February 16, 2011
Capt. Denise Fox, one of just a few women with a 1,600-ton USCG ticket, is back in command, this time on a 112-foot Westport in Seattle. Yes, Seattle in winter. She’s been crewing up, outfitting and preparing M/Y Crescendo for her upcoming cruising season, including checking out the life raft when it went for inspection.
“Just a note to recommend to all captains to try to do this with their crew,” she wrote. “It gets them more familiar with their life rafts, about how big (or small) they are, all of the parts andequipments mounted on the raft as well as the equipment packed in it.”
The new crew includes Mate Rick Sands, Deck/Stew Mary Christie and Chef Ryan Carson. To see a photo of Rick scraping snow and ice off the swim platform, visit www.the-triton.com.
Capt. Craig Cannon has taken command of M/Y The Highlander, the 116-foot classic Feadship originally owned and made famous by Malcolm Forbes. (This is not the green-hulled Feadship of the same name that the Forbes family still owns, which is still tied to the dock in Ft. Lauderdale.)
Capt. Cannon, who lives in Clearwater, joined the yacht in December and after a trip to the Bahamas, has taken her back to Florida’s West Coast for pretty cheap dockage. The city docks there charge $10 a foot a month.
“You can’t get anything that cheap in Ft. Lauderdale,” he said. “If the boat’s just sitting, this is a great place to be. St. Pete has great marinas and there’s lots to see and do around Tampa and Fort Myers. And if it saves the owner some money, that’s even better.”
Brian Welch, former mate on M/Y Hard Assets, a 100-foot Jones Goodell yacht, has recently taken over as captain and hired Caleb Semtner to join him as mate. At our networking event in mid-January, he was looking to hire a chef/stew, though we’re sure by now the fun-loving crew has found their perfect match. They expect to head to Europe this summer.
Another of the old-time, long-timers is moving on, even though he doesn’t want to.
Capt. Ian Walsh, 18 years on the 58-foot Hatteras yachtfish M/Y Trim-It, said good bye to the old girl in January when a new owner bought her and decided to run her himself.
“After working for great owners for my past seven jobs -- that’s since 1976 -- I’d take another full-time job,” he said. “There’s got to be some great owners left out there.”
Absent that, he’ll work deliveries.
You may recognize Capt. Walsh’s name as the author of a series of stories about the rehabilitation of the 90-foot Burger he knew as M/Y Sea & H, but which burned in 2004 as the M/Y Argus V.
Each spring and fall on his way to a summer cruising season, he stopped at Worton Creek Marina in Maryland to visit John Patnovic, the yacht’s new owner who is refurbishing her himself.We’ll miss those stories. Even though the yacht, now called Elizabeth H, is running again, she’s far from complete. Anyone have deliveries that go by Maryland? Capt. Walsh is your man.
Congrats must go out to Capt. Les Annan who, after 25 years, has earned his USCG 1,600-ton ocean masters ticket with no restrictions. Capt. Annan also has his chief engineer (limited ocean) license, which enables him to be chief engineer on yachts up to 1,600 tons.
We hear that there are only a few in the yachting industry with these two licenses. Capt. Annan is between vessels at the moment, but we’re sure he’ll be working again soon. He began working on yachts in the 1980s in Tortola with the pioneering dive boat Tropic Bird.
Have you made an adjustment in your latitude recently? Let us know. Send news of your promotion, change of yachts or career, or personal accomplishments to Editor Lucy Chabot Reed at lucy@the-triton.com.
About the Author
