David Young is the oldest “rookie” we’ve ever had aboard avalanche.  He will turn 70 the day he comes aboard to help us get the boat ready for sea.  David was born in Tasmania and grew up in Australia, where his passport was issued.  His home, however, is apparently wherever he drops anchor!  He has been sailing forever, having taken his 24’ boat to Europe on to the Caribbean and further to the Americas.  He estimates that he has crossed the Atlantic in his boat and others 20-30 times.  He has canoed a 16’ Coleman canoe from Bremerhaven Germany on the North Sea to Sete France on the Mediterranean.  He has also piloted a 20’ boat throughout the canals of Europe.  Along the way he has learned to speak French, German, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese.  He also managed to learn to fly a plane.

When I asked David to provide information for this biography he replied that if he had done nothing in 70 years he could easily answer, but that he has done so much that it would take another 70 years to tell it all.  He did have a further comment, which I quote here:

“We have 10 days or more of sailing.  If anybody wants to listen to boring stories, I will elaborate.  BUT, I do have great jokes, am a good cook, don’t get miserable, can keep my temper (when all around, others are losing their’s) and I’m extremely humble…”

So you can see, we think we have a fine addition to our crew.  Not only can the man sail a boat and fix stuff, he can call for help in 6 languages and keep us laughing!

If David Young is the oldest “rookie” we’ve ever had on avalanche, then Brian Barer is probably the most professionally qualified!   He graduated from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy and spent 5 years in the merchant marine as a licensed engineer, and as an officer in the U.S. Navy aboard a Minesweeper.  I suspect that if we have a mechanical problem of any sort, Brian will be able to solve it.

He has been sailing since he was a kid, racing Lasers and Sunfish.  He considers himself lucky to have been instrumental in resurrecting both brands from bankruptcy in the late 80’s and then to have served as general manager for the company responsible for building them.  He worked in the boatbuilding industry for 20 years or so in almost every capacity and at this point in his life says he feels that he knows enough about boats to respect their (and his own) limitations always!

He built his first boat out of plywood from plans that he got through the mail from a magazine when he was in high school–unfortunately it sank shortly after launch!  Someday he plans to build another boat from those same plans for his grandson, which we all hope will stay afloat!  Currently Brian owns an Irwin 31 that he keeps in Wareham and cruises between Maine and NY.

Brian has done several offshore trips, most recently just a year ago when he helped a prominent sailor deliver a Beneteau 41 from Tortola to Newport.  He reports that it was a hair raising experience.  I expect that Brian will be entertaining the rest of us with tales of that trip as we make our way home!  He says “I bet you will all find my stories very entertaining, I warn you though I have a lot of them and I think some of them are even true!!!!”

Ruleo Camacho will turn 20 during our delivery to Jamestown, his second birthday on avalanche.  Last year Ruleo joined us for his first trip offshore and performed admirably.  His first solo sailing experience was across Falmouth Harbor in a Sunfish at age nine.  Since then he has become a fine helmsman and sailor.  In addition his fishing skills are excellent, an important consideration in selecting crew for avalanche.  It would be difficult to choose between Leo and Ruleo as the more skilled fisherman.  You might have to include a count of who broke more gear trying to land really big fish to decide that debate.  (And would that count for or against the fisherman?)  You will notice that in photos of Ruleo he is almost always holding up something that he caught!

Like Leo, Ruleo is West Indian.  He has grown up in Antigua and now attends the University of the West Indies in Jamaica and aims one day to be a Marine Biologist.  We met him 11 years ago when he was 8 and his father was our favorite taxi driver.  Since then our families have become great friends.  Through the years we have had the Camacho family on Avalanche for a weekend at Green Island; they have driven us through the countryside on Christmas Eve to show us all the beautifully lighted houses competing for a month’s free electricity and $2,000.  We’ve had lots of dinners and watched many boat races, both full sized and miniature models.  In addition to the delivery last May, Ruleo has visited our home in Jamestown 3 times, at 13, 15 and 16.  He has always told us that he wants to see snow–even strip to his swim suit and roll in it.

And that is what makes the story of Ruleo and the dishes so funny.  Naturally Ruleo doesn’t have winter clothes, so we loan him a few layers for those last 2-3 days when it is so cold approaching the east coast.  Last year we had come up on the continental shelf in pretty moderate weather for the season, but we were dressed in lots of layers to stay warm and had the heat on below.  Ruleo had all his layers on and was doing his job of washing the lunch dishes.  Ruleo found it so cold despite wearing warm layers that he managed to spend over an hour drying 2 pots in order to stay below where the heat was on!  This year we have added more warm clothes to his bag!

This is Leo’s 7th delivery on avalanche, and on this trip that makes him the crew with the most experience aboard.  Leo began  on avalanche as a “day worker” who could help Jake (and me) with routine maintenance and repairs aboard that were beginning to be overwhelming for arthritic knees, hands and shoulders.  (Besides, Jake loves having someone to work with so he can tell all his stories!)  When we contacted Ken Malone, who runs the local service yard, looking for help, he brought Leo to us.  We have since learned that Leo was (and still is) Ken’s lead worker in the yard.  Ken hoped that working with us would broaden Leo’s horizons and lead to many wide-ranging experiences.  Looking back over the approximately 5 years we’ve known Leo, I think he’s experienced lots of stuff–some of it even positive and enlightening!  The first day Jake taught him how to catch a lobster!  And how to clear his ears snorkeling!  And I keep  treating him to new foods, but still haven’t convinced him that black olives are edible.  On a serious note, Leo has learned so much about boats and their systems and is so conscientious and competent as well as skilled and intuitive, that Dave and Brian (both trained engineers) are mightily impressed by him!

As we described before our November trip south, Leo, who is from Dominica, is 3/4 Carib Indian.  We have been reading about the Caribs and have become very proud of Leo’s heritage.  It turns out that the Caribs were very strong and fierce warriors.  They defeated many English, French, Dutch and Spanish explorers and settlers as well as the Arawak Indians who tried to conquer them and their lands.  Reports say that the Caribs would rather fight to the death or commit suicide than become slaves to the European conquerers.

Leo comes from a family and village of fishermen on the northeast coast of Dominica.  At 15 he had quit school to help his grandfather fishing with hand lines from a small skiff with an outboard motor on the sea offshore.  As a result he is a very fine fisherman.  He knows where fish are likely to be and why, he is very good at actually catching fish and boating them.  Additionally, he has introduced us to the delicious local meal called “fish water” made from fish heads! (He’s broadening our horizons!)  When he was 19 he moved to Antigua where he began working for Ken Malone…and, as they say, the rest is history!

I have always wanted to have a section of this web site devoted to our crew.  We have a great group of sailors, young and old, who have helped us take avalanche back and forth across 1600 miles of ocean between Jamestown and Antigua.  They are a great group of people:  friends, relatives, co-workers, competitive sailors, people who work in the sailing industry, people who want an offshore experience.  They all possess important skills that help us through the trip.  All are able to sail, many are good cooks, several are excellent fishermen, a couple qualify as “jacks of all trades” who can figure out how to fix anything, several are actually professional service people in the yachting business:  electrician, electronics expert, sailmaker, rigger, boatbuilder, a couple have sailed their own boats single-handedly across thousands of miles of ocean.  I think the count now stands at 31 different crew members.  Unfortunately we didn’t take a crew photo in the early years, in fact during the first years we rarely took any photos.  For that reason some of the trips have no crew photo.  For other years I have found individual shots of some of the crew, and in some cases I have found photos with all but the photographer (usually me).  I have put a gallery of photos at the beginning of this post with trip dates and crew members identified.

Additionally I would like to try again to write a biography of the various crew members.  You will find the entry for the November 2009 trip as a combination of individual photos of that crew throughout the years with brief biographies of Peter Vaiciulis, Leo Bontiff, Kim Hapgood and Chris Adams.  This year I will try to write an individual bio of our 3 new crew members:  Ruleo Camacho, David Young and Brian Baher.  And if possible I’ll include a photo.