Early on in my offshore sailing career, I discovered something that has been driven home repeatedly in the ensuing years: At sea, many miles and days from the solid comforts of terra firma, a person’s true character is revealed. It’s not always pretty. On a small boat of defined length, the opportunity to take even a short walk to push the reset button is unavailable. It’s definitely rare, but I’ve certainly encountered my fair share of stifling bores, outright slobs and dangerous clowns. (No doubt, of course, that some of them would say the same of me.)

Why bring all this up? Because I was recently reminded that it makes me really appreciate one of my favorite dudes with whom to set sail, a Renaissance man of sorts from Seattle named Dave Logan.

Together, Logan and I have put a lot of water in our collective wake, well over 30,000 nautical miles. One of our earliest adventures was the 2005 Transpac from Los Angeles to Honolulu aboard our mutual friend Mark Schrader’s Cal 40, Dancing Bear. An incident at the very end, screaming past Diamond Head at double-digit boatspeed with the spinnaker up, sort of speaks to our respective temperaments.

As we bore down on the finish line, I started to panic at the tiller when we couldn’t douse the spinnaker. “Cut the sheet!” I screamed. That is when Logan casually climbed the forestay and tripped the sheet with his marlinspike, immediately defusing the situation. No damage, no worries. I could feel my face go red; my heartbeat immediately settled back into its usual rhythm. “Thanks bro,” was about all I could manage.

Read More from Herb McCormick: And The US Sailing Capital Is?

But our major voyage was a 28,000-mile circumnavigation of North and South America via the Northwest Passage and Cape Horn on a 64-foot steel cutter called Ocean Watch. Logan served as the first mate/engineer, and we shared the same watch the entire journey, through calms, gales, ice, snow—the whole shooting match. Logan likes to cast himself as the silent, stoic type, and we were 18,000 miles and seven months into the trip when we rounded the Horn. Suddenly, standing on the foredeck with my pal, we were both overcome with emotion. “I didn’t think I was going to feel this way,” he blubbered.

“Me neither,” I sputtered.

It was my favorite moment of the best sailing day of my life.

This passage down memory river was triggered last March, when Logan showed up for a Florida family vacation, and I invited him for a sail aboard my Pearson 365, August West, on Sarasota Bay. Logan has always raised an eyebrow at my rather liberal-arts approach to mechanics and maintenance, and I could almost hear the gears in his brain grinding as he cast a critical glance around my deck as we were getting underway. “That backstay could really use tightening,” he said, among other observations, and I felt like a kindergartner getting scolded by his teacher. But, of course, he was right.

And then we went sailing. There was zippo breeze at the outset, and I feared we were in for a drifter. But a northerly filled in soon after, and I literally couldn’t get Logan off the wheel. As always, his pure joy being aboard a sailboat gurgling to weather was infectious. We might as well have been back off the coast of South America, cracking jokes, calling puffs, just enjoying the hell out of the entire situation. It was terrific.

It also reminded me, yet again, that when you go to sea, some of the shipmates you encounter may be some of the worst. But also true, and why you keep going back, is this: A few of the souls you meet along the way are some of the best.  

The post Reflections on Offshore Sailing appeared first on Yachting.

Bruce Kessler, who logged more than 100,000 nautical miles as a captain and was one of the first Americans to circumnavigate the globe on a motoryacht, died April 4. He was 88 years old.

Born in Seattle, Kessler lived most of his life in California. He became a race car driver at age 16, and he drove for Ferrari at age 22 in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. After several crashes, he retired from racing and made the film The Sound of Speed, which was the U.S. entry in its category at the 1962 Cannes International Film Festival. It was the world’s first film to use the technique of car-mounted cameras to show the driver’s point of view.

Kessler became known in Hollywood for shooting car chases, and he went on to direct four movies and multiple television series, including episodes of Mission Impossible, The Rockford Files, MacGyver, Knight Rider, Hart to Hart and The Commish.

He also was a lifelong boater and angler. His first boat was a 26-foot sport-fisherman in 1960, and he eventually owned sport-fishers as big as 48 feet. His homeport was San Diego, and he went on excursions deep into the Mexican state of Baja California, before deciding to move into trawler-style yachts.

Kessler hired naval architect Steve Seaton to design a boat that Delta Marine built. Zopilote—named for black buzzards—was 70 feet long with a 20-foot beam, 10-foot draft and 116-ton displacement. It launched May 1, 1985, and was painted a deep, rich, British racing green. Kessler cruised aboard Zopilote with actress Joan Freeman from Seattle to Alaska, then down the West Coast to Panama, through the canal, on to Florida, then to Maine and the Caribbean before returning to Southern California.

In 1990, the couple departed California bound for the South Pacific on what would become a 35,000-mile circumnavigation. When they arrived in Fort Lauderdale from Europe in 1993, Zopilote became the sixth powerboat to complete a circumnavigation. Zopilote appeared on the cover of Yachting twice during the trip.

Kessler became a popular speaker at boat shows, yacht clubs and other events. He also helped to create and promote powerboat rallies, including the FUBAR rally (now known as the San Diego Yacht Club’s CUBAR rally) and the Nordhavn Atlantic Rally.

After Zopilote struck an uncharted ledge in Alaska and sank in 1994, Kessler built the 64-foot Seaton design Spirit of Zopilote. It was Northern Marine’s first build, delivered in 1997. For the next 27 years, Kessler and Freeman lived and cruised aboard from Alaska through the Panama Canal and on to Florida, the Bahamas and the Canadian Maritimes. They made Maine’s Southwest Harbor their homeport during summers.

Kessler was the first powerboater elected to membership in the Cruising Club of America. He also was a member of the Ocean Cruising Club, the Del Rey Yacht Club, the Southwestern Yacht Club in San Diego, the Marlin Club in San Diego, and the Tuna Club on Catalina Island. He was an Honorary Commodore of the Seven Seas Cruising Association.

Where to send donations in lieu of flowers: Del Rey Yacht Club Youth Sailing in California, Mount Desert Island Community Sailing Center in Southwest Harbor, Maine, or to any local yacht club youth sailing program.

The post Bruce Kessler Dies at 88 appeared first on Yachting.

FN Ronald Gage of U.S. Coast Guard Station New York has aspirations of becoming a rescue-swimmer. His first attempt was stymied by a shoulder injury, and, in his second stint, he failed in the second phase of testing. Despite this setback, his lifesaving skills proved invaluable in Upstate New York’s Lake Placid, where he saved his stepfather, Norm Freund, in 2021.

While the two were swimming a practice triathlon course, Freund began struggling: He was having a heart attack. Gage managed to help his stepfather to a buoy before towing him about 100 yards to a nearby family’s canoe. Upon arriving ashore, Freund didn’t have a pulse until EMTs arrived and revived him. He was then flown to a nearby hospital, where he survived a quintuple-bypass surgery.

Freund lived for another 11 months. Before his death, the West Point graduate and four-year U.S. Army veteran recommended Gage for the Coast Guard Silver Life Saving Medal, which he received this past May.

Gage credits Freund, who he considers to be his primary father figure and role model, with shaping who he is today.

“I wouldn’t be who I am without him,” Gage tells Yachting. “And he’s definitely paved the way for me and my outlook on life, too.”

Read More: BM1 Hernán Ossandón: Fatherhood Changes Everything

Who or what was your inspiration for joining the Coast Guard?

Gage: I knew that I’m kind of like an adrenaline junkie, and I like helping people, too, and traveling. And I was looking at different jobs that I could do that. I was thinking about maybe fire or ski patrol; I was kind of all over the place. And one thing that kept on dragging me from all of those was the [Coast Guard’s] search-and-rescue [mission]. The Coast Guard is, like, the No. 1 search-and-rescue agency in the world. So that kind of like was my official, like, “Alright, this is what I want to do.”

Throughout your five-and-a-half years with the Coast Guard, where have you been stationed?

Gage: Out of bootcamp in Cape May, New Jersey, I went up to Kodiak, Alaska, on a cutter up there. When I was on the cutter, I had been to Seattle, Washington, numerous times—Japan, Hawaii, all over the Aleutian Islands up in Alaska, as far north as Nome, Alaska. I’ve done training in California. I was stationed in North Carolina for three years, so that became home for a little while.

You mentioned being an adrenaline junkie. Do you feel you find that fulfillment with the Coast Guard?

Gage: For sure. Like I said, the initial thing that attracted me was the search-and-rescue [mission]. I’ve had a handful of search-and-rescue cases at this point. I mean, some are different than others; some are, you know, you’re just going out and towing a boat back in because they need some help. I’ve responded to a boat that’s on fire and pulled two people out of the water; I’ve responded to plane crashes, too. You don’t know what you’re looking for, and you don’t know what you’re gonna see; you might not end up even finding anybody or anything. So, for sure, there’s definitely a thrill aspect of that that scratches that itch for me. In New York, it’s not a huge SAR place. It’s very law enforcement-oriented.

How do you handle your emotions in cases involving death, like the aforementioned plane crash?

Gage: It was definitely emotional, for sure, especially once we knew that there was a lot of kids on board, and it was a lot of local people. With the search-and-rescue cases, some people do get desensitized to it—just like a doctor in an ER setting or an EMT on the street. You almost want to try to avoid the desensitizing of that because it takes away from what you’re doing and how serious the situation is. I mean, it’s my job, you know what I mean? So that’s what we do. But, if I desensitize it every single time, then what I’m doing won’t feel like it’s what it is.

What do you hope to achieve in the Coast Guard?

Gage: I feel like the big three things that I talked about in the beginning are huge for me. So I think that if the Coast Guard is still introducing me to new people and new friends, and new connections; I’m still traveling and exploring, and getting to see new things and places; and then helping people. I also hope to just be able to become a good leader and lead by example, and show people what the Coast Guard does and how they operate, and just want to be a good Coastie.

The post FN Ronald Gage’s Lifesaving Rescue in Lake Placid appeared first on Yachting.

Just outside the Fort Pierce Inlet in Florida, a sinking pontoon boat with 10 passengers was hurtling toward a disastrous collection of rocks. That’s when US Coast Guard Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class Hernán Ossandón, who was a seaman at the time, and his team diverted from their training and headed out for Ossandón’s first rescue mission. It meant securing the boat and towing it away from the rapidly approaching rocks before transferring the passengers to a 47-foot rescue boat. Among them were several children and a pregnant woman. It wasn’t until Ossandón became a father in 2015 that he realized the impact of his team’s actions that day. Now a father of two, he looks back on that mission as being one of the most significant he’s ever undertaken. “After becoming a dad, cases with children are different. You just want to get there as fast as you can,” Ossandón told Yachting. “I can’t imagine the pain of a parent to know that their kid is in distress.”

Who or what was your inspiration for joining the Coast Guard?

Ossandón: So, I was a lifeguard. I was a lifeguard for about seven years, and, on my last year—’cause I came into the service when I was 24—my last year, I saw this orange boat. I had no idea what the Coast Guard was. And I see this orange boat out on the water, and I’m like, “Who are they? What are they?” And they were like, “Oh, that’s the Coast Guard,” and I’m like, “What is the Coast Guard?” And they were explaining to me, like, “Oh, they do search and rescue,” and all this stuff. And then they came to the beach, right, with the uniform, and I was like, “What do you guys do?” Oh, let me tell you what we do. They were explaining to me, like, search and rescue, save people under water. And I was all about it. And I really loved being a lifeguard back then, and then I was like, “Oh, I think that’s what I want to do.” And, actually, I wasn’t even a citizen at the time or a permanent resident. I had political-asylum status (from Chile), so I couldn’t do it. And that was in the summer of 2005. We were in the process of getting my green card. By January, I got my card, and the same day, I went to the recruiter, and I was like, “Sign me up.” So they signed me up. I ended up in their reserves site ’cause I was finishing college. And it wasn’t it. I don’t wanna do this. I wanna do active duty. So I went back to my recruiter, and I was like, “I wanna be active duty.” And he was like, “Where do you wanna go?” “I wanna do search and rescue.” “Where?” “Florida.” He’s like, “Here you go.” So I ended up going to Coast Guard Station Fort Pierce; that was my first unit. And, yeah, fell in love with what we do, you know?

I was finishing up college. I was doing electrical engineering, and I got offered guaranteed MK school—the machinery-technician school—but I had no idea what it was or anything. “Oh, you’re gonna be fixing engines and stuff like that.” And I’m like, “I don’t wanna do that.” So I went active duty as a nonrate without a job. When I went to this station, I learned a little bit more about MKs and Boatswain’s Mates. Boatswain’s Mates are the ones driving the boats. Had a good friend that was a third class, and he let me drive the boat as a nonrate, and I drove all the time. And I was like, “Oh, this is what I want to do.” So I put my name on the A-school list; that’s where we get our rate. And I went BM.

As soon as I found out what [the Coast Guard does], it was closed-case. As a lifeguard, I had saved quite a few people, but it’s not the same, though. I’ve done it almost 18 years, and it doesn’t compare to that. ‘Cause, when you go out there, you’re it, you know? 

I ended up being a lifeguard because, in high school, I took the lifeguarding course, and I wasn’t even a good swimmer at the time, and then I liked it—like, the whole concept of being out there, being responsible for someone. I always liked the military. Tried to do the marines, the Navy and all that, but, since I didn’t I have the green card, it wasn’t a go. Yeah, I mean, I could’ve gone the other way, but I think this was the right calling. And, then again, I was gonna do it for four years. Almost 18 years later? Two more, I’ll be retiring, hopefully.

I always wanted to be part of the United States Armed Forces, even when I was living in Chile. You can blame Top Gun for that, haha.

What do you aspire to achieve in the Coast Guard?

Ossandón: I would definitely like to be a chief petty officer. I would like to retire as a chief, but, then again, who knows? Maybe I’ll continue. Like I said, I love what I do. It’s not a job. Every day is different. You deal with all sort of different kind of people. I’ve met hundreds of people in my years, and everyone is unique in their own way, and, whenever we all come together, it’s that brotherhood, sisterhood of all wanting to do the same thing, you know? I think I’ve done everything that I wanted to do, to tell you the truth.

After almost 18 years of service, what kind of impact have you left on the Coast Guard?

Ossandón: I think the Coast Guard, as the organization itself, I wouldn’t go that high [regarding the mark I’ve left], but I would say that I’ve made good impact on people that I’ve met. Not gonna say every single one of them because it’s hard to be okay with everyone, but I have quite a few friends that tell me, like, “Because of you, it’s where I’m at; because of your example, it’s where I’m at.” I used to be very hard on people sometimes—not over-power-tripping or anything like that, but it’s just so they could see how to do right in a positive way. But I think that’s something I’m proud of—that the fact that people looked up to me, and when they tell you thank you for this; thank you for that; thank you for helping me here—it’s rewarding. Now I have one of the kids that was stationed here. He didn’t have a job; now, he’s gonna become a first class in less than three years. It’s amazing. He’s like, “I’m doing what you told me to do.” So, you know, those kind of things kinda, like, fill your heart.

You talked about the example you set for people around you and how some of them have come back to give thanks for the example you set for them. Can you talk about the way you displayed leadership and enforced discipline?

Ossandón: I believe that, in order to discipline anyone within our service, you must do it behind closed doors. I like having a witness with me at the time—usually someone with my same rank. I like to be direct. Tell them what the member did wrong, how to fix it and what will happen if it happens again. There is no need to be power-tripping or screaming since we are all adults. I don’t want junior members to fear me but to respect me. And to be respected, you have to respect them as well.

Can you please recount your most interesting story with the Coast Guard?

Ossandón: It was my first case—ever. So, I was at Fort Pierce as a nonrate. And I was training; I wasn’t even qualified at the time, and I remember Petty Officer Twito, who was driving the boat, and we’re doing training. And then, out of the blue, we get this call. And, again, I wasn’t qualified, so I was just learning. And we get this call about this boat sinking, taking on water. So, they were like, “Alright, pack it up. We’re going out.” So, by the time we go out, the boat was in the inlet. Right, so they didn’t have a prop or an anchor. So, they were about to drift into the rocks. So, I tell them, like, “You want me to go up?” He’s like, “No, stay there; you know what you’re doing.” And I stay there, right? We got on scene with this tiny, little pontoon boat. When we’re getting ready to tow them out, so I throw out the line, and the person go and try to put it there; they ripped it from where it was connected, and then everybody freaked out because they were so close to the rocks, so people moved forward, so the boat tilted. We were finally able to put them in a tow, and we got them out. So when we got them out, we transferred them to our boat, to a 47-footer, and there were three kids, and one of the ladies was pregnant. So we transferred them. And, just, taking care of them, being able to save them; they didn’t have life-jackets. It could’ve been a mess. Maybe at the time, with the kids, it didn’t make that much sense. I didn’t take it as much; “Oh, they’re kids.” But now that I’m a dad, it’s rewarding.

I will never forget my first search-and-rescue case. I was still learning how to be a crewman. It was during training that we had the call over the radio: “Vessel drifting towards the rocks in the vicinity of Fort Pierce Inlet.” It was an overcrowded vessel, with a pregnant woman and a few children on board, among others. At the time, you don’t really think too much, but, when you get there and see them, everything changes. I was nervous; I thought I wasn’t ready, [that] I wasn’t qualified to be part of the rescue, but I remember the words of encouragement from the coxswain, BM2 Michael Twito (now a chief warrant officer): “Stay on the aft deck! You know what to do!” He smiled and gave us orders to proceed. We rescued about 10 people.

How has fatherhood changed/affected your personal and professional lives?

Ossandón: My kids are my world. I want them to be proud of their dad and to know that everything I do is for them. After becoming a dad, cases with children are different. You just want to get there as fast as you can. I can’t imagine the pain of a parent to know that their kid in distress. It’s a horrible feeling when we get on scene, search for hours and can’t locate that child. I can’t describe the feeling. It’s very emotional, but you have to keep going and hope for the best.

The post BM1 Hernán Ossandón: Fatherhood Changes Everything appeared first on Yachting.

Four hundred miles off the coast of nowhere in the Pacific Ocean, U.S. Coast Guard Boatswain’s Mate 2nd Class Liam Coleman found himself in the middle of a counter-narcotics operation. He and his team had just seized a semisubmersible filled with bales of drugs and fuel, and he realized he was having an experience that few people ever encounter. Though he was initially drawn to the Coast Guard for its search-and-rescue mission, it’s moments like that one in the Pacific that have taught the Saugus, Massachusetts, native what this branch of the military can do. Coleman joins at least four generations of his family in serving other Americans: In total, 14 of Coleman’s family members are or were police officers, firefighters or nurses. “My entire family are civil servants. I grew up around that lifestyle and that idea that that’s just kind of what we do,” Coleman told Yachting. “The family business is helping people.”

Who or what was your inspiration for joining the Coast Guard?

Coleman: I am unsure if I ever had a single person or event inspire me to join the Coast Guard. Growing up just outside of Boston, I think I was always aware of the Coast Guard. I didn’t necessarily know what they did, but I can recall seeing the helicopters and boats out on Boston Harbor and being drawn to that as a kid.

What drew you to the Coast Guard over the other branches?

Coleman: My uncle served in Iraq as a corpsman with the Navy, and I always wanted to do something similar. I was sort of always aware of the Coast Guard and the general search-and-rescue mission that they performed in the Boston area. I think, since a very young age, I was drawn to that more than a traditional military branch.

What was it about your uncle’s service in the Navy that inspired you to want to do something similar?

Coleman: It’s always been kind of my calling. I went to college, and the only reason I went to college was because I went to a private Catholic high school. That was the trajectory. You go to high school, you go to college, then you work a desk job. That was the culture. I don’t typically like school that much, but I went to college because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. Didn’t love it, didn’t do great, and so I left school. I never had really any other thoughts besides that service lifestyle. It’s always been ingrained in me. It’s what we do; it’s what our whole family does.

What do you aspire to achieve in the Coast Guard? If known, what is your timeline to complete those goals?

Coleman: As far as achievements in my career, I am unsure of the overall goal, to be completely honest. I joined because I was completely lost in life at 21. I didn’t do well in college, I was working random dead-end jobs and just wasn’t on a path to success, at the time. I think taking the leap to sign up and get to boot camp was an achievement in itself. I think it’s something that, eight-and-a-half years later, I still look back on as a major milestone in my life. When it comes to my career, I’ve based a lot of my goals and plans off of a short-term plan. At the moment, I’m hoping to advance to Petty Officer First Class (BM1) and screen successfully for a command position in the future. In the long term, I think my goal is to positively impact as many people as I can, while I have the opportunity to wear the uniform.

Can you go into some more detail about what you were thinking and feeling on your first day of boot camp? What was that experience like for you to go from dead-end job after dead-end job and not doing well in college to something as formal and as strict as enlisting in one of the military branches?

Coleman: Once I got to the Philadelphia airport, it was kinda still, like, this unknown of excited and a little nervous, and we got on that bus, and we were probably 20 minutes out, and you see the sign for Training Center Cape May in New Jersey, where boot camp is held, and all the conversation on the bus just kinda ended, and this is about to get real. Someone hops on the bus, like in the movies, and the company commander is yelling at you. And it hit me like a freight train. It snapped me into that military lifestyle. I’m here; I’m in bootcamp, regardless of what branch you’re in.

It’s not so much that I didn’t have structure or couldn’t handle it, at first. You don’t know what to expect. About the transition, I don’t think it was that hard for me ‘cause I had thought about it for so long. It wasn’t as hard for me to have someone yell in your face. Just do what they say, do it well, and it’ll be over. I think people think, “This is my life now.” It’s only 2 months. Take it one step at a time. Make it to a meal, make it to bed, and then make it to the next day. 

My big thing is my entire family are civil servants. My grandfather and father were Boston police officers; My mother and aunt—nurses. Going back four or five generations, everyone was a police officer, firefighters or nurses. I grew up around that lifestyle and that idea that that’s just kinda what we do. The family business is helping people—service of some kind. I’m gonna be in the Coast Guard, I’m gonna have tattoos, and I’m gonna be a firefighter.

Can you please recount your most interesting story with the Coast Guard?

Coleman: It would be hard to dial it down to the most interesting story I’ve had so far, but I think my favorite memory, so far, is in 2019 during a counter-narcotics operation in the Pacific Ocean. I was sitting inside of a semisubmersible filled with bales of suspected drugs and fuel, 400 miles off of who knows what country, with a buddy of mine who grew up 30 minutes away from me in Massachusetts. It was kind of this surreal moment where we both sort of just looked at each other and said, “Who’d have thought we’d be where we are right now?” For me, that will always be a really cool and memorable moment because it was something that none of our friends or relatives outside of the Coast Guard would ever understand or experience. 

We went to [the] recruiter together, went to boot camp together. Me and him graduated in the same company. And you’re standing in formation, and they kinda just say like the graduation commences, and you can go see your family, and the first thing we did was turn to each other and gave each other a hug. I got orders to the ship that I was on. He went to officer candidate school, and he eventually became my team leader. It’s the middle of the night, pitch black, just me and him in the middle of the ocean, thinking like, “This is nuts, man. Think four years ago, five years ago, none of our boys would understand this.” Who’d have thought? This is exactly why I joined because little me driving an ambulance in Boston would never have imagined this.

If possible, apart from the day you enlisted, take me to a moment in your early days with the Coast Guard when you thought to yourself, “I’m changing my life for the better.” You mentioned you didn’t feel like you were on a path to success in life, prior to enlisting.

Coleman: My biggest moment was graduation from boot camp. As soon as I graduated, I saw my family and hugged my family again. That was, like, the first time I was like, “I’m here; This is what I’m doing.” I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but i knew what I didn’t want to do. And I knew that I needed a change of pace and to see the world. I had no say where I was gonna go out of boot camp, and that was sort of intriguing to me. I definitely came out a new person.

Please describe your history with the Coast Guard and your current responsibilities.

Coleman: I was born in Saugus, Massachusetts, six miles north of Boston. I joined the Coast Guard in 2015. My first duty station was an 87-foot patrol boat in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I then attended Boatswain’s Mate A School in Virginia. After A School, I moved to Alameda, California, to serve on board USCGC STRATTON (WMSL-752). After California, I headed up to Seattle, Washington, to serve at the Maritime Safety and Security Team. After a short stint in Seattle, I received orders to Destin, where I have been a boatswain’s mate second class for three years. Currently, I wear many hats. I am a small-boat coxswain, boarding officer and deck department head. Currently, my main responsibilities include managing the maintenance, readiness condition, and overall upkeep and performance of the boats and all required safety and survival equipment. I also am a member of Station Destin’s training team, which is designed to ensure that training is being conducted in a manner that will meet the standard required for real-life operations.

If you weren’t in the Coast Guard, what would you be doing?

Coleman: If I wasn’t in the Coast Guard, I would probably be on a fire department in Massachusetts. Or playing for the Red Sox; I haven’t decided.

The post Liam Coleman’s Dedication to Service appeared first on Yachting.

Following a call from a concerned family member, Lt. Jess Gallant and her team set off for a frozen lake and a family of four stranded on their 30-foot sailboat—batteries dead, limbs numb, stomach grumbling. The then-Seaman was just weeks out of U.S. Coast Guard boot camp on her first-ever search-and-rescue mission. She helped escort the family onto a 45-foot response boat and into the survivor’s compartment. Later, while watching the family warm themselves over hot cocoa and soup, she knew this was her calling. Today, at 32, Gallant is the commanding officer of the Coast Guard Station in New Orleans, the second-largest USCG station. “When I graduated from college, I thought I wanted a much different career path than the one I am currently on—something corporate and predictable. I’m glad things panned out the way they did. Every day is a new case, a new adventure, a new challenge.”

Who or what was your inspiration for joining the Coast Guard?

Gallant: I had family that served in the Coast Guard, so I heard about the service often growing up. Also, I lived just down the river from Training Center Yorktown, Virginia, and saw boats full of future Boatswain’s Mates conducting small-boat training on the York River all the time.

What drew you to the Coast Guard over the other branches?

Gallant: Initially, I was drawn to the search-and-rescue (SAR) mission. The idea of saving people from peril was exciting to me. After nearly 10 years in, I am still excited about SAR. I’ve been involved in some of the other 11 missions that the Coast Guard has, including Law Enforcement, Drug and Migrant Interdiction, Living Marine Resources, and Ports, Waterways and Coastal Security. But SAR is still my favorite.

Do you have any family or friends who are in the Coast Guard now or who have previously served?

Gallant: I have an uncle that retired after serving over 30 incredible years in the Coast Guard. I also have an aunt who served and attended the first all-female boot-camp class in 1979; her class was Alpha 109. The Coast Guard is a small service, so I’ve had the privilege of creating some very meaningful relationships with the people I work with. Many of them are like family to me. They work all over: Mexico City, the White House, Alaska, Florida. The Coast Guard is unique in that, wherever you may get stationed, someone there is bound to have a friend in common with you.

What do you aspire to achieve in the Coast Guard?

Gallant: For the last eight years, I have been working toward earning the position I currently serve in. I started as an enlisted Boatswain’s Mate and then attended Officer Candidate School (OCS). I hope to one day become a sector commander. But, ultimately, if I can make positive changes for the men and women of the Coast Guard, and continue to help the American people by conducting search and rescue, protecting maritime commerce and preserving our living marine resources, then I think I will look back at my career and call it one of my greatest achievements—my barfy toddler being the other.

What is your timeline to complete those goals?

Gallant: I have two years left in my current role, and then I will transfer somewhere new. I am planning to apply for graduate school. The Coast Guard offers some incredible advanced-education opportunities for its servicemembers, and they’ve already helped me earn one master’s degree through tuition assistance. I’ve still got a ways to go, but I intend to have a long career in the Coast Guard.

Can you please recount your most interesting story with the Coast Guard?

Gallant: I think this would require us to sit down and have a beer—or coffee—or two. I could share “sea stories” with you all day. I can highlight a couple of cases that most impacted me.

My first SAR case was when I was stationed in Annapolis, Maryland. A family of four lived on board a 30-foot sailboat. The bay that they were moored up in froze over, and they were stuck. When the batteries died, they were stuck and cold. I was only a few weeks out of boot camp and was amped to go out and get them. They were in rough shape and had two little kids who were hungry and shivering. We took them back to the station to warm up, and the cook made them some soup and hot cocoa, while they were waiting for some family members to come pick them up. I remember feeling very proud and amazed that the crewmembers, who were more senior to me, were so nonchalant about it. “We do this all the time.” I called my dad that night and jabbered on about how heroic I thought we were. I’m laughing [as I recall this] because, 10 years later, it was such a simple case. But it made an impression.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I was the coxswain in charge of a 45-foot jet-drive response boat (RB-M) interdicting a styrofoam “boat” with a tarp for a sail with 11 migrants on board off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. One of them attempted to eviscerate himself; one of them attempted to attack my crew with a machete—a much more dynamic, complicated case. We successfully got them off the water after having spent the last 20-plus days at sea with limited food and water. They were in much rougher shape.

One time, when I was stationed in Fort Lauderdale, we responded to a 24-foot vessel taking on water, just outside of Port Everglades inlet. The weather had gotten nasty quickly, and they took some water over the bow. There were only three people on board; one of them was a baby, maybe 8 or 9 months old. The father literally tossed his baby into the arms of one of my crewmembers on board our 33-foot response boat. I remember thinking, “Damn.” We were able to preserve the boat and everyone on board—happy ending. But that flying baby wearing a life jacket lives in my mind at all times.

My husband deployed for Hurricane Harvey in late summer of 2017. He is a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, and we met through some mutual friends when we were both living in the Miami area. He was working out of Air Station Houston, flying all day and pulling people off of roofs amid catastrophic flooding. At the time, I was a newly commissioned officer working in the Sector Miami Command Center, coordinating SAR and law-enforcement response. Our wedding was scheduled for the following Saturday in the Outer Banks, North Carolina. We had the typical military courthouse wedding a year prior, but not everyone knew that. I was hoping that he would be home in time to drive up with me for the ceremony but couldn’t know for sure. And, either way, I was willing to enjoy the party with or without him; that’s life in the Coast Guard. 

I was in a makeup store trying to find the right shade of coverup to hide my tattoo from my grandma for the wedding ceremony when I happened to look up at the TV. There, live on CNN, was my husband, Evan, conducting a live hoist of two people and two Boston Terriers with Anderson Cooper on board his helicopter. I told the lady testing the makeup on me, “Hey, that’s my husband!” She looked at me like I was bananas and didn’t talk to me for the rest of the session. Looking back, maybe she thought I was talking about Anderson Cooper—or the Boston Terriers? He made it back in time for the wedding, fortunately, but most of our wedding party and many of our guests were missing because they were either pulling survivors off of rooftops or helping coordinate the response to the flooding. Anyone else might be upset by that, but Evan and I were proud.

What is your full title, and can you please provide a list of your responsibilities?

Gallant: I am currently the commanding officer of Coast Guard Station New Orleans, the second-largest station in the Coast Guard. We have eight response assets (small boats) that range from 24 feet to 45 feet. I am responsible for SAR, Law Enforcement, and Ports, Waterways and Coastal Security. Our area of responsibility includes the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to Port a la Hache, and the lakes and bayous from the Pearl River to Vermillion Bay.

If you weren’t in the Coast Guard, what would you be doing?

Gallant: I ask myself this question often. I really don’t know. I would like to think that I would be doing something to help people. When I graduated from college, I thought I wanted a much different career path than the one I am currently on—something corporate and predictable. I’m glad things panned out the way they did. Every day is a new case, a new adventure, a new challenge. I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.

The post Lt. Jess Gallant’s Coast Guard Calling appeared first on Yachting.

I have worked at Princess for more than 30 years. In that time I have become the custodian of our interior and exterior living spaces in terms of design and styling. You develop an instinctive sense of what works, not just aesthetically but also with an eye on what’s achievable.

Princess builds a hugely diverse range of models, but step aboard any one of them and you will sense a coherent design integrity, from the new R35 at one end of the spectrum to our latest project, the tri deck X95, that pushes the boundaries of style.

A quiet confidence pervades. These are designs that will last. The Princess Design Studio look is simple yet sophisticated, and exquisitely executed – the aim is to create somewhere you will want to spend more and more time. As you do, you’ll notice the almost obsessive attention to detail.

We have been raising the standard spec on our boats in the last few years, not only around the outdoor living spaces, where an abundance of teak is often enhanced and complemented by metallic paint finishes, but inside too. Electric blinds on the S78, for example; sophisticated Naim audio systems, touch sensitive wall lights, Vispring mattresses, and so on. Fabrics and finishes are more robust than they used to be, but just as stylish. Our designs of today are more edgy – satin surface finishes combine beautifully with innovative treatments such as soft-touch laminates and lacquers, to create a textured, architectural vibe.

As we develop more innovative designs, we are becoming leaders rather than followers. My team gives creative direction, so a lot of thought goes into how each new model will be used, the latest trends that we believe are significant and will stand the test of time, and new finishes and effects. We scour design shows all over the world, study the catwalk trends, and keep a watching brief on the latest boutique hotels and luxury brand showrooms.

At the Princess Design Studio nothing is ever considered quite good enough, and in striving for perfection every surface finish is rigorously tested, new furniture designs are painstakingly mocked up and every stitch detail is considered. Sustainable timbers are hand selected at source. Veneers are sorted manually to ensure consistency of quality, colour and grain.

While we strive to create designs that exude confidence, beauty and craftsmanship, we never lose sight of the one crucial ingredient for on-board comfort – space. People need freedom of movement on board, and room to relax. Customers spend weeks if not months at a time on their boats and our aim is to make the environment on board so spacious and uplifting that they never want to leave.

The post A Day in the Life With Sarah Verey appeared first on Yachting.

I’m one of more than 80 skilled carpenters in the bench carpentry section at Princess’s Coypool complex, and we produce just about every piece of timber aboard your Princess. From structural bulkheads to wardrobe doors, and from bunks and bathrooms to superyacht dining tables, they are all put together with the same obsessive quest for perfection.

I have always liked working with wood. I did it at home, enjoyed it at school, and studied it at college. I then spent ten years with a local manufacturer producing architectural joinery, windows, doors and staircases, during which time I served a four-year apprenticeship to earn my professional qualifications.

In the 20 years I’ve been at Princess, I have seen how our traditional woodworking and joinery skills have been augmented by high-tech machinery and computer modelling. It’s about efficiency and cost, of course, but it’s also about quality. Computer numerical control means precision, but timber is a natural element with inherent variations, so a lot of traditional skills are needed to bring even a straightforward assembly up to the level of quality we require. The smallest jobs contain only a few components, but the largest may number nearer 400. And everything has to fit and function as perfectly as possible.

Our designers are demanding more curves than they used to, in both bulkheads and furniture. So we use vacuum presses which can produce complex curves in material thicknesses which would have been impossible only a few years ago. Microwave radio frequency presses form the multi-layered veneer cappings that grace almost every bunk.

Explore More: The Princess Passport

The popular cherry finishes of a few years ago have now mostly given way to oak and walnut. But we still use cherry on many of the ebony feature pieces like coffee tables and dining tables, because its density and close grain allow it to be colour-matched perfectly.

In 2015 I was presented with the John Helmore Award for Excellence. John was a great friend of  mine. We studied at the same college in Plymouth, little imagining that years later we’d both be working at Princess Yachts. He was an absolutely fantastic craftsman, and his work was an inspiration to the whole team. Sadly, he died of cancer last year, aged 44, and it’s a great honour to be the first recipient of this new award in his memory.

In my spare time I like to raise money for St Luke’s Hospice, which looked after John, so this year I entered the Lions Club New Years’ Day fancy dress swim in Cawsand Bay. I went as a Minion. The outfit was only made of cardboard, but even if I say so myself, it was pretty good. Like John, I’m not just a carpenter, I’m a perfectionist.

The post A Day in the Life With Martyn Hamley appeared first on Yachting.

For a farm girl from Indiana to become a superyacht captain is an Everest goal, a dedicated pursuit of an extraordinary achievement. When Kelly Gordon stepped on board an 80-foot Sanlorenzo in Beaufort, North Carolina, for a party—her first time on a boat larger than an 18-foot runabout—she knew instantly that she’d found her life’s calling.

That boat’s name: Everest.

Thirteen years after earning her license, Gordon, 40, is captain of an even grander 2017 Sanlorenzo: the 106-foot Freddy, which charters out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Gordon credits years of hard work, determination and the mentorship she received from Everest’s captain for her standing as one of the few female captains in the industry. She now aspires to inspire other women to not just join the crew but to lead it.

Curiosity and a Thirst for Knowledge

The turquoise waters of the Exumas, Gordon’s favorite cruising grounds, are a world away from the corn and soybean fields of Elwood, Indiana—population 8,288. Gordon loved working her family’s 40 acres and looking after their menagerie. She left high school at 15, worked as a veterinary technician and started college at 17, with her sights set on becoming a veterinarian. She completed a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and was lured to Beaufort by a stipend to pursue a master’s degree and teach chemistry before continuing on to vet school.

Those plans changed when she stepped aboard Everest. The boat’s owner, Dan Meggitt, offered her a tour. “I said: ‘Where’s the engine room? That’s got to be the best part of the boat,’” she recalls. “His eyes got big with surprise.”

“I saw the similarities between the boat engines and the engines in the heavy farm equipment that I grew up with,” Gordon continues. “It felt so familiar yet so different. I said, ‘I want to do this.’ Dan said: ‘You think so? Then come back tomorrow.’”

She did—and worked for Meggitt on Everest for the next eight years, running charters along the East Coast and to the Bahamas.

“He could see my curiosity and thirst for knowledge,” Gordon says. “He insisted I spend as much time as I could in every department. He told me: ‘You have to be in the engine room. You have to learn your systems. When you hire an engineer or contractor, you need to be able to have an intelligent conversation about what’s going on and not get the wool pulled over your eyes.’”

During what she calls her “baby captain” days aboard Everest, Gordon took one of her most memorable cruises: to Cuba in February 2016.

“We lost our transmission and limped into port on one gear,” she recalls. “Trying to deal with visas to fly out to bring back a long list of parts was a nightmare. So, I got myself a mechanic and a translator. I thought, ‘If they can keep these old cars on the road with minimal supplies, they will be able to help me with the transmission.’”

The mechanic came up with a one-part solution that allowed Everest to make it back to the United States. “The people of Cuba made that experience,” she says. “Whatever I needed to do, they were there to help.”

I’m Really Doing This

In 2017, Meggitt transitioned out of the industry, and Gordon pivoted to delivering boats ranging from 70 to 160 feet. “Delivering that 160-footer was a surreal moment,” she says. “I felt like: ‘Wow, I’m really doing this. After so many years of hard work and determination, I am doing what I wanted to do.’”

She brought on two crewmembers who are still with her: chef and jack-of-all-trades Shane Hughes and deck stew Gianna “Gi” Mesi. “Gi is one of the brightest young women in the industry,” Gordon says. “She is working her way up the ladder on the deck.”

The trio gelled as a team while crewing for three summers on a 75-foot private yacht in Chicago, and especially while navigating the inland waterways to deliver boats between Florida and Chicago.

“I was coming around the bend from the Ohio River into the Mississippi River, and it looked like a miniature ocean,” Gordon says. “You had waves, swells, trash, trees, refrigerators, buoys on the wrong side of the river and lots of commercial traffic. It took all three of us to get through situations like that.”

At every stop, Hughes was constantly mistaken for the captain. “He’d say: ‘No, I am low man on the totem pole. These two women are running the boat,’” Gordon says. “You learn to laugh about it and feel proud when they realize you are the captain.”

Word got out about the female captain. When Gordon pulled into Heritage Harbor in Ottawa, Illinois, the marina manager asked if she’d meet with a local young woman named Macy who’d been awaiting her arrival and aspired to be a captain herself.

“That was a pivotal moment for me,” Gordon says. “I didn’t realize how much of an influence I could have on young women.”

Coming Full Circle

During the past year, Gordon has taken command of two separate helms. In June 2021, three different sources contacted her within 24 hours about the captain position aboard Freddy. “It was meant to be,” she says with a laugh. “To captain another Sanlorenzo felt like everything was coming full circle for me.”

She took Freddy into the boatyard for extensive upgrades to the interior and chiller system. “Vendors have thought that Freddy is a newer boat than she actually is, so that has been rewarding,” she says.

The captain thrills every time she takes Freddy to the Bahamas, where she has made close friends over her more than a decade in the industry. “My energy, vibe and whole face change as soon as I see Nassau on the horizon,” she says. “Highbourne, Compass and Staniel cays are where my people are, and I love making each of those stops.”

Gordon’s second “helm” is a mentorship program through her personal website (captainkellyjgordon.com) that connects the growing number of Macys who reach out to her from all over the world with the current generation of female crew.

“We need to help these young women who are so passionate about getting into the industry,” she says. “Mentorship was so important to me and my career. I want to pay it forward.”

Hidden Gem

While many charters in the Northern Exumas don’t venture past Staniel Cay, Gordon is proud to take her guests one stop farther south. She anchors in Little Bay at Black Point. She then takes Freddy’s 2021 Boston Whaler 320 Vantage down to Little Farmer’s Cay so guests can swim with turtles and visit an above ground cave. They then stop at Musha Cay to collect sand dollars.

Room to Grow

According to the She of the Sea 2021 “Diversity and Inclusion in Yachting” report, women account for: 1.9 percent of captains, 3.9 percent of chief officers, 0.5 percent of engineers, 8.6 percent of deck crew, 18.9 percent of galley crew, 86.4 percent of interior crew, and 2.1 percent of captain candidates.

Helping Hand

During a February stop at Pig Beach in the Exumas, Gordon noticed a piglet that wasn’t doing so well. She found some baby formula on Freddy and drew on her veterinary skills to get the piglet back on its feet. Her crew recorded the moment on video. “It says everything about me—the pigs, the beach and the boats,” Gordon says. 

Due Course

Like most captains, Gordon travels light. However, one fixture aboard Freddy is an old-school compass given to her by her sister, Brandee Gordon. Engraved on the back is the message, “Let your mind be free when you’re at sea.”

The post Captain Kelly Gordon Leads by Example appeared first on Yachting.

At some point, nearly all visitors to Montserrat visit Hilltop Cafe and Family Centre and meet owner David Lea. “We’re going to change the sign to say ‘welcome center’ because people come here to learn everything they want to know about the island,” Lea says. A 360-degree spin in Lea’s coffeehouse/museum/art gallery/community center provides an engaging glimpse of the island’s past and present.

Most perceptions of Montserrat are stuck in the past—specifically, 1995, when the cataclysmic Soufrière Hills volcano eruption began. As an amateur videographer who hosted his own television series, Caribbean Crossroads, Lea chronicled the eruption and aftermath and compiled his footage into a documentary called The Price of Paradise.

Visitors can watch the film at Hilltop, but Lea also enthusiastically educates guests about Montserrat through his multitude of more upbeat mementos. Works by local artists (including Lea’s wife, Clover) adorn the walls. And photos and albums memorialize Air Studios, where music A-listers recorded 76 albums and which epitomized Montserrat at its full glory.

What inspired your collection of mementos? I hated for things to get buried. I’d bring signs or other things home whenever I’d go out. I didn’t realize how much stuff I’d collected.

What do you want people to know about Montserrat today? It has been 10 years since we’ve had any seismic activity. In that time, people have rebuilt in the northern part of the island. Where we live used to be considered the country—now we’re in the middle of everything.

What do you like most about Montserrat? The island’s motto until a few years ago was, “The way the Caribbean used to be.” It is. People are still friendly. There’s very little crime. Everyone gets along well. We retain that; I hope people come [and] experience that.

David’s Must-Do List on Montserrat

The People’s Place (Fogarty Hill): Owner John Fergus is like the mayor of Montserrat. He serves goat water [a stew] and other local dishes.

Olveston House (Salem): This refined restaurant and inn was legendary “fifth Beatle” Sir George Martin’s home. Look for the Beatles pictures taken by Linda McCartney.

Woodlands Beach: It has showers, changing rooms and privacy. If you go during the week, youll usually be alone.

Montserrat Island Tours: Our son Sunny grew up here and leads incredible tours.

The post Island Icon: Montserrat Intel appeared first on Yachting.