The Town of Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s hosted a Wooden Boat Building Workshop from May 14 to 18 at the community’s marina.
Participants learned traditional boat building skills from master boat builder, Jerome Canning, as well as president of the Wooden Boat Museum of Newfoundland, Jim Dempsey.
The workshop was meant to serve as a way to transfer traditional boat building skills to participants, as well as build a new regatta fleet for the town. The dories built in the workshop will become a part of the town’s rooted marine heritage in the regattas for years to come.
Each year, the town hosts a week-long Regatta Festival, which includes a Regatta Day with entertainment, food, and the traditional dory races. This regatta tradition dates back to the 1870s and has always used wooden boats for the races.
This year, those who enter the regatta are given the opportunity to race in a newly constructed wooden dory boat built in the workshop. Everyone is welcome to participate as previous rowing experience is not needed. Several participants in the Wooden Boat Building Workshop will even be back on Regatta Day to race in the boats they worked to build.
The Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s Regatta takes place on June 30th, 2018 from 12 – 5 p.m. at the St. Philip’s Marina. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend and try their hand at rowing a race in a traditional Newfoundland dory.
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