Lisa and I attended a training session at Northern Lights in Ballard, the company that manufactured Indiscretion’s engine and generator. This one-day “Captain’s Course” is taught by Bob Senter, a respected authority on practically everything within the engine room of a trawler. It was a pleasure to meet Bob and take in some of his knowledge throughout the day. We also got to meet about a dozen other captains, many of whom owned Nordhavns.
Lisa was the only female in a large group of middle aged men, but never hesitated to ask questions or engage with the discussions. Here she is changing a fuel filter on a Diesel engine near the end of the day:
As a CPA and finance professional, I must have attended hundreds of training events in my career, but I swear none were as enjoyable or engaging as this engine class. Partly this was because I was learning something so completely new to me, but really I think these other fine captains made the day so great. Almost immediately, I found myself among fast friends with common interests, all with a thirst for adventure — so refreshing in a training event.
We have a two-day follow-up training session in May to soak up additional engine knowledge from Mr. Senter and meet more of our fellow trawler captains. We chose to hold off on this more intensive engine training until we had a chance to muck around on the boat and get a better sense of what we needed to learn after operating her for a while. This turned out to be a good idea as we have learned a lot these past six months, some of it the good old fashioned hard way.
