Special Honors for Devlin, Hasse Lifetime Achievement Awards for 2 Festival Mainstays Please join us at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 6 in the Main Room at the Northwest Maritime Center for a reception honoring the lifelong work and passions of two special individuals. Sam Devlin, president of Devlin Designing Boat Builders in Olympia, Wash., is be-
ing awarded the WoodenBoat magazine and Wooden Boat Foundation Award for Lifetime Achievement in Design. Port Townsend’s own Carol Hasse is this year’s recipient of the Wooden Boat Foundation Award for Lifetime Achievement in
Wooden Boat Community Spirit and Culture. For 34 of the 36 years, Devlin and Hasse have been a big part of the Wooden Boat Festival. These two are the longest continuous displayers at the Festival and we salute you both!
Sam Devlin
In 1974, a young Devlin was sitting in the galley of an 1898 tugboat in southeast Alaska, contemplating the big question of what to do with his life. With a cup of strong black coffee and a copy of the first issue of a new magazine called WoodenBoat in hand, an answer took hold. For the first time Photo by Neil Rabinowitz in his life, Devlin contemplated becoming a boatbuilder. A short three years and University of Oregon degree later, he started on his first boat. A self-described average guy with a pervasive love of boats and water, Devlin started Devlin Designing Boat Builders in Eugene, Ore., soon moved to Eld Inlet in Puget Sound and most recently to a larger shop in Olympia. Devlin designs and builds boats using a composite construction method he’s helped to pioneer known as “stitch-and-glue” which, according to Devlin, combines the best of both worlds: wooden boatbuilding with modern epoxy technology. He is a tinkerer, tending towards simplicity of design that carries a touch of whimsy. Devlin just rounded the horn of his 35th year as designer and boatbuilder, having built 416 wooden boats, all but four of his own design, and sent his boats or designs to more than 69 countries and all 50 states. (For TV’s “NCIS” fans, the boat Gibbs works on is a Devlin boat.) Devlin has built an impressive design collection that includes tiny rowing and sailing dinghies like the Pollywog and Guppy, as well as larger sailboats like the 23-foot Arctic Tern sloop, the sleek 36-foot cruising yacht Peregrine and the 42-foot Oysta motorsailer. The most recent project for Devlin’s company is a 48-foot powerboat. In addition to his boatbuilding and design career, Devlin is the author of the best selling book Devlin’s Boatbuilding and many articles on boatbuilding and boats, and stars in a video on wooden boat construction titled “Sam Devlin on Wooden Boatbuilding.” Devlin is proud to have been part of the inspiration and final expression of all these boats, and he has always had the fervent wish that they bring joy and happiness to their owners.
8 • 2012 Wooden Boat FestivaL
Carol Hasse
Carol Hasse has been a sailmaker and owner of Hasse & Co. Port Townsend Sails Inc. since 1978. Cruising World describes her sails this way: “Carol Hasse and Port Townsend Sails spin gold by sticking to traditional methods of construcPhoto by Neil Rabinowitz tion and paying attention to the little things that help sails withstand the tests of time.” Hasse came to sailmaking from a love of cruising and a lifelong passion for learning outside the confines of a classroom. By believing in herself, Hasse set off to learn how to make sails for a communal schooner-building project in the early 1970s. She first worked under Franz Schattauer, a master sailmaker in the old-world tradition, and eventually with Ron Harrow, who owned the only sail loft in Port Townsend at the time. You will find Hasse today in that same loft, if she’s not off on a maritime adventure. Hasse is a founding board member of the Wooden Boat Foundation. She is a regular judge at the Victoria Classic Boat Festival and has served in the past as a judge for Cruising World’s Boat of the Year competition at the Annapolis Boat Show. She has also been a speaker at Safety at Sea seminars on both coasts. Hasse regularly lectures for the Wooden Boat Foundation and the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding. She is active in teaching and lecturing on all aspects of sailmaking, sail repair, sail inventory and sail handling. Instructional venues include sail training vessels, boat shows, yacht clubs, offshore cruising seminars, Safety at Sea seminars and Port Townsend Sails’ in-loft Hands-On Sail Repair Seminars. She has been active in sail training for women and youth in the Northwest and the South Pacific for more than 30 years. This year, the Northwest Maritime Center named the beach by the center in honor of Hasse for her unusual community-building pastime. See if you can find the plaque. Hasse says she feels blessed to live in the Pacific Northwest, where she has actively sailed her 25-foot 1959 Nordic Folkboat, Lorraine, since 1979. Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader