If there was ever a place for boat lovers, especially woodies, it is Port Townsend, Washington. Located on the eastern corner of the Olympic Peninsula, PT is one of those charming spots that we love to visit. There’s a mix of interesting people, shops, and of course boats.

The old harbor is surrounded by a series of charming buildings which house boat builders and repairers, as well as Carol Hasse’s sail loft, the rigging shop of Brion Toss and his crew, a restaurant, and various other offices and services.

This building houses a wonderful cruising library, the offices of the Wood Boat Festival, and a marine chandlery devoted to traditional gear and maintenance items.

It is also home to the Northwest Maritime Center, which offers a variety of courses starting with teaching kids to sail.

The tools on the wall in the photo above are for caulking planked hulls, something which used to be quite common 50 years ago.

And how about these copper fastenings? This used to be the way boats were fastened (unless you were on a budget, in which case iron nails were used).

This is "okum", the preferred caulking material.

One of the main reasons we stopped in Port Townsend was to say "Hi" to Brion and Christian Toss. They run a full-serviced rigging shop, which works with everything from the latest high-modulus materials to traditional rigging, as Brion is showing above.

This particular set of stays, made up for a "Pinkey" schooner, is seized rather than spliced.

Brion and his crew are considered the premier source on this planet for traditional work like this. His work is in such demand that traditional boat owners fly him all over the world.

Although traditional work is Brion’s specialty, most of their rigging work is done with stainless and high modulus fibers. We were interested to learn Brion is now doing many life line sets in Spectra, an approach we really liked with Beowulf. This material is as strong as stainless, softer on your body, and does not have the corrosion problems of stainless when it is encased in plastic.

Brion and Christian live aboard Lotus, a turn-of-the-century motor yacht built to cruise from Seattle to Alaska. The saloon of Lotus is shown above. The furnishing are original. Lotus has been in Christian’s family off and on for over 50 years!

Linda is shown above in one of the original deck chairs.

This 100-foot (30m) yacht is powered by a Buddha diesel. Now that is appropriate!

We went to dinner with the Tosses at the Ajax restaurant, located across the street from where they are moored. The photo above is intended an intelligence test. Can you figure out what you are viewing?

Lest you lose sleep over this, we’ll explain. Ajax customers used to have a tradition of launching forks, laden with dollar bills and occasional undergarments, into the soft wood paneling on the ceiling. You are looking up at the remnants here.

The practice has since been stopped by the local safety officials. But remnants remain.