Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival 2026

Come learn more about the well beloved Farrells, their artistic and intangible legacy, and how it means to be renewed today. Be prepared for soulful storytelling, restorations of a junk rig, and some shared appreciation for the waters we dwell in.

Allen and Sharie Farrell were shipwrights, cruisers, artists and the kind folk that built and lived aboard China Cloud-a 40’ wooden jink rig. Today, this boat is tended to by their great great grand niece Eden Murray. Although Eden never got to meet the Farrells, their stories coloured her own life on the water growing up. She is now an artist and facilitator living between Victoria and Quadra island where the boat perches on the beach of Heriot Bay. After 4 years of living aboard part time and finding inspiration, freedom, and home in the muse that is this wooden junk rig vessel, she is now embarking on the adventure of restoring the boat in community hands and hosting residencies and nature immersions aboard for young people (and young at hearts alike!). She will tell us the story of how China Cloud came into her hands, how these people lived on the water, and her hopes for the exciting project that is this heritage relic and its living legacy. Be prepared for gorgeous images of the vessel's three red fans, local cruising episodes, and multiple forms of the question that keeps her up at night under the stars: How can stories drenched in folk-esq seafaring contribute to a more compassionate world? And how do we help steward this animist world from the water, our small abodes among other floating creatures contributing to more meaning and trust within our inner and outer ecologies. Follow up the conversation with Eden and her crew aboard at the boat show all weekend.