Arcadia Author, Puget Sound Maritime Historian to Present Tall Ships, Tugboats Programs

MT. PLEASANT, S.C. - Aug. 22, 2013 - PRLog -- Chuck Fowler, author of three Puget Sound-focused pictorial maritime history books published by Arcadia Publishing Co., will give back-to-back presentations and book signings on Sun., Aug. 25 during the 21st annual Tacoma Maritime Fest.  

The bestselling author will talk about his book “Tall Ships on Puget Sound” at 2 pm and “Tugboats on Puget Sound” at 3 pm at Flagship Maritime Training, 821 Dock St., on the downtown Tacoma waterfront.   The office and classroom building is located just south of the Foss Waterway Seaport and the festival site.   Fowler’s latest book is “Patrol and Rescue Boats on Puget Sound,” and all three will be for sale and signing during the event.  

Using many historical photos and other images, the “Tall Ships” program will tell about the first tall sailing ships that came to the Pacific Northwest beginning in the mid-1700s.   Met by native Salish people in their hand-carved, ocean-going canoes, these small wooden ships brought Spanish, British, Russian, and American explorers, as well as settlers and entrepreneurs, to the region.   According to Fowler, during the next two centuries, through boom and bust periods, these majestic sailing vessels continued to ply the waters of Puget Sound.   Today however, restored ships like the 1913 schooner Adventuress and the re-created square-riggers like the Lady Washington launched in 1989, have educational rather than commercial purposes.  

Similar to the history of tall sailing ships in the Pacific Northwest, the “Tugboats” program will reveal that the story of the region’s tugboats also had its roots on the Atlantic Coast in the early 1800s and later in the San Francisco area beginning with the California Gold Rush of 1849.
Through colorful stories and rare photos, Fowler will discuss the interesting histories of many of these and other famous tugs, their captains and tug businesses.   Included in his illustrated talk will be the fascinating story of the founding, by Andrew and Thea Foss in Tacoma in 1889, of the worldwide tug company known today as Foss Maritime.

Chuck Fowler is a Tacoma native who now lives in Olympia and has had a life-long passion for saltwater, sea history, ships and especially tugboats.  He grew up on Puget Sound and learned to row and handle his first small skiff during summers in the 1940s at his family’s beach home on Maury Island.   He is past president of the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society and founding co-coordinator of the Pacific Northwest Maritime Historical Council.   Recently Fowler received the Tacoma Historical Society’s prestigious Murray Morgan Award for significant achievement in preserving and communicating history.