Capt. Craig's World Page Two

My Early Years.
Click on thumbnails to view photos full size.

  In 1966 I married a wonderful lady named Blanca and moved to Squantum, Massachusetts, an island in between Boston Harbor and Quincy Bay.  Blanca taught school and I  became a lobsterman and owned a party fishing boat/ferry service.  I just had to be by the sea.  Left is a photo of our 27' Herreshoff Sloop "Vanity". Click for more "Vanity" pics.

 Things were a little slow in the lobster business one year and I was offered a job delivering a large ketch rigged Motorsailer named "Sea Prince" from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Chicago, Illinois.  It was memorable because we had to go through the Straits of Canso in Nova Scotia and down the St. Lawrence Seaway. 

One of my 'most favorite photos' is of "Sea Prince" at anchor in Port Mont-Louis, Canada. 

When we got to Montreal, there was this Expo '67 thing in full swing.  It was hard to leave and continue the trip. 

This was the beginning of my yachting career which lasted into the late 1970’s.  
I have had the opportunity to work for some of the greatest people and run some 
of the finest yachts ever built.

There was the "Pearl Necklace", 1968 to 1971, a 75’ Motorsailer that was home ported in Hyannis Massachusetts and owned by the Chase families.  She was designed by Geard Hendle had four Detroit 6-71‘s, two on each shaft and they were staggered to fit the narrow hull.  She was an elegant fast boat that would cruise at 26 knots.  And cruise we did, all over Maine, Canada, Intercoastal Waterway to Florida every year, and the Bahamas in the winter.  During the summers she was the family ferry to Nantucket and the Cape Cod Islands.

Click on thumbnails to view full size.

In 1974 I was Captain on the "Carmac V"  in Miami for Mr. Hugh MacMillan.  She was a corporate charter yacht and I entertained the rich and famous from New York to the Bahamas.   In 1974 we were the official Australian yacht for the Americas Cup Races in Newport, Rhode Island.  And I learned the true pain of Fosters Beer.

 

Mr. Ralph Levitz, of Levitz Furniture Fame, asked me to captain his new 77 foot Huckins Sport fisherman.  I arrived in Jacksonville Florida just in time to see the keel laid and stayed through the entire construction.  What an education. I still feel that Huckins builds one of the finest hulls in the world.  Their attention to detail and craftsmanship is second to none, and the "Bon Vivant"  became an elegant, swift, and winning fisherman.  They adopted me as family and when the boat was finished, the men who built the her brought their families to see it;  they were very proud of their accomplishments.  Ralph and I fished the all  over the Bahamas and Florida, winning several bill fish tournaments.  He was a great boss and fisherman.  This picture is from an article in Yachting Magazine, June 1973, and the taken during sea trials on the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida.