In an effort to improve knowledge and skills Jupiter’s crew has been immersed in an intensive technical school for passage makers at the excellent NW Explorations facility at Squalicum Harbor.
Although workings of vessel systems are entirely scientific, required devotion to maintenance might be considered a passion, and the intense desire for all things to continue working, a prayer.
Along with several seafaring dogs, a class of thirty mariners thirsty for fluency in diesel mechanics and electronics trained on the power train, tangled with salt-water pumps, drive belts, and sea strainers, fussed with fuses, messed with multimeters, and explored eclectic electrical systems.
Attendees became more weather wise and re-charged batteries – physically and metaphorically.
“A man builds the best of himself into a boat – builds many of the unconscious memories of his ancestors”
– John Steinbeck