Some of Our Contributors
Paul Esterle
My first experience on the water came at a ripe young age of seven months. Mom and I arrived in New York via a long trip on a Liberty Ship from England in February (it took her years to get back on a boat). My first boating experiences were fishing off Cleveland, Ohio with my uncle. My first sailing experience was sailing out of Fairport Harbor with a school friend. From there, I went on to restore a wooden Sunfish and build stripper canoes before they became popular. I then designed and built recreational hovercraft and model hovercraft kits for a number of years. After selling that business, we bought our first real sailboat, Ternabout, our Matilda 20 (which we still own and sail). My wife, Pat, and I purchased a larger boat (Bryn Awel) and started her restoration. We had purchased just about every sail related video there was. We decided we could do better and started developing videos and CDs. Writing began as an outgrowth of the video production. I started my writing career by submitting hints and tips to SAIL and Cruising Magazines. That grew into a regular series of "how-To" articles for sailing magazines. I found Small Craft Advisor at about issue number four and began regularly submitting thereafter. For some reason, Josh and Craig humor me and keep publishing my stuff.
Hugh Horton
Most of my life I've lived on the water: the Indian River on Florida's east coast in the 50s, Pine Lake in SE MI, the Indian River further N in the 70s & 80s, the Clinton River in MI. I've sailed and paddled our ocean coasts, Western reservoirs, the Great Lakes, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, England and Micronesia, and worked aboard a freighter to the Far East in '69. I've been looking intently at shorelines forever, it seems. Work. Lumber handler, mobile home park service person, roofing subcontractor, photographer, motorcyle shop owner, merchant seaman, made film ('72 New York to Bermuda Multi-Hull race), construction super, farmtown carpenter, boatbuilder, family pattern lumber biz owner, small boat closet philanthropist, writer, enviro activist. An indifferent list, I know. No career, although I'm hard at it now. I was exceptionally lucky, & have & had been very fortunate to be able to slip into a time warp & choose my grandparents. It's been a privileged life.
John Simpson
In my twenties skippering a yacht across the Indian Ocean kindled an interest in long-distance sailing. So whilst working for the army on diving craft (including helping lift the "Mary Rose," Henry VIII's flagship) I bought a Hurley 22 ("Miss Content"). Living on the boat in Southampton Water whilst preparing her for long passages. Then sailing her on a single-handed Atlantic circuit. After a refit, I sailed the boat across to the Caribbean again, delivering yachts whilst there (including the States). By this time I'd met Janet and been offered a job running a Danish yacht. So I sold "Miss C", came back, married and gained two step-children!Growing up on the north shore of the Thames estuary in England, I learnt to sail with my father on his traditional gaff-rigged fishing smack. Racing dinghies and camping/cruising with friends exploring the East Coast rivers followed in my teenage years. I started sailing professionally now (self-employed), teaching mostly on the South Coast, this included enjoying some interesting boats like "Jolie Brise," a 1913 French Pilot cutter. Janet and I bought "Blauwe Slenk" and old wooden 26ft Dutch sloop, she became the family boat for 13 years. During a November Atlantic delivery on a new 40ft Gaffer from Nova Scotia, I realised I needed a change. So being offered a job as Sailing Coach for the Royal Navy of Oman was great. Sadly "Blauwe" was sold. After returning from Oman (having now acquired a Drascombe Lugger) we moved to Scotland. I'm now teaching sailing at the National Centre, Janet's running a Bed and Breakfast on the shores of Loch Fyne! We aren't completely boatless. Janet has a sailing canoe and I've just bought a wrecked International 14. The kids, now grown up are both architects, Kyra climbs and Wesley windsurfs.
Bill Mantis
A former teacher, semiretired contractor, and regular contributor to SCA, I've also authored the book: The $50, 5 Hour Canoe Sail Rig. I have spent five decades in, on, around, and under sailboats, whether in the water or out. If one uses a loose definition of "wn" and "sailboat," I can truthfully claim to own five sailboats, currently, along with a half-dozen spare sailing rigs and two outboard motors. I'd like to get rid of some of my outboards.
John Welsford
I started designing some 20 odd years ago when a friend asked me what I thought of a boat he proposed to build. I didn't like it, for a start it was going to be far too heavy for him to handle on his own and it was a poor match for the proposed usage in a lot of other ways. I was told to put up or shut up, and sent off to produce something better.He built the boat that I drew up for him, and to the vast surprise of all concerned the new design worked extremely well! I was started on a path which has kept me involved and interested ever since. I'm still doing the same today, matching boats to usages, resources and environments. But now the design work is backed up by the experience of that two decades plus of study and research, somewhere over 100 designs drawn, over 3000 sets of plans sold, 22 boats that I have built myself, a lot of experiments in glued engineered plywood structures and a lot of practice in all areas of designing for others to build. In all cases I draw for the first timer, and include a written guide to help follow the drawings. I keep in touch with my builders, and their feedback tells me what information is needed. A lot of them are first timers and I try hard not to assume too much knowledge on their part so the plans go right down to fine detail. Something that I have never lost is the sense of wonder and appreciation that people trust my skills and judgement enough to build a boat from plans that I have created, it is a big thing for me, to be trusted with an investment of time, money and eventually the safety of the crew. The fact that so many of my customers have become friends is the biggest bonus of all, and it is a real buzz to be involved in a trade with so many really great people.
John Edwards
Graduated with a MS in Wildlife Management from Montana State University, spent one summer trapping grizzly bears around Yellowstone N.P. After 28 years with the Forest Service as a Wildlife Biologist, I retired in 2003. Been sailing for 20 years, obtained a USCG Captains license (6 PAC) in 2000, started freelance writing in 2002.
Marlin Bree
When Marlin Bree (www.marlinbree.com) first launched his boat in the chill waters of Lake Superior, little did he realize that the resulting experiences would begin a new career as a book author and boating journalist. His 20-foot cold-molded sloop of wood veneers and epoxy, Persistence, has now sailed most places on the world's largest freshwater lake and Bree has chronicled many adventures both afloat and on its rugged shores. His heroes are small boats and the sailors who man them; Bree's books are noted for authentic tales of wicked storms and brave skippers who try, often successfully, to survive high seas and forces of nature that often seem against them. His characters are imbued with native courage, compassion and dignity, as well as waterfront humor that sometimes arises in the worst circumstances. (Wrote one book reviewer: "Bree is at his best when the lake was at its worst.") He writes some of his material onboard his centerboard boat while at anchor or tied up in some remote harbor, or even, alongside a tugboat or barge. "Once I got into boating, the world of boating opened up to me," Bree recalls. "And after being aboard ten-foot Yankee Girl, I never thought of Persistence as being small, merely compact with things readily falling to hand." The resulting books are Broken Seas: True Tales of Extraordinary Seafaring Adventures, Wake of the Green Storm: A Survivor's Tale, Call of the North Wind, and, In the Teeth of the Northeaster. A previous book, Alone Against the Atlantic, which Bree co-authored with skipper Gerry Spiess, told about 10-foot Yankee Girl's record crossing of the North Atlantic. It became a national best seller. Bree's Wake of the Green Storm remained as a #2 regional best-seller for more than a year on Amazon.com. Bree is a former magazine editor for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. His account of being caught in a rare, progressive Derecho while sailing alone on Lake Superior earned him the top writing honor in 2004 from Boating Writer's International. When not writing books, he writes magazine pieces for Small Craft Advisor, Cruising World, Northern Breezes and the Ensign.
Raven (The Sail Doctor)
SCA's co-editor & publisher, Joshua Colvin and I both live in Port Townsend, WA, within walking distance of each other actually; but it was at the annual PT Wooden Boat Festival in SCA booth that I first met Josh and Anika. I was shmoozin' around enjoying the boats but my principal reason for attending the festival - and my ticket in - was that I was one of the performers on the music stage. Though I keep a hand in sailmaking and love the boats most of my energy is devoted to performing arts: music, theater and some dance. Of course, I write about sails. In my first encounter there with Josh at the WBF I proposed a reprise of my Small Boat Journal Q & A series the Sail Doctor, some of which had been reprinted in my subsequent book, The Sailmaker's Apprentice. Josh was enthusiastic and soon thereafter the Sail Doctor column was reborn in SCA. If you look back a ways you can see the early format was a standard Q & A with questions from readers. As time went on though, my theatrical, humorous nature colored the column more and more until it became a literary, call-in radio show with its own theme song entitled "I Smell A Rat!". The song appears in its instrumental version and was, in every aspect, created by me. In Issue #64's "show", you heard from my cat Juniper. I also live with a dog named Angelina and we all share an elderly, solar-powered land-yacht that stays at the mooring most of the time. I have a little, red, three cylinder land-dinghy named Zippy Zaidi for local voyages. Zippy's named in honor of Muntahdar Al Zaidi and has a pair of shoes riding as a hood ornament. It may interest you to know that the Sail Doctor usually is published verbatim, my punctuation and all! It's the real thing and part of what makes SCA a genuine, and heart-felt endeavor. I am grateful to be onboard. Here's my Sail Doctor theme song: Click here.
