About a dozen people were aboard the boat Charles N Curtis Friday, March 31 at the Port of Port Townsend’s boat yard as the 78-foot-long boat was slowly lowered into the water by a 44-foot-tall, 259,000-pound marine travel lift.

Hoist operator Sean Smith was controlling the blue lift – capable of cradling boats as heavy as 300 tons – during the heavy haulout.

The heavy haulout was one of about 130 that the port does each year on average, said Smith, an 11-year veteran at the port.

“The strong nautical atmosphere that Port Townsend has is one in a million,” he said.

The port’s record for heavy haulouts was 162, set in 2013.

The port also conducts about 775 regular haulouts using the smaller 70- and 75-ton lifts. The record for regular haulouts is 846, set in 2006.

Smith wasn’t certain why 2006 was such a standout year, but he mentioned that it had been a good year for many people. He opined that general world economic conditions simply were conducive to the ebb and flow of the boat-owning population at the time.

Coworker Shannon Counsellor works in customer service for the port, inside a blue-roofed office. She has been with the port for 10 years.

“It’s a crazy place. It’s fast-moving,” Counsellor said. The job is ever changing with the tides and weather. Many of the fishermen have been busy recently hauling the bigger boats out, all at about the same time, she said.

Counsellor pulled out her scheduling book for marine travel lift appointments. The pages are nearly filled with penciled-in appointments.

“We’re about three weeks out on our appointments,” she said, flipping the pages ahead.

Counsellor said the port has had a lot of return customers, some of whom hail from California and Alaska. Customers are drawn by the diversity of great knowledge possessed by workers in the area.

Wooden boat work is an “art form” she said.

“They’re so skilled at it in this community.”