James the Sailor Man // Small Boat, Big Adventures
On the Wind Sailing
Andy Schell
4.8 • 593 Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2021
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
#320. James Frederick is a 40-something artist living in Los Angeles with his wife Camille and their dog, Mr. Steady Man. For the past several years James has been refitting an Alberg 30 while sailing out to Catalina island and exploring the California coast and documenting it all on YouTube. Very shortly, that's all about change, as James will set off single-handed first bound towards Hawaii and then onwards towards Alaska, where Camille and Mr. Steady Man plan to meet them for cruising. I talked to James just as he and Camille were getting ready to move back onto the boat after an intense refit period. James is also connected to 59 North in that he's sailed our former boat ARCTURUS in Sweden with her new owner Neil Fletcher!
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ON THE WIND is exclusively sponsored by Dakota Lithium, an American company building tough, long-lasting lithium-iron-phosphate batteries for a variety of applications. We just installed 200 aH of Dakota Lithium on SPICA in Sweden, and are preparing for a major lithium conversion on ICEBEAR, our Swan 59. Check them out at dakotalithium.com.
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Join us on the 59º North QUARTERDECK, our online platform where members and the 'Admiralty' dive deep on the art of seamanship. New for 2021 is a monthly, members-only newsletter called THE SKIPPER'S BRIEFING, straight to your inbox with exclusive content, commentary, and a recap of the best of the past month on the Quarterdeck. There is nothing like it in sailing - join us at quarterdeck.59-north.com to become a better thinker, leader & sailor.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, greetings friends. Welcome back to On the Wind. I'm your host, Andy Schell. And if it sounds like I'm |
| 0:05.7 | a little sleepy this morning, I am. I slept 12 hours last night. I am sitting on the, at the Navitation, |
| 0:11.5 | no, I can't even talk this morning. I am sitting at the Nav station on East Bjorn. It's been a long time |
| 0:17.0 | since I lived on this boat. I'm in Antigua on a mooring in Falmouth Harbor. |
| 0:22.4 | And two years ago, almost, well, two years ago February, February 2019 is when we first got |
| 0:27.5 | Ice Bear. And basically, ever since then, that's been the boat that I've spent the most amount |
| 0:32.2 | of time on. Of course, I've sailed East Bjorn here and there, getting August up to speed on it. |
| 0:38.0 | Mia and I lived on East Bjorn a bit in Annapolis last fall, briefly. |
| 0:43.0 | But there's a lot of nostalgia here for me coming back on the boat, and I'm reminded as to why I like this boat so much. |
| 0:50.1 | It's so easy to get stuck in the here and now. And Ice Bear, the bigger boat, has been sort of my boat for the last two years. |
| 0:58.0 | And I've come to really like that boat, but there's a certain charm about East Bjorn that you just can't replicate on any other boat for that matter. |
| 1:07.0 | And it's just nice to be back here and nice to remind myself where we started, how this whole business thing that we got going on started, and to remind myself why I like this boat so much and why, you know, the whole premise of 59 North started on the idea that this was my dream boat that I wanted to make a business out of. And it still is to this day. No matter, you know, we have |
| 1:28.3 | ice bear now. We have our little family boat, Spica in Sweden, but this, the Swan 48, going back to |
| 1:34.6 | my time on the woodwind, you know, 15 years ago, this is the boat that I always admired the most. |
| 1:39.3 | And it still remains that way today. And living aboard now for a little bit in Antigua is only reminded me |
| 1:45.1 | of that fact. So that's pretty cool. I'm down here because I met with Nikki Henderson and Pat |
| 1:51.6 | Walters last week who came down to sail with me on Ice Bear. They were supposed to be here to sail |
| 1:56.9 | the Caribbean 600. Nikki, of course, is a former Clipper race skipper. She was a guest |
| 2:01.8 | skipper on Maiden. And I got to know her. I forget how, but doesn't matter, she came down |
| 2:08.5 | and hopefully it's going to work for us in the future. Pat is a producer at Radio Lab, |
| 2:13.8 | who happens to have grown up in the same town as me at the same time. So the three of us |
| 2:19.3 | had never met before. And then last week they came down and we did a 408 mile sale on Ice Bear in |
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