The story so far...

My parents taught me to sail a Minto at age 5 in Gig Harbor, WA. Much of my childhood was spent going to sailing regattas with my folks. We either were racing boats, or my Father was prepping Clark boats to sell. Selling boats allowed him to afford the sailing habit. Never the accomplished skipper my father was, or as good at sail trim as my mother, I do have a box of old trophies from racing in my childhood.

My folks moved to larger boats as the Clark Boat Co., based in Kent, WA. started to make larger boats. We had a San Juan 21, then raced and cruised on a San Juan 24.

After some years of being boatless, my folks got the urge again and bought a few boats finally owning a Cal-29. They named the boat "Revival" in recognition of both their reawakening faith as well as their return to serious boating. They cruised on "Revival" all over Puget Sound and into the San Juan Canadian Gulf Islands. All the grand kids learned to sail small boats while living on board "Revival" for a week or two each summer.

As the grand kids grew, it got to be a tight fit to have all 5 of the kids with them on the boat. My Dad found an older, poorly treated, Catalina 36. It took my folks over a year of evening and weekend labor before the boat was fit to sail and cruise on. They named this boat "Vision", both because of what their vision was for how the boat could be used by the family, as well as a nod to my father's and my optometric practice.

My father died suddenly of a stroke and cerebral hemorrhage while my folks were cruising in the Canadian Gulf Islands in 2006.

As the kids left for college, and I got a little more time, we started to use "Vision" more and then started to yearn for a little more space and a rig that was a bit easier for the two of us to sail comfortably. We decided to sell "Vision" and look for a Catalina 400. We found a nice boat in SoCal and had her trucked up to Tacoma. We named her "Legacy" in recognition of the love of time spent sailing with family that my folks passed on to us.

After 6 years of never enough time to get out on the boat, my many years of long distance running and age started to catch up to me. Spending time on a sailboat, with the constant climbing up and down and bending over was taking its toll on my knees and back. Despite the disappointment of our daughter, we decided to move to a trawler as old sailors are apt to do.

We started looking at power boats and found there is a lot to learn that is beyond our experience. We finally found a North Pacific 43 that seemed like a good fit.

Hence "Kinship. My parents have passed on to me, my sister, our families, and our children a love of sailing and being on the water. For us, a boat is more about shared family experience, or kinship, than anything else. This is the real legacy left to us by my parents, and one for which I'll be forever grateful.