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Bart Gabriel
Bart has a Bachelor in Engineering from Maritime University of Antwerp. He’s rated as “Chief Engineer to 3000 KV engine power” (Non-nuclear!?) and works on supertugs of Norwegian design with 20,000 HP and six propellers, primarily with oil and gas installation platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Bart sailed a friend’s 8 meter boat to Spitzbergen across the Barents Sea. He’s done two Atlantic crossings with Lieve.
Lieve Berghmans
Lieve has a Masters in Nautical Science from Maritime University of Antwerp. Now rated as “Chief Mate, All Ships”, She is Mate on 450 foot dredges, such as those used to build new ports, fix the beach in Acalpulco, or dikes in New Orleans. Lieve has made a crossing from Buenos Aires to Durban, essentially the same place we will cross the Southern Atlantic, and hopes the Maggie B’s passage will be much better. With Bart, when they were students, they built an 8 meter catamaran, sailed it from Portugal to Martinique, and sold it there for airfare home. Lieve sailed with Bart on the Plume d’Ange from Belgium to Portugal, the Canaries, the Cape Verdes and on to Salvador, where they met the Maggie B.
Max Hofman
Max first met the crew of the Maggie B at Antigua Classic Race Week.
When not sailing, he is an independent engineer in Bedford, England, specializing in unusual engines. He came to us from rebuilding a 1954 Bentley “R-type” engine. Built his own sailboat from scratch from an old builders’ plan and then sailed it out of Fowey Harbor (Cornwall). First Lieutenant aboard the Nulla Bonna, a 47 schooner, in the Antigua Classic Race Week. This will be Max’s first time crossing the equator. He is already in charge of all systems and refinishing the Reepicheep and varnishing the cockpit table.
Mounira Almeida
My father is Argentinean and my mother is French, I was born in Mexico and I’m from centuries of mixed ethnic origins.
It seems as though I’ve always been traveling. My first sailing experience was a long crossing of the Atlantic from the Cape Verde Islands to Antigua, where I met Frank and Bori and started this trip to Brazil.
Janet Gibb
Janet is passionate about food and cooking. Her interest and involvement in food goes back to when she was brought up on a sheep and beef farm in North Canterbury, New Zealand. She recalls that all the food we ate was fresh and home grown. I wasn’t taught to cook. I just assimilated from my mother, who used to do the most fabulous farm meals. In that environment you couldn’t help but develop an interest in good cooking and good food.
Janet recalls, “there were no supermarkets or butchers to pop into after work. In fact the nearest store was miles away, so we had to grow everything we ate in a large vegetable garden. Every week a sheep was killed, dressed and eaten — we only ate the best.”
Janet studied for a Diploma in Horticulture at University and spent the next few years wandering the world. “I did all sorts of things, she recalls, from cooking for shearing gangs and Jillarooing in the outback of Western Australia, through to shepherding for several seasons on a Scottish highland farm. It was working on the Highland Farm that I developed a love of single malt whiskey.”
Janet’s introduction to sailing was in her early teens through her brother-in-law. Summers were spent on the Estuary in Christchurch falling into, or out of, an ‘A Class’ Cat and mucking about at The Christchurch Yacht Club. Ten years later Janet joined The Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club in Wellington where she regularly crewed in Keelboats in both Coastal and Harbour Yacht Races. Blue Water experience was delivery trips from both Fiji and New Caledonia to New Zealand. In between there have been trips with friends on charter yachts in The Whitsundays and Tonga and a backpacking sailing experience in Turkey.
For the last 25 years Janet has worked in the food service industry — boutique fine food wholesaler; ship’s providor; seafood wholesaler; a salmon company. She has been at Moore Wilsons’ for five years, wholesalers to the food service industry. Food, in particular sourcing it, and cooking it are Janet’s life.
Janet says “I look forward to the experience of sailing on the Schooner Maggie B- a very different boat in different seas, which will bring a marvellous new set of experiences and memories.”
Curtis Weinrich
Chemist by schooling, builder by training, stubborn and somewhat irreverent by birth, Curtis is on a quest to reinvent the wheel, as it were. Determined to find out if the world really is round, he has joined forces with the wonderful crew of the Maggie B to make his first experience ever setting foot aboard a sailing vessel a rounding of the infamous Cape Horn.
Before this trial by fire, he has been, in turn, a forklift operator, concrete flatworker, printing factory grunt, lawn god (actual job description), DOE researcher, strawbale house builder, farmer, aspiring writer (to what he doesn’t know yet), commercial fisherman, and busboy.
When not being gently prodded by the Captain of the Maggie B to hurry up and write his bio, Curtis is spending his time aboard being awestruck at the otherworldly beauty of southern Chile, cooking, avoiding doing the dishes, and reading. Son of four parents, older brother to 3, friend to many, Curtis resides mainly in his own head.
Frederic Kellogg
Known as Freddy, Fredrock and Fearless Fred, began his career at sea under the tutelage of uncles Dan and George Blagden. At the age of 19 he commanded a somewhat rotten 50 foot schooner, Calypso (aka Collapso) acquired for $75 at Essex Boat Works which lasted all the way to Maine. Many boats later he is down to Nellie Jane, 24 feet. Fred is an artist represented by Caldbeck Gallery, Rockland Maine, and his work can be seen at www.caldbeck.com
Alden Blair
In agreeing to allow himself to be used as his father’s excuse for building the Maggie B, Alden made two demands. He now joins the crew to fulfill the first: being allowed to sail her around Cape Horn (the second being allowed to mutiny and put the captain ashore will wait for warmer climates).
A perpetual nomad, Alden’s history has seen him amongst others as an Outward Bound instructor, wilderness medic, aide on Capitol Hill, architect, congressional campaign manager, and most recently building comprehensive health centers in the central African Nation of Burundi. His jack of all trades approach to life looks to serve him well aboard the Maggie B, whether he is needed to cook, sail, navigate, fix an engine, sing a song, tell a (perhaps wholly inappropriate) joke, defend himself from hyenas with an ipod (a true but somewhat involved story), or any of the other myriad of tasks that keep a crew and ship going.
There is the remote possibility he will one day slow down and settle into a more focused path (though where is the fun in that?), but for now Alden is content to see where the wind and waves take him.
Theresa Chapman
Theresa is several things to some people. Born and schooled in Brisbane, she returns there periodically to traumatize her wonderful family. She went north to attend university in the tropical paradise of Townsville, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Ecology, like every other sucker. A European adventure followed closely on the tails of academic conquest, and the seeds of whisky drinking and wanderlust were sewn on fertile ground within Theresa’s breast. Upon returning to Brisbane, she spent an amazing six months studying at a community farm, then threw it all away for financial security, finding herself in an awful job in a private boys school. She asked herself: What am I doing here? The answers were inadequate, so she ran away to the circus with another most amazing wanderer, Jacqui. The circus was gathering its forces in Tasmania, so that’s where they went, only to fall in love with this little state and make tentative plans to commit some time to Hobart. Then, another festival struck, and suddenly she found herself shanghai’d onto a magical wooden schooner, en route to wonderfulness.
Willis Sautter
Willis ran into the crew of the Maggie B at the Antigua Classic Race Week, where he was finishing a season of sailing his own boat through the islands of the eastern Caribbean. Prior to running off to sea, he received a J.D. from the University of Chicago (which, he later discovered, is little use on a boat) and practiced law for several years in Washington, D.C. As his previous sailing experience has been confined to the balmy waters of the Caribbean, he looks forward to sailing new (colder) waters and seeing new places.
Hannah Joudrey
Hannah has lived the past 5 1/2 yrs almost entirely on board a tallship and at sea somewhere on this planet. First, the Picton Castle , then The Eye Of the Wind and Mist Of Avalon.
She may look like just one individual however she carries along with her on her travels, her family, mentors, her community and many many friends she has scattered around the globe.
She is dedicated to sailing, furthering her skills and all things sailor-ish and cannot imagine living any other way.
Hannah has a weakness for critters ……don’t be surprised to find a named walrus, dolphin or finned “something -’r -other” following the ship, or perhaps an recovering albatross sporting a cast.
Robert Farrar
Robert Farrar, of Atlanta, Georgia joined the Maggie B in Rangiroa, Tuamotus on October 3rd for the leg to Puerto Montt, Chile. Robert has a lifetime of experience on small to mid-size power boats and, other than Hobie Cats, has sailed with others at the helm since 1978. In 1992, he received his Bare Boat to Advanced Coastal Cruising certifications at Olympic Circle Sailing, Berkeley, California.
Since 1992, Robert has also been a partner in a Cal 39′ sloop, which is berthed at the California Yacht Club in Marina del Rey, California, where Robert and his wife Jodi lived for the better part of 13 years before returning to Atlanta in June 2003. While in California Robert & Jodi were also sole owners of an Alaskan 49′ trawler for 3 years. This boat was used extensively for diving & kayak excursions, with family and friends, to a number of Southern California’s Channel Islands. Robert has been at the helm sailing the southern coast of California and the coastal area between San Francisco and Santa Cruz, California. His principal experience as captain of his own boat has been sailing between Santa Catalina and the more Northern islands of Anacapa, Santa Cruz and San Miguel, all of which are part of the magnificent Channel Islands National Park. Robert & Jodi also had their trawler in Baja, CA for 6 months in 1998. While an enthusiast for anything physical in the outdoors, Robert has been island hopping and scuba diving throughout the Caribbean (Bahamas to the Lesser Antilles) since the early 1970’s. Rangiroa to Puerto Montt will be his first Blue Water crossing and his first time without access to the resources available when close to shore. This voyage represents the realization of a 30-year-long dream.
Robert is married to Jodi Farrar. They have a married son and three beautiful grandchildren. Professionally, Robert is a real estate broker/consultant who for 22 years has managed real estate assignments throughout North America, Western Europe and Latin America. He now works exclusively for the Coca-Cola System, a client of 21 years. He is on the board of directors of the C-5 Youth Foundation, which is a leader in the field of youth development for at risk, under resourced youth.
Robert is 54, beginning to lose his hair, but in great shape from bicycling, a sport that he won’t get much experience with on the Maggie B. He got a berth because he met Frank at a lunch in Chicago in 2006, and, after some glasses of wine, Frank extended an invitation to Robert to take a leg, never expecting it to be actually taken up. Over the last year, Robert has followed the boat carefully, including a visit with Jodi when we were in Barbados. He has sent suitable bribes, including massages for the crew in Fremantle, books and tapes, and a birthday basket for Lieve in Cape Town. Besides a great sense of humor and a bottomless resource of good stories, Robert reported for duty with some great new movies, books and music to share.
Kath Moore
Kath Moore is from Newcastle, Australia. She spent five years in Sydney studying and then working as a physiotherapist. Her first sailing experience was in 2004 aboard the training brigantine “Young Endeavour.” It was only five days - but Kath was hooked. Working in a hospital for a year inspired Kath to do something a little more exciting, and so she found another brigantine, the 88 foot “Windward Bound” in Hobart, Tasmania.
Leaving her old life behind, Kath lived and worked as a Watch Leader on Windy for seven months, learning lots and meeting great people, including the Maggie B crew!
Kath loves dancing, lollies and seven-year-old jeans. She hates pepsicum, dirty toothpaste lids and plovers, pigeons and ibis.
Kath will have to leave the Schooner Maggie B in December for her work in Australia with Women’s Junior Cricket, her brother’s wedding, and her partner, Shannon, who writes songs about Kath, some of which she won’t let us hear.
She will return to the High Seas at some stage - “’Tis a pirate’s life for me!’
Frank Blair
Frank Blair is the owner, Master and Captain of the Maggie B.
He is a former US Navy fighter pilot, USCG Master, Senior instructor in the Hurricane Island Outward Bound Sea School, and knows every rock in the Bay of Fundy, many personally.
Owen Baker
Owen fell in love with sailing growing up near Annapolis, Maryland, but didn’t go to sea until just last year, leaving Fells Point, MD, on a 35′ sloop and returning north to Lake Michigan aboard the Caravel Niña, the Columbus replica. After 5 months navigating the Atlantic coastal waters and Great Lakes, he is excited to sail in open seas.
Owen ran a marathon, was a cycle courier in Manhattan, a wilderness search and rescue team leader in Virginia, and is an Eagle Scout.
Owen is a freelance stagehand by day and is a devoted yoga student.
John Steele
John Steele is President of Covey Island, the builder of the Maggie B.
A boatbuilder since his school days, John was one of the original Covey Island partners when the yard was established in 1979. He was voted Entrepreneur of the Year by the Bridgewater & Area Chamber of Commerce in 1994.
Independently, John is currently (2005) building a 56′ cruising schooner for himself and his family. One inspiration for the project is his years of experience at Covey Island building custom vessels with traditional styling. The other is a year-long sabbatical spent sailing in the Caribbean, Ireland and England with his family on 53′ Marguerite T, an original (1893) Bristol Channel pilot cutter they owned and restored.
Anne-Louise Dauphinee
Anne Louise Dauphinee is the Mate on the Peer€™s Fancy and a resident of Halifax.
Paul Baskett
Paul Baskett is an accomplished master shipwright and a former member of the Canadian National Sailing Team. He is a former bike messenger in London and journalist in Bangkok.
Gail Atkinson
Gail Atkinson is the former Second Mate on the Bluenose II and a successful lobster fisherman from Cape Sable, Nova Scotia.
Bori Kiss
Bori Kiss is a long time sailor in Maine and Hungary. She speaks eight languages, loves to meet people, learn new languages and cultures, and is on her first journey around the world.
Bori Kiss holds a BA in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic and Masters in European Politics from Strasbourg.
Richard Francis
Valentine Michon
Valentine Michon is a student in History from Strasbourg.
She hopes to join a University program towards her Masters in History and Geography and anticipates teaching in a secondary school. After spending a year in Saskatchewan, Valentine realized that there are many other places in the world and she started to enjoy traveling — from the Sahara to the Caribbean.
Bori is a close friend and she is happy to join her for her first real sailing experience.
Nadia Mohammedi
My parents are from Algeria and I was living in Toulouse, but I found it too cold so I moved to Caracas to work for a Social Forum. I took a sailboat from Venezuela to Antigua to be with my friend Mounira and to travel with her.