Northwest Maritime Center

Our mission is to engage and educate people of all generations in traditional and contemporary maritime life, in a spirit of adventure and discovery.

The Northwest Maritime Center is both a gathering place and a campus for formal and informal education located in Port Townsend, WA. We exist as a public space at the water’s edge that offers access to all, as well as home to events—Race to Alaska, SEVENTY48, WA360, Salish 100, She Tells Sea Tales, and the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival. We also run Salish Sea Expeditions, Marine Thrift, and 48º North Magazine, summer boat tours and summer camps, and numerous navigation, seamanship, boatbuilding, and sailing classes for adults and youth alike. We are proud to be a partner of Maritime High School, the Seattle area’s first high school to connect students with hands-on, project-based learning to create access to local maritime careers and open doors to college.

We’re many things, and at our core we are a campus that uses powerful maritime experiences to educate, inspire people to adventure, and celebrate maritime culture. We do it for our own love of boats, in service to our community and maritime industry, but mostly because regardless of the subject, the sea is the most powerful teacher we know.