News

Dec 01, 2023

Wood boats finally return to the festival they made famous in Madisonville

The Madisonville Wooden Boat Festival returns this month to the banks of the

The Madisonville Wooden Boat Festival returns this month to the banks of the Tchefuncte River, and with it comes a stream of poignant memories for some festivalgoers, and a weekend packed with activities, live entertainment, fest food and even a glimpse of maritime history for everyone.

"It's always been exciting to me to come to this event and bring these gorgeous hand-built or hand-restored wooden boats. It gives people an appreciation for something that is lost today," said Alex Ellsworth, who has been a wooden boat collector and restorer since the early 1990s and has his Captain's Steamcutter depicted as the featured vessel on the festival's 2022 poster.

"My father had a wooden boat that he worked on, and then he and I worked on one together as partners. From then on, I’ve been collecting, and I’ve been a regular at the Madisonville show since it's beginning," he said.

The festival is set for 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Oct. 15-16 and will stretch several blocks along Water Street to the Madisonville Park outside the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum. The event combines a traditional festival with live entertainment, children's activities and craft fair with a boat show of about 100 classic and wooden boats, some dating to the early 1900s, lining the river.

Ellsworth said he typically brings to the festival about 10 boats ranging in size from 40 feet to canoes and kayaks, an undertaking that requires months of prep work and planning.

"Logistically, it's pretty involved," he said. "But people never get to see these hand-built boats. They marvel at the varnish work alone. Some boats have up to 30 coats of varnish. They look like they’ve been dipped in glass."

Among those he's bringing for the 2022 festival is the poster vessel, the USS New Jersey Captain's steam cutter No. 873, named for her position on the USS New Jersey battleship. It took Ellsworth more than nine years to restore the boat, which he calls "a showstopper."

To complete the restoration, he said he used a master shipbuilder and employed three machine shops to produce parts; Ellsworth said he painstakingly followed the specifications of original Navy drawings.

He said the drawings did more than provide a blueprint for the restoration: They proved that the U.S. Navy used wooden steam cutters until they converted to gasoline and diesel engines.

"Most people think the Navy never had cutters, that only the Coast Guard did," Ellsworth said. "I even had a naval admiral correct me once." But Ellsworth said he sent the admiral copies of the drawings and received a reply confirming the naval history of the steam cutters.

Lori Marcus, the public events coordinator for the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum and the festival organizer, said her three grown children will all return for the festival and compete in the Quick and Dirty Boat contest.

"I have shelves and shelves of the little boats they made as participants in the contest. This festival is very special to our family and one of the reasons we chose to live here and raise our family here," she said. "I’m working to personally make this the best year yet."

Marcus, who lives in downtown Madisonville, has used the time during the festival's COVID-enforced hiatus to gather community feedback on the show's format and layout. Based on that input, festival organizers added more local artists and craftspeople and moved live entertainment back to the riverfront and away from the park area where it was for the previous two years.

Another new addition will be a parade from the park, where the Children's Village is located, to the riverfront. It will be led by The Imagination Movers, who will perform at noon in the Children's Village, which includes bounce houses, games, an obstacle course and STEAM-based activity areas and demonstrations.

The parade will end when — and where — the Quick and Dirty Boat Building Contest gets underway.

Central to that contest — a festival favorite — participants pick a theme and then get 14 hours to build a boat from materials provided. The boats must then must complete a 100-yard course to prove their seaworthiness. The Quick and Dirty boats, along with the "Anchors Away" Cardboard Boat Regatta, will take to the water at 3 p.m. Sunday.

Marcus said the event has a surge of new volunteers who are "bringing in new energy and who are excited to help." Many are avid supporters of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum, the state's only maritime museum, which hosts the event as its major fundraiser.

Museum Executive Director Jim MacPherson said going two years without it has taken a toll. Proceeds from the festival will go toward several projects, including a partnership with St. Tammany Parish to help remove abandoned boats and debris from parish waterways and continued restoration efforts of the Madisonville Lighthouse, where several years of storms, including 2021's Hurricane Ida, have destroyed the dock around the structure.

Maritime Mania, the festival kickoff party, will be held from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Oct. 14 at the museum, 133 Mable Drive. Tickets are $75 for an individual or $125 per couple.

Admission to the festival each day is $10 for adults, $5 for seniors 65 and older. There is no admission fee for kids 12 and under and people on active duty military. Shuttles will be available. For information, visit lpbmm.org/wooden-boat-festival.