The Northwest School of wooden boatbuilding

During the last one hundred years, Puget Sound has been a special attraction for people who sailed, built and repaired wooden boats. A number of influences helped to establish a wooden boatbuilding style that is characteristic to only this region. This process of boatbuilding, which is unique to the Puget Sound, is the very technique used by the founder of the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding. Bob Prothero, renowned Puget Sound master shipwright, worked for fifty years in the wooden boatbuilding industry, before he founded NWSWB. His family produced several generations of Pacific Northwest ship captains and master boatbuilders. Everything he had learned – and especially the lofting process – he brought to the school.
Motivated by the concern that traditional wooden boatbuilding techniques unique to Puget Sound could become a lost art, Libby Palmer and Henry Yeaton persuaded Bob Prothero to establish a school to teach and preserve the skills and crafts associated with fine wooden boatbuilding. Since 1981, over a thousand students have graduated from the School’s vocational programs, and thousands more have attended summer and community workshops, studying traditional maritime arts. This tradition continues today. The School emphasizes development of the individual as a craftsperson, and our classes are filled to capacity with students from around the world seeking to earn associate degrees and diplomas in the traditional fine art of wooden boatbuilding.

Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding
42 N. Water Street
Port Hadlock, WA 98339
(360) 385-4948
General info:  info@nwboatschool.org
Enrollment:  enrollment@nwboatschool.org
Website: www.nwboatschool.org