 | From Ocean Navigator #119 January/February 2002 |
The Ocean Navigator crew has moved to new offices on Portland, Maine’s waterfront, leaving the crowded, window-challenged building on Danforth Street that had been home for the past 15 years. Our new space, in the Portland Yacht Services complex on the eastern end of the harbor, has fine views of Casco Bay.
Although putting together issues of a magazine might be more difficult, on account of the spectacular view, we will all be entertained by the traffic in this busy port: fireboats, ferries, oil tankers, sailboats, the university’s racing team and, of course, lobster boats. One could gawk out the windows all day!
The move went fairly smoothly, but as technical problems arose in the weeks that followed the move, it was heartening to have some sailorly know-how among the staff. We’ll soon have custom pipe berths, fabricated by a local boatbuilder, for example, installed in many of the offices for those late-night deadlines. For the blinding sunlight that streaked through the large, unshaded windows, we handily posted up crude paper shades, as shown in the photo above. The shades were constructed of extra-large maneuvering boards (the instructional ones we use in the School of Seamanship radar classes), you know, the kind that people used back in the days when navigators still performed transfer plotting of radar targets. (I say that facetiously; of course, everyone worth his salt still performs this basic act, right?)
In the new space, we have a proper library, full of the obscure nautical volumes you can be absorbed for days
If you visit, be forewarned: You’ll be sent out on the dock with one of these things and not turned loose until a three-shot fix is completed with pinwheel accuracy.
