Skip barker

Boatwise

My first job, at age 14 was maintaining moorings in Marblehead, Mass. A summer job at Manchester Marine became full-time rigging and diving. Years of finance and literary work saw me return to my roots, at Wing Systems, where I enjoyed developing, designing and building all sorts of vessels. For more info, check out my LinkedIn bio.

Insatiable inflatable

My RIB roots go back to the ‘90s when, for no good reason, I put the tube from a soft-bottomed Avon on top of a Zodiac hard bottom whose tube had become a dog toy. And now, even though I have a fabulous 21’ Zodiac, there is an Avon Searider 6.0 from 1985 in mid refit that keeps me preoccupied.