, a panel on Wharram catamarans, and a screening of the award-winning documentary Women & the Wind. (more below)
• Shipwrights: Keepers of the Fleet: Shipwrights from around the world bring the art of boat building to life.
• 76 Days Adrift Documentary: Don’t miss the screening of 76 Days Adrift, an award-winning film based on Steven Callahan’s bestselling book “Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea.”
• Ropemakers Return to Festival: The Hardanger Ropemakers from Norway, masters of the ancient art of traditional rope-making, share their expertise all weekend long.

EDITORS’ SEMINAR PICKS

For anyone who has visited the Wooden Boat Festival, it goes without saying that the seminars are a huge draw. If you’re new to the event, be sure to mark your calendars with the presentations that speak to you. Your 48° North editors have assembled the following list of seminars that piqued our interest as Festival and boat lovers.

Friday, September 5

• Bluewater Sail Inventory: 9:30 a.m. Discovery Stage
• Yacht Designer Panel: 2:45 p.m. Cruising Stage
• Movie: 76 Days Adrift: 7:00 p.m. Adventure Stage

Saturday, September 6

• Six Months Before the Mast on a Rum Running Brig: 9:30 a.m. Adventure Stage
• Adventure Sketching: 1:00 p.m. Boat Yard Stage
• Haida Sails Resurgence Project: 3:00 p.m. Adventure Stage
• Movie: Women and the Wind: 6:30 p.m. Cruising Stage

Sunday, September 7

• Outboard Maintenance & Troubleshooting: 10:00 a.m.  Boatbuilding Stage
• Advanced Medical Prep: 11:00 a.m. Innovation Stage
• Considerations for Safe Lithium Systems: 1:45pm  Boatbuilding Stage

You’re not too late to decide to come! The festival runs today through Sunday, September 7, and online tickets are available through the whole weekend. You can, and should, come join the fray of fun, check out some of the world’s coolest boats, and talk with some of the world’s most best boat people. Hope to see you there!

Among this Festival’s myriad draws, the feature length documentary, Women and the Wind, takes centerstage on Saturday evening.

48° North Editor, Joe Cline, got an early screening of the film and had the following thoughts to share:

“The unknown is scary. But it’s not scary anymore as soon as you let it go. As soon as you dive in… Sometimes I felt worried, but I never felt afraid, because you’re fighting for your life, but in a positive way; in an intrinsic human, animal way. Surpassing fear.” -Kiana Weitzien

I recently had the privilege to enjoy an early screening of one of the centerpieces of this year’s Festival—the feature length documentary “Women and the Wind.” This deeply personal story chronicles a 30 day, 2,250 mile North Atlantic crossing on a Wharram catamaran. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

The atmospheric soundtrack builds a foundation onto which scene after scene of stunning videography is layered. Ask me how many magazine covers I could make from snaps in this film, and I wouldn’t be able to count. It is one of the most visually striking portrayals of life at sea available anywhere.

Captain Kiana Weitzien is one of a kind and yet, in her competence, I hear echoes of sea going women whose salty skills and sturdy resolve marked them for international renown. Her shipmates embrace the lifestyle of rugged ocean passagemaking in their own way and with their own challenges, each seeming to glean as much from Weitzien’s commitment as her skills. Genuinely inspiring.

As a sailor, I found some aspects bracing, but only appropriately so. Honest, harshly beautiful, invigorating, trying, ambivalent—it’s a reminder of so many things adventure-minded sailors seek, intertwined with realities we may not like to focus on with too much clarity. I didn’t watch their Wharram catamaran cross an ocean and wish it were mine. Yet, I’m sure glad it was their choice.

As the film nears its conclusion, there’s a scene where the three sailors swim from the boat in the middle of the ocean after a lengthy storm. For the voyagers and viewers alike, the joy and release are palpable, and window into such depth of sea, relationship, and emotion stands alone in its magic.

Don’t miss this special presentation of “Women and the Wind” at the Wooden Boat Festival. But be careful, you might feel like cutting your docklines shortly thereafter.

Get all the details at: woodenboat.org