To say boat building is a hobby for Tom Larkin would be a bit of an understatement. Larkin has built about 10 boats at home, including canoes, kayaks, runabouts and a 24-foot sailboat. But his newest creation is his biggest and most ambitious so far, a 25-foot mini-tugboat designed by Olympia builder and designer Sam [...]

Grey mornings and crisp, fall-like temperatures around Puget Sound over the last week might have boaters wondering if summer is winding down almost as soon as it started. But local meteorologists say while the past few days have been cooler than usual, the mercury should start rising next week and August will likely bring plenty of sunshine [...]

A series of public meetings starting Wednesday in Edmonds will focus on potential changes to recreational crabbing in Puget Sound that could take effect next year. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is considering three possible options for the region’s Dungeness crab fisheries. All options would have a summer crab fishery from July through [...]

Spotting a tugboat operator waving from the shore, Jeff Barney motors his boat over to say hello. The man, Steve Tate, gestures across the Hylebos Waterway in Tacoma where the decrepit ferry Kalakala is moored, an old tugboat floating next to it that appears in danger of sinking. He tells Barney both boats have been [...]

The last bastion of civilization can be any number of places depending on where you are heading and what your standards for civilization are. At various times in the past, I’ve felt like my last touch with civilized society before a departure to wander in the wilderness has been at Campbell River, at Port McNeill, [...]

I was recently struck by a comment left by one of our readers, Dennis. In response to a story about the Coast Guard escorting a damaged sailboat off the Washington Coast back to the safety of a harbor, he wrote: “Raise a glass to this Coast Guard crew for assisting this distressed vessel and crew. Raise [...]

As a child growing up on the water in Federal Way, Dave Petrich would look at the pilings next to his family’s property and imagine the days when steamships stopped at the dock that was once there. Thoughts of the Mosquito Fleet, the thousands of privately run freight and passenger steamships and traveled from Olympia [...]