Text and photos by John Kohnen (with some help from Dan Mulholland)

The Toledo Wooden Boat show is an annual festival sponsored and managed by the Port of Toledo. 2025 was the 20th year. The Coots have been part of the Show since we were recruited for the first event by then new Toledo Port Manager Bud Shoemake while attending the Depoe Bay Wooden Boat Show. The Oregon Coots TSCA chapter recruits exhibitors and their boats, holds raffles that benefit the Port’s Community Boathouse programs, and helps promote the event. This year our raffle for a small boat and two models brought in over $1,200 for the Toledo Community Boathouse programs.

Toledo, Oregon is a town of 3,500 residents located 12 miles, up the tidal Yaquina River, from Newport, near the mouth. Once home to many lumber mills, the only major employer now is an elderly a pulp mill that manufactures paper for cardboard from wood chips and recycled boxes. Under the leadership of Bud, and present Port Manager Debbie Sacco, in the last quarter century the Port has worked hard to attract the community and visitors to the waterfront on Depot Slough, with the hope that the attention will help Toledo thrive without lumber. The site of a defunct lumber mill near the docks was turned into a park, with a pavilion to give shelter for events, and the Port built a pair of floating shops to support boatbuilding projects and other programs, including a popular free boat livery to get community members out on the water. Unlike too many ports the Port of Toledo likes boats and boaters. The launch ramp is free, and rent for transient slips is a "suggested donation" to the Community Boathouse program. They've always treated the Coots very well.

For 2025, the show featured the Pettis family of fishermen and boatbuilders. Challenge, the last commercial fishing vessel built in Bill Pettis’s Boat Shop near Yaquina Bay, was the guest of honor. Bill came out of retirement and together he and son Mike built and launched her in 1980 and she's still actively fishing. In the slip next to Challenge was Little J, launched in 1972 at Bill Pettis’s shop and still working. During a career that spanned over 25 years, it is estimated that Bill, while working almost entirely by himself, produced over 200 boats at “Bills Boat Shop". Word got out on the Newport waterfront about the Pettis boats coming to the Toledo show and a couple of iconic West Coast fishing boats came up the river to share the fun. Ginevra A is a classic Northwest salmon troller, built by H.E. Ahlquist at Marshfield (now Coos Bay, Oregon) and launched in 1942. Twenty years ago she was almost ready for the burn pile, but an old fisherman restored her to working condition and she's fishing today. The young owner of a beautiful Monterey Clipper from Humboldt Bay, Sangria, was fishing out of Newport when he heard about the show. Monterey Clippers descended from the lateen rigged fishing boats built by Italian immigrants in the San Francisco Bay area, and there's very little difference in hull shape below the waterline between Monterey Clippers and the old sailing boats. Sangria was built by an unknown builder at Capitola, on Monterey Bay, and launched in 1928. It was nice to see such an interesting variety of commercial fishing boats at the show. Newport is the largest fishing port in Oregon, and boatyards and other businesses supporting fishing have long existed along Yaquina Bay and up the River to Toledo. In the past we've had one or two fishing boats come to the show, but never four at the same time. I hope we get that many again. 

The festival is more than a boat show. The largest crowds turn out for the cardboard boat race. The Georgia Pacific paper mill provides cardboard for teams to construct their craft, and then crews are “volunteered” to paddle the resulting boats on a course down Depot Slough and back -- for the boats that are still floating when the starting steamboat whistle is sounds. While the frontrunners get their share of encouragement, the loudest cheers go to the racers whose craft sink along the way. 

Other locals turn out for the musical performances held on Saturday and Sunday, or for the food, and, for many, a chance to see the 40 or so boats displayed “on the hard” or in the water. There are rides available on exhibitor boats or the Port’s launch, Yaquina Queen. Most of the boats exhibited are “TSCA” sized craft that arrive on trailers. The Port’s boat ramp is a couple of miles downriver from town, there is a lot of shuttling back and forth. 

The Port manages to keep the festival free for attendees through booth fees, exhibitor donations, and sponsorships from local businesses. This is a truly great event that the Oregon Coots are proud to be part of.