Northwest Navigaiton Co.
Taking on the David B
I sometimes find it hard to believe that Jeffrey and I have owned the David B for fifteen years. The first eight years we put all of our time, money, and energy into rebuilding the boat. Our drive was to pursue the dream of offering nature based tours in the San Juan Islands, Inside Passage, and Alaska. We realized that dream in 2006, and for the last seven years we’ve enjoyed meeting people from all over the world.
This month I get to begin to tell our story to a wider audience in Pacific Nor’West Boating Magazine. The stories will be based on my book, More Faster Backwards: Rebuilding David B. My article appears on page 32.
Jeffrey’s Got Us Organized
Having an eighty-plus year-old wooden boat is a lot of work, and it is sometimes hard to decide which projects are the most important to tackle. For instance, do we re-do the pilothouse, or install a new heating system? When should we start work on the engine? Do we buy a new keel cooler or grind the valves on the engine and generator? These are all on the To-do list and not long ago, as we wrestled with these questions, Jeffrey came up with an idea for how to best organize our list and make our decisions for how to tackle our project list.
To read how Jeffrey got us organized, hop on over to the David B’s blog on Yachting Magazine for the answer.
As we work on making the David B beautiful during the winter months, we look forward to having a great summer of cruising in the San Juan Islands and Inside Passage.
Great Boater Education Organizations
Since the release of More Faster Backwards, Jeffrey and I have been invited to give talks about how we restored the M/V David B. What has impressed me about the places that we talk, is how much enthusiasm surrounds these groups for educating boaters of all kinds. Some of the groups we’ve talked to empathize seamanship skills, while others are more focused on boat building. I recently wrote a post for Yachting Magazine about our experiences giving talks to United States Power Squadrons, the Center for Wooden Boats and Northwest Maritime Center.
http://www.yachtingmagazine.com/blog-post/how-to/seamanship/opportunities-for-boating-education
5 Useful Things You Should Have Onboard
As we prepare for the summer cruising season, we inventory take stock of the many items that we keep onboard that could be useful to us or other boaters in an emergency. Jeffrey just wrote a nice article for Three Sheets Northwest about five of the most useful items you should keep onboard.
http://threesheetsnw.com/blog/2013/01/five-really-useful-things-you-should-have-onboard/