Bob has spent the last 25 years as a sound engineer
on Broadway. He started sailing recreationally on Long
Island Sound in the early eighties and thus discovered his
second and third passions in life, sailing and electronic
navigation. During his off time from the Theatre, he was
usually found with his wife and daughter down in the
Islands chartering, finding his way from island to island
with various permutations of a portable, Apple Macintosh
based charting system that seemed to grow more and more
sophisticated and less and less portable as the years went
by. He finally got it right last spring. More on that
later... About 10 years ago, the Ocean got her hooks into
him and he started doing sailboat deliveries, racking up
sea time and continuing the search for that elusive
combination of hardware and software that he could stuff
into a backpack at a moments notice. Two seasons ago, he
answered an ad on a crew bulletin board that Ludwig
Hoogstoel had posted. Ludwig was looking for crew to run an
ETAP up and down the Sound to introduce this amazing yacht
to the East Coast sailing community. The two hit it off
which led to them teaming up on a TransAtlantic delivery of
a new ETAP37s for inventory. During the many hours spent on
the Ocean between Europe and the US, the plan for
ETAPCharterLease was formed. Oh yeah, Bob carried the
complete electronic portion of the Nav system over to
Europe in his backpack, plugged it in and navigated the
entire trip with it. When he got to Stamford and the end of
the delivery, it came off the boat and went right back in
the backpack to be carried home. (he thinks he can make it
smaller and lighter still......)
