Gene Hamilton - Coastal Cruising Under Power: How to Buy, Equip, Operate, and Maintain Your Boat

Copyright 2006 by Gene and Katie Hamilton. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-07-181706-6
MHID: 0-07-181706-9

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Photos by authors unless otherwise noted. Title page credits, top to bottom, left to right: authors, Silverton, Regal Boats, authors, authors, authors, Grand Banks. Part opener credits, clockwise from top left: Sea Ray, Silverton Marine Corporation, Monticello Yachts, authors.

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In July 1977, I became the editor of Inland Sea, a Chicago, Illinois-based Midwestern regional edition of the nationally circulated Sea Magazine. I met Gene and Katie Hamilton by chance, walking across the street to McCormick Place to attend IMTEC, the largest recreational marine trade show of its day. When they told me that they had returned just the year before from a cruise that took them through the Great Lakes, along the Erie Canal, down the Hudson River, south along the eastern U.S. coastline, and through the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) to winter in the Bahamas, I wanted to know moremuch, much more.

On a cold, wind-whipped afternoon later that fall, Gene and Katie visited my office in downtown Chicago, and we walked across Michigan Avenue to find a bit of lunch. It was the beginning of a friendship that has spanned 28 years. Their stories rang with authenticity, and I soaked up their experiences like a student musician attending a Master class. They explained that they were both teachers, and that they had taken a year off to make their cruise over the winter of 1975. They hoped to make a living writing for recreational marine magazines, and they had a few book ideas to develop along the same lines.

You had to go cruising to write authoritative cruising stories, Gene said. Their first coastal voyage was in a Rhodes 41, which they sold in Annapolis, Maryland in the summer of 1976, after enjoying the Bicentennial activities taking place in the nations capital and in cities and towns along the Chesapeake shoreline.

Gene and Katie returned to Chicago in 1976, bought a house in need of tender loving care, and began writing about their home improvement experiences as well as their cruising adventures.

I moved to California in November 1979, to take the helm of Pacific Skipper. Gene and Katie continued to write for Sea, and also did stories for Lakeland Boating. Katies monthly column, First Mates Forum, was a staple for Midwestern women who loved boating. Even though their fame was spreading for their home improvement articles, they never lost their love for the water, nor their desire to go cruising again.

In 1985, after being land-bound and boatless for several years, Gene and Katie bought a wooden Grand Banks 42 located on the east coast, named her Old Grand Dad, rented out their Chicago-area home, took a year off, and went down to Florida for the winter. On their return trip the following summer, they spent some more time in the Chesapeake, liked it, and stayed, living aboard for a time in Castle marina, Kent Island, on Marylands Eastern Shore. But because they were working on a book project (as well as articles for Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, and Family Handyman magazines), and needed the reliable phone connection that wasnt easily available in their marina, they made the decision to move ashore and rented a house nearby. I had moved to Annapolis in 1982 and, when I found that they were living in the area, I urged them to stay. They settled on St. Michaels as their new home.

Gene and Katie sold the GB42 in 1989, bought a J/24, and raced it around the buoys near St. Michaels. Meanwhile they launched a home improvement website that proved to be a huge success. They purchased a C&C 35, a boat they had lusted after since their days in Chicago, and took it to Florida for a winter in 2000. On their return to the Chesapeake the following spring, they sold it and bought a Grand Banks 36, which they still own and cherish. As I write, they are moving it up the Waterway for the third year.

Transiting the ICW and cruising along the coast in the fall and spring they experienced changeable weather firsthand. The difference was windshield wipers, they quipped, referring to the difference between a sailboat and powerboat. Having made that trip a few times myself, I can tell you that cold and wet seem adventurous for only so long. You get a different perspective sitting above the waterline, said Gene, but the speeds from point to point are not that much different. Its very comfortable.