From washing boats to running them

I have been on the water since I was 10 years old. I got my first job in the marine industry when I was 17. I love the water and really find it a sanctuary — there is nothing more peaceful. When I started, I washed boats. Over my career I pushed myself to learn everything I could.

That first job didn’t look like much — a deck brush, a hose, and other people’s boats. But it put me around the docks every day, and around the people who knew how things worked. I paid attention. When something broke, I wanted to be the one standing there when it got fixed.

Learning to fix everything

I worked for a marina for 23 years, and we didn’t have outside help except from the manufacturers — we had to learn how to fix everything ourselves. There was no calling in a specialist. If a system came through the yard, you learned it, because it was going to come back.

“We didn’t have outside help except from the manufacturers — we had to learn how to fix everything.”

That turned out to be the best education the industry could have given me. I went from washing boats to equipping small boats, to installing full electronic packages and prepping boats for delivery. Customers started asking for things the factories didn’t offer, and we said yes: custom installations of anything the clients wanted.

The work got bigger

Bow and stern thrusters. Hydraulic swim platforms — on boats the factory had never done them for. Gas-to-diesel engine conversions. Each one of those jobs started the same way: a client with a problem, a boat that wasn’t designed for the answer, and a crew willing to work it out.

Some of the early installs look humble now — a TV in a salon cabinet, a small electronics package in an open cockpit — but every one of them taught me something I still use at the helm today.

These days I’m a working captain. Through Blue Seas Yacht & Captain Service I run deliveries up and down the coast, charters, and yacht management for owners who want their boats kept right. The wheelhouse looks different than it did in 1976 — the glass screens have replaced most of the gauges — but the job is the same: know your boat, respect the water, and keep learning.

Why I’m writing this down

You have to have a passion for the marine industry to be successful. It isn’t a job you do halfway — the water will find out quick if your heart isn’t in it. But if it is, there is no better life I know of.

My main goal for this site is to encourage more young people to get into this business. We need that. The boats keep getting more capable and the people who can build, fix and run them keep getting harder to find. If you’re thinking about it — start where I did. Show up at a marina. Pick up a brush. Pay attention. The rest will come.

Got a question? Ask me anything