Chesapeake Light Craft Brings Build-Your-Own-Boat Classes to Port Townsend

Port Townsend, WA, February 10, 2010 --(PR.com)-- After years of requests, Chesapeake Light Craft (CLC) is excited to bring their popular build-your-own-boat classes to the Pacific Northwest. Hosted by the Wooden Boat Foundation, students will build boats in the heart of the vibrant seaport and working waterfront of Port Townsend, Washington. The shop is in the Chandler Maritime Education Building of the brand new Northwest Maritime Center, perched right on the historic waterfront, heated in cool weather and completely equipped for boatbuilding. Chesapeake Light Craft classes extend the Wooden Boat Foundation's mission of connecting people of all ages with the working wooden boat community.

CLC has been teaching build-your-own-boat classes since 1994. Over the last 15 years, CLC boatbuilding classes have launched 900 boats and introduced more than a thousand students to the joys of boatbuilding. In CLC classes, talented professional instructors help students assemble their own boat from start to finish. Classes are 5-1/2 days---a perfect one-week vacation, with a boat to take home at the end, ready for finish work.

While CLC's precision-cut boat kits are within easy reach of first-time boatbuilders working at home---more than 20,000 completed CLC boats are on the water---a classroom setting still has its advantages. Students work in a lavishly equipped shop with a professional boatbuilder at their side and enjoy the positive energy (and extra hands) of a group setting. For those who bring helpers, classes are a rewarding and memorable parent-child or family experience. And Port Townsend is a jewel, a retreat for serious wooden boat builders and enthusiasts. Students will be right downtown, steps from shops, great food, and some of the best small boat waters in North America.

The Wooden Boat Foundation in Port Townsend joins a list of distinguished CLC boatbuilding school partners, including the famous WoodenBoat School in Brooklin, Maine, the International Yacht Restoration School in Newport, Rhode Island, and the Great Lakes Boatbuilding School in Cedarville, Michigan.

Students for Port Townsend classes can select from 3 of CLC's most popular designs. The Annapolis Wherry is a beautiful sliding-seat rower---nearly a thousand have been built; a Build Your Own Annapolis Wherry class will run from March 22-27. The Passagemaker Dinghy is a versatile sailing and rowing craft that can take a small outboard and, optionally, comes in a take-apart configuration; a Build Your Own Passagemaker Dinghy class runs from April 5-10. Finally, a Build Your Own Northeaster Dory class will run from August 30-September 4, the week prior to Port Townsend's annual Wooden Boat Festival. The 17-foot lapstrake, Northeaster Dory is CLC's newest small craft design.

Tuition for the week costs $750 and the various kits built in class range from $1175 to $2350. Students may bring a helper for the week for an additional $375. More information on Chesapeake Light Craft's Build-Your-Own-Boat classes can be found at clcboats.com/classes.

Those unfamiliar with the magic of stitch-and-glue boatbuilding can see these week-long classes condensed into ninety-second timelapse videos at clcboats.com/timelapse.

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