A little history…..
As many of you may already know, both Tom and I LOVE being on the water. Tom grew up in Hawaii and learned to sail at 9 years old. After completing high school in Alaska, he worked on lots of different vessels; both large and small. He built an underwater survey company that charted the seafloor all over the world. I grew up in New England and also learned to sail at the early age of 10. I sailed, played, and often capsized our family’s small sunfish on the lakes of New England. In my teens, I sailed with my father on charter sailboats in the US and British Virgin Islands and also the Caribbean.
In the early years of our marriage, Tom and I talked about taking a year off and chartering a boat to sail the world. Three children later and a rapidly growing business disrupted that plan, though we did have a Tolman skiff built by a friend in 2006 on which we camp, fish and play with our family in Alaska’s southcentral waters as often as possible.
Our Story
Tolman skiff built by Jake Berry of Black Feather Woodworks, Inc.
Time has a way of marching on and as retirement began to come into view in the distant future, so too did the dream of living aboard. About a dozen years ago Tom began researching liveaboard boats. Our kids have been referring to it as ‘Dad’s boat porn’ for the past decade. The truth is, when you own your own business retirement is a moving target. It could take years to reach this dream - so we began to look into powerboats as well as sailboats. We walked lots of docks and visited Boat Shows. Eventually we made a spreadsheet of all the attributes each of us wanted in our future home. We included the pros and cons of dozens of different boats we both liked. Meanwhile Tom continued to follow the future developments of our favorite boat builders.
In July of 2019, just as retirement was coming into view, Tom saw some drawings of a production line version of a boat we both liked. He sent an email asking for more information. Production had not yet begun on this design but this trawler ticked nearly all of our boxes, something no other boat within our price range had done. The dialogue continued and nearly a year and a half later, we traveled to California to see the first two completed boats which had just arrived from the factory in Turkey. It was during a sea trial onboard the first hull that we both knew - this was the boat for us. We signed on the dotted line, and the next chapter began!