 |
|
 |
|
|
 |
| |
| CREW PROFILES |  | | Captain: Owen C. Jones | Nationality: USA | | Number of Crew: 2 | | Crew Profiles:
Crew Profiles:
Capt. Owen C. Jones is a United States Coast Guard licensed U.S. Merchant Marine Officer and Certified Master of Steam, Motor or Auxiliary Sail Vessels of no more than 100 Gross Registered Tons upon Near Coastal Waters (USCG License #1144547). He also holds a Boatmaster License Grade 1 license issued by the [British] Virgin Islands Shipping Registry for Small Commercial Vessels of up to 100 Gross Registered Tonnes, operating in Coastal Waters and carrying not more than twelve passengers (BVISR License #BVI-R06101100). He holds a license endorsement attesting to issuance of a Certificate under the provisions of the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers, 1978, as Amended in 1995 (STCW-95). Owen also earned his bachelor’s, master’s and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering and worked for 20 years as research engineer, team leader, group manager and division head in National Laboratories for technology dealing with nuclear shipboard propulsion and commercial nuclear power before moving to academia.
Both Owen and Mary...he having retired early from his position as a university professor and center head at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and she also retired from her position as employment manager at the same place of higher education…had long dreamed of opening a restaurant or bed and breakfast. Sailing had always been a part of their lives. Mary and Owen had always had an underlying desire of a more extensive sea life and people interaction that a chartering business would bring. In 2005, Mary and Owen decided to live their dream while combining it with their lifelong passion for sailing. The result was the start of a “boat and breakfast”…lunch and dinner…this opening up an entire new world of fun and excitement for them both.
Capt. Owen is a life-long sailor. He was brought up sailing on the coastal waters between New York City and the Penobscot Bay in Maine. He has sailed everything in size from 6-ft prams and 8-ft Dyer Dhows to 54-ft sloops, catamarans and an occasional power cruiser on the Atlantic coastal waters from New York to Maine, in the coastal Adriatic and offshore from the Caribbean to New England and from France to the Canary Islands.
In 1978, while at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Mary and Owen owned a Rhodes 25, the Moonrise. They enjoyed sailing her with his sons in waters from Oyster Bay to Nantucket, following some of the paths he had sailed in his childhood. When they joined Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1981, they took the Moonrise with them and began their inland sailing years on Lake Champlain.
During his seventeen years in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer he extended his research career into areas of ultra-compact, high power nuclear space propulsion, nonequilibrium phase change in water-cooled nuclear reactors, and electromagnetic imaging of gas-liquid flowing systems. During this same period, Mary was first departmental secretary for the Nuclear Engineering Department, then part of the Human Resources team and Employment Manager. She retired in 1987 to be with him on a one-year sabbatical in Japan.
It was during these years at RPI that both Mary and Owen obtained their NAUI SCUBA-diving certifications and their private pilot licenses. They dove extensively in many locations including the west coast of United States and Mexico, Hawaii and the Caribbean. Owen went on to obtain both his aircraft instrument rating and his commercial pilot's license.
Finding their love of sailing enhanced by the kind, clear waters of Lake Champlain, they reluctantly parted with the Moonrise and purchased Whisper, a Cal-35 marvelously suited to gunkholing in the 135 mile long stretch of the lake. Sailing in the summer, skiing in the winter was a wonderful life.
As the knee-strength required for skiing declined, their love of cold weather began to wane. They began to seek warmer climes in winter months including both the Caribbean and Mexico. They purchasing the Fidelity, delivered to the Virgin Islands in February of 2000 and began sailing the island chain in earnest.
They sailed her extensively in the British, U.S. and Spanish Virgin Islands as well as down island through St. Maarten, Antigua, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and on to Venezuela including Los Testigos and Margarita Islands. Their web site puts Owen’s photographic hobby, to good use. Their web site http://sailisv.com, suggests vacation possibilities giving a picturesque travelogue of their Caribbean sailing history. The site covers virtually all Islands from The Virgin Islands to Grenada. Of course Mary, as a chef extraordinaire, delights in tickling Owen’s palette and those of their guests on S/V Fidelity. Our seven grand children don’t call her “cookie Grandma” for nothing.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
