Tugboats motor down the Seattle waterfront as part of the annual Seattle Maritime Festival. Photo by Don Wilson, Port of Seattle

With their iconic shape and human-sized scale, tugboats have a way of capturing the imagination.

Each year, crowds of up to 10 people deep line a dock on the Seattle waterfront to watch what organizers say are the world’s biggest tugboat races.

To be held next Saturday, May 14, the races are by far the most popular feature of the annual Seattle Maritime Festival being held this week, coordinator Ken Saunderson said.

“I think because of the scale of the tugs, even though they’re working vessels, people can relate to them, rather than the big container ships,” Saunderson said. “They’ve become part of the fabric of the maritime community.”

Scott Hoggarth, general manager of ship assist and escort for Crowley Maritime Corporation, said tugboats, anthromorphized in the 1990s Canadian children’s television show Theodore Tugboat, attract a dedicated following.

“There’s a lot of history to tugboats here in Puget Sound,” he said. “I think there’s sort of a romantic part to it, people thinking about tugboats and about working on the sea. They’re kind of like the little engine that could — they’re small but they have a lower of power.

“They’re engines on the water and they move these big ships around.”

About 25 tugs of various sizes are expected to participate in the races, including the Reliance, built in 1909 and originally used as a log patrol boat and camp tender on the Washington coast. But the high-performance star of the show is expected to be the Crowley-owned 136-foot tugboat Hunter, which runs on 7,200 horsepower.

The tug has participated in the annual race for about 15 years and usually wins partly due to a hull design that’s sleeker than many tugs, Hoggarth said, but mostly just by “brute horsepower.”

Sponsored by the Seattle Propeller Club with support from the Port of Seattle, the Seattle Maritime Festival runs from May 12 to 14. This year’s festival celebrates the centennial of the Port of Seattle, the state’s first public port.

Most public events are on Saturday, May 14 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. around Pier 66/Bell Harbor Marina on the Seattle waterfront. There’s no admission charge for the festival, which is expected to draw more than 20,000 people depending on the weather.

Another festival favorite is Stories of the Sea, a maritime poetry slam to be held at Conor Byrne Pub in Ballard starting at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 12. (Full disclosure: judges for this year’s contest include Three Sheets’ own Marty McOmber.) This is the 11th year of the competition, which gives cash prizes to the top three competitors.

On Saturday, attendees can participate in the festival’s annual chowder cook-off by purchasing a $5 ticket to sample chowder from nine waterfront restaurants and vote for their favorite. Last year about 900 people participated, with proceeds benefiting maritime community and youth organizations.

In the Quick and Dirty Boatbuilding contest, competitors have six hours to build a boat and can spend no more than $100 on materials. Photo courtesy of Seattle Maritime Festival

Also popular is the Quick and Dirty Boatbuilding Competition, in which teams have six hours and up to $100 in materials to build boats, which are raced in Bell Harbor Marina at around 4 p.m.

Other activities include free boat tours of the harbor, a sea-air demonstration, survival suit races and boat-building for kids. Members of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Puget Sound sector will be on hand to give tours of a patrol boat and provide information on life jacket safety.

The tugboat races can be watched from Pier 66, where narrators provide commentary on the day’s activities, as well as from Myrtle Edwards Park and the Olympic Sculpture Park on the waterfront. They can also be watched from a buoy line set up on the water, but Saunderson doesn’t recommend it.

“When the big tugs go by, surf’s up,” he said.

A full schedule and additional information about the Seattle Maritime Festival are available here.

About Deborah Bach

Deborah Bach is the editor and co-founder of Three Sheets Northwest. She is an avid sailor and long-time professional journalist. You can find Deborah aboard Three Sheets, an Island Packet 38, with her husband Marty and their cat Lily.

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