I'm Joe Engel and I and my wife Debbie live and work in Portland,
Oregon.  We own and operate a Computer Consulting/System Integration
Company and also a small offshoot called Marine Computer Services which
specializes in electronic navigation for recreational vessels.  We've
been doing computers for 15 years.  I'm 58 years old now.  I've lived a
(self-imposed) hard life <G>.

I'm an ex-Canadian.  Born in Vancouver BC but raised up on North Pender
Island in the Canadian Gulf Island group.  As a wild colonial boy
running free around North Pender Island at a time when there were only
10 cars on the island and a weekly freight ferry was the only connection
to the mainland, I just took my relationship with the sea for granted.
We always had a boat.  Always.  Usually just a 14 foot Briggs & Stratton
powered clinker-built but we went everywhere throughout the islands.
Often I would be gone for 2 days alone, just rough-camping on a beach
and living on "the land".  I could swim for many miles in those days and
swam between the Gulf Islands for recreation.  I look back now and
shudder at my recklessness.  I also realize now it was a great way to
grow up but at the time it just was normal.

As I have mentioned before on this list, this was a time when the word
"environment" had not been invented and "conservation" was something
your preserved berries in.  I can remember filling our boat to the
gunwale with COHO salmon and feeding them to the seagulls.  We lived on
clams and fish.  I grew up, got married very young and moved away to be
a wild colonial boy in the interior of BC.  The sea was left behind in
body, but not in mind.

A long time passed, too much booze, a few marriages, a lot of wasted,
precious time.  Spent some time cruising out of Vancouver, B.C. in an
old wooden 30 ft. work boat.  Eventually I emigrated to the US in 1976
and re-discovered the water in the form of the Columbia River and the
Oregon and Washington Coasts.  We love cruising the Columbia and running
off the coast in salt water.  Debbie calls it "big water".  Can't
explain why but we like it out there.

We went from an 18 foot outboard to a 24 foot cuddy-cabin to our present
40 foot Tollycraft tri-cabin.  A great coastal splash-about cruiser.

Aside from spending not enough time cruising, including trips up the
Pacific into Puget Sound and north past Desolation Sound and of course
still working full time, I give my time to the USCG Auxiliary where our
boat is an Operational Facility and we patrol weekends and late nights
around the Portland harbors.  We've learned much in the Aux which is
something for someone who thought they knew it all.

I can tell you that I don't think I would be as interested in cruising
as I am without Debbie to share it with.  She is as enthusiastic as I am
in many ways.

Time marches on!

Joe Engel and Debbie Engel
Portland, Oregon
12/06/01

I've enjoyed the Trawler World List now for over 3
years, usually chiming in on electrical system and
other repair issues.  My wife, Susanne, and I have
lived aboard Winnie the Pooh, our 46' custom troller,
for the last 4 years.

I grew up around boats in Cincinnati, Ohio and
Pontiac, MI.  My family's 14' wood runabout dated from
1955, the year of my birth.  Around 1960, we added a
styrofoam 12' sailboat, on which I spent many happy
hours learning to sail, capsize, and be towed at great
speed behind the runabout.

After engineering school (Oakland University,
Rochester, MI) I moved to West Palm Beach, FL to work
for Pratt & Whitney (jet engines, later high energy
lasers).  Before even finding an apartment, I bought a
16' Hobie Cat.

My first cruisable sized boat was a 1973 Pearson 26'
sloop I bought in 1985, as part of my program to learn
to sail and cruise so I could eventually live aboard
and cruise full time.  I met Susanne on the beach at
Singer's Island that Dec.  My first question for her
was "Would you like to go sailing?"  She said no then,
and for some time to come, but I persisted.  In 1988
we left on a two year cruise on our 36' Soverel sloop,
"Tigger".  We traveled from Florida to Massachussets
to the Bahamas, and grew to love the cruising life.
Back to work to be able to buy a larger "permanant"
cruising boat.  We sold the Soverel, and bought a
house in Indiantown, FL, near the Okeechobee Waterway.
Oh, yeah.  We got married here, too, in 1990.

In 1992 we came across a dismasted Heritage West
Indies 46 ketch, a Charlie Morgan designed cruising
boat with great potential as a trawler conversion.  We
bought the boat in Lauderdale, motored it up to Stuart
where we hauled it, and cut off the hardtop and the
lower 18" of the lead keel.  Then re-launched and
motored to Indiantown Marina, which didn't yet have a
travelift.  We hired a Brownells hydraulic trailer to
haul us out -on the boatramp-, and take the boat the 3
miles to our house.  Pooh was born.  I worked
sporadically on the boat until the laser business
crashed in 1994, and the engineering job went away
(age 39.5).  Then began 2.5 years of full-time work
for myself and Susanne until Pooh was launched
(original estimate, 12 months after layoff).  We have
about $85,000 cash, and 9000 person-hours of labor
invested in our large but simple dream boat.

House and cars sold, we left Indiantown the end of
Sept, 1996, bound for Solomons, Md. and the WM
TrawlerFest (1100 statute miles in 14 short October
days).  We've cruised 3200 John Deere engine hours
(about 22,000 miles) since then on the US east coast,
Bahamas, NY canals, and just over the border into
Canada.  I eke out a simple living ($800 a month total
expenses) doing mainly electrical system repairs and
upgrades on the boats of people we meet along the way.
Susanne sews quilts, crafts, and sometimes boat
canvas, for fun and a little profit.

We're in Stuart, FL now for the holidays.  In Jan,
we'll head over to the Bahamas until TFest Melbourne
in mid-March.  Then we plan to do the FL West coast,
and up the Tenn-Tom to the Tennessee and Cumberland
rivers for the summer.  We fly the TWL burgee from the
bow (but it's wearing out), and love to meet up with
others along the way.

Mark Richter

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