Port Townsend with il papa

All my life I've had the pleasure of observing my dad, the unrepentant architect and teacher, look at boats.  We joke about how he dragged me through marinas, chandleries and boatyards and how the only way I could ever repay him for the hours of immersion in all things nautical would be to make him visit a fabric store.  But in truth he would find something interesting in a fabric store, and in truth time spent with him was never time wasted.

Sacrificial anode

So a couple of days ago I accompanied him on a working trip to Port Townsend where he needed to get some photographs for an article he was writing.  Now retired from teaching, he freelances for a number of boating magazines.  It was freezing cold and we only got out of the car long enough to photograph here and there as we wove our way through a city of hulls.  A small town of cradled boat bottoms, here and there a cafe, a clutch of bicycles, guys working under cover, stopping to chat.  And such beauty.

Here is the oakum that lies between the planks--strakes or spiles I'm not sure which, but my dad would know.

Here are Alma, Genius and Creosote:

 Here is Cutterhead, whose planks change direction in the bow to accommodate the routine scraping of the anchor against the grain:

Even my dad didn't know what this strange little metal jaggedy protuberance from the bow was for.  Perhaps to cut cables?

And then, because this was Port Townsend in winter and I was with my dad, we saw something unspeakable.

To be continued....