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You are here: Home / Uncategorized / Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle

Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle

Uncategorized · March 19, 2006

I went to Seattle for the NTEN nonprofit technology conference. It was a great event but the highlight of my week was sailing and rowing on Lake Union. I just can’t stay away from the water.

Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle

The Center for Wooden Boats is a great museum but it’s much more than that: how many museums encourage you to take out the exhibits and have fun with them? The CWB actually loan out their antique wooden boats for the public to enjoy… and encourage them to bump them about. The center also teaches maritime skills and even has a course for families to learn to build their own boat.

On Sunday I joined their free public cruise in an historic sailboat. Quite a different experience to driving a motorised 17 ton steel boat. Afterwards I took a rowing boat across the lake to photograph some of Seattle’s famous houseboats (in the US they prefer to call them “floating homes”), made famous by the film Sleepless in Seattle. Seaplanes take off and land on the water in between the boats, a sometimes unnerving experience when they are speeding in your direction.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Seattle

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  1. says

    April 17, 2006 at 6:06 pm

    Hello Jason,

    I’ve added a link to your entry on Center for Wooden Boats to my blog, The MHN Blog. Thanks for the good words on Seattle’s maritime heritage.

    Joe Follansbee

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Flooded River Ouse in York

Flooding in York

In York the towpath beside the museum gardens is flooded, and the moorings are hidden below about a metre and a half’s rise in the water level.

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Selby to York

There was a surprising amount of floating junk to avoid on the tidal river between Selby and York, mostly large logs and branches but also a dead cow.

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Paul Widdowson boat in Sheffield

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Bridges to Sheffield

Through Tinsley Locks to Sheffield

Alisha’s doing temp work near Sheffield until the end of June, so we’ve decided to stay there for a few weeks. The Tinsley Flight of 11 small locks has to be traversed to reach Sheffield. It didn’t start raining until we were at the penultimate lock, and the shower was heavy but quick. On arrival in Sheffield’s Victoria Quays there was a rainbow.

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Narrowboat Audrey Too

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Narrowboat Audrey Too in snow

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Narrowboat in the frozen canal

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Narrowboat in the snow

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Audrey Too in the ice at Rodley

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London Canal Museum. Photo by Alan Murray-Rust

London Canal Museum

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Single-handed boating on the canals

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Painting and varnishing, getting our narrowboat ready to travel

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