Recently Seattle Singles Yacht Club honored me with Skipper Emeritus Award for my contributions to boating, sailing, boating safety, member education and taking many many people sailing over more than 20 years and over 1,000 trips, sometimes up to 80 or 90 trips a year.
They had a nice Zoom meeting and several people shared stories of their good experiences on my boats or of times that I went the extra mile to help someone with a boating question or problem. I was also presented with a nicely bound book of stories, I have scanned it and the link is below.
Over the years I contributed in many ways. I taught something over 300 “mini-classes” at the end of the meeting. Some of the classes were “simple” such as how to tie a fender or How to Tie a Bowline, How to Tie a Spilled Hitch Bowline, How to Tie a Bowline with Your Left Hand, others like Rules of The Road were more involved and took extra time. I am quite proud to have passed on a bit of information to many people and made their on the water safer or easier.
I would like to take this time to thank everyone that attended a mini-class, went sailing with me or otherwise shared a bit of time with me, many many delightful people I met over the years and enjoyed their company.
Sadly I have never been good with names and faces, sometimes I would take a picture of the crew at the start and I always insisted that the people lined up in the order they were on the signup sheet, other times I would plain not recognize a face from a few days ago at the signup, my apologies for that, been a struggle all my life.
From time to people have came up to me and thanked me for a great sailing trip several years in the past, I was many times embarrassed that I didn’t remember the person let alone one of maybe 80 trips that year, but I always felt good that I was in some small way help to give someone a great memory.
After I was given the book several people that were no longer active in SSYC expressed disappointment in not being able to contribute a story. You may leave your story in the comments section below if you wish.
And please remember “no mustard, onions or hummus”!! (TM pending)
Thanks again for the great company and memories.
c / m
Boating Safety Tips, Tricks & Thoughts from Captnmike 
I recently received this memory from a person that worked with me in Alaska and thought I would pass this on, Thanks Steve R for the memory.
Wow, that is so neat.
It stands to reason that you have reached such a high level of accomplishment in the field of boating, sailing, and all things seamanship and safety. You are one of those people to whom both brilliance of mind and skillfulness in craftsmanship with your hands has been visited.
I am sure you have provided invaluable lessons and knowledge to many people through your encounters. And inspiration.
I still tell a Brough story of my own once in awhile:
It was pre-season that second summer, 1978, that False Pass ran after the burning of King Cove. You were busy under the fish bins bending and braking a new set of chutes to feed the filler bins behind the lines. I was walking by and you yelled over for me to sweep up a mess that was accumulating nearby. And I thought: “who the hell is that?”.
Long story short. Later that pre-season, while I was struggling with one of the half-pound CRs, trying to figure out why it was repeatedly jamming, you came along. You considered the problem for a while and then began to tinker with the end making up to the can, as well as some adjustment to the trip linkage used to release the screws to drop an end down onto the feed turret. When you were done, you explained, best I could understand at the time, what you had done and why. After you were gone, I immediately tried to follow the steps you had taken as a way myself of hopefully understanding what had happened.
After looking the machine over , I saw that the various parts of the machine, its feed table, end dispenser, and turret were all related, and at play in the problem you had just solved. But most importantly I was humbled by the complexity of it all and the stark contrast between what I knew and what I didn’t know—— and this inspired me to know more, as well as reminding me that when someone comes along who knows more than me or is smarter in someway than me, —than listen up!!
You are a smart and rare bird; you have definitely earned the right to be proud of yourself.