BIOGRAPHY of Peter Marsh Writer/Photographer

I spent my first 24 years in Greenwich (S.E. London) for 24 years and attended Colfe’s Grammar School (Lewisham) and the College of S. Mark & S. John (Chelsea) to become a P.E. teacher. After several years of adventures by bike and boat on the east coast of England and across the North Sea to Denmark,  I abandoned a my career as a PE teacher  after two years and built a 36′ plywood catamaran in a back garden in Lewisham.

That led to an invitation in 1970 from Major HW Tilman to join his crew on a voyage to the Arctic in an old Bristol Channel pilot cutter. When that revealed my inability to overcome sea sickness, I returned to my own boat and sailed to the Netherlands where I spent several months working in a boat yard in Medemblik . After another bout of seasickness in 1971 on the return trip, I changed my approach and flew to North America in 1972, landing in Chicago.

I eventually settled in the Pacific Northwest, and designed and built a 19′ plywood trimaran in Portland. This began a decade of solo sailing adventures on the NW coast in the 1980’s. I sailed from Olympia, Wash. to Skagway, Alaska and back–twice–and around Vancouver Island. On the second trip, I began to recognize the many types of commercial boats at work on the NW coast, and found that Seattle is a national center for the  design and construction of craft of all types and sizes, ranging from kayaks to car ferries.

It is the base for Alaska’s fishing industry and freight services, and a destination for yachtsmen and boaters of all types. In 1988, began writing for NW Yachting and the next year I became a correspondent for Workboat magazine. From 1996 to 2001, I was responsible for all the public relations and marketing copy for Cascade General at the Portland Ship Repair Yard (now Vigor Industries). In 2002, in the dot com slump, I was laid off and moved to Astoria, where I continued to edit Portland’s Freshwater News. I also began to follow local marine news including  Coast Guard rescues, shipwrecks, salmon fishing etc. for several publications.

In 2008, I became the first volunteer director of the Hanthorn Cannery Museum on Pier 39-Astoria. I spent a decade building it into a popular historic attraction while continuing to write. In 2012-2014, I traveled to Europe three times to visit the Royal Museums of Greenwich and observe and write about the French ocean racing circuit, witnessing the Vendee Globe finish in Les Sables, start of the Mini Transat in Douarnanez and Transat Jacques Vabre in Le Havre. I continued sailing my small tri frequently on the Columbia River, often in strong breezes and rough chop and attempted to update the design.

In 2015, I resumed regular reporting on the commercial maritime sector for Philips Publishing Group where I review design and construction of tugs, ferries and workboats for Pacific Maritime, and fishing vessels for Fishermens News. I also laid up the trimaran until I could find a way to dramatically improve its design and repair the damage caused by rot–a process that I began in 2018. In 2019, Covid shut down both of these and a couple more yachting publications I was writing for, so I re-directed my efforts toward my book Liberty Factory.

I resumed publishing articles again in 2021, and still follow all the news in international marine technology and professional yacht racing online. I test-sailed the latest and last re-build of my small trimaran in November 2021, and was satisfied with the handling and performance, although more fine tuning was needed. This was carried out over the winter of 2021-22. Now reaching the age of 75, I am still expecting to sail the boat further and faster in the coming season, but not so inclined to race around the boatyards like I used to…….