So, who was Parker E. Marean III?
He was the president of Woodin and Marean and I had worked with him and John W. Gilbert Associates in Boston. Russ Woodin, started the company and was president when I joined. The two of them were working out of Woodin's house and it was a pretty sleepy operation.
Things started to take off after I joined and the
Corwith Cramer and SSV regulation projects started. I got us an office in town, a secretary, etc. Russ didn't want to leave his house and Parker and I felt the president should be in the main office so we made him president. That was a big mistake. Parker took it way too seriously for a company of equal ownership partners who each took the lead on different projects. He thought every letter should go out over his name and Russ and I should become invisible to the world. Russ didn't like that any better than I did and it was one of many contentious issues that led to my leaving.
"Designership" of the vessel is more of a sore point with me than it might have been because Parker made some disastrous financial and technical mistakes on a fishing vessel project. He was so busy with damage control that he didn't have much time for the
Corwith Cramer design. I didn't get paid for months, had to give up my house, and spent weeks sleeping on the floor of the office and driving to my girlfriend's in Boston on weekends for showers.
After working for 11 years to get the job of designing the ship, I was determined to see it through but it finally was just too much. I told S.E.A. I had to leave after I had drawn the structural plans and they prevailed on Parker to have me do the rig design as a sub-contractor.
The ship was designed by Woodin and Marean. I've never had any quibble with that. Having Parker individually named the designer kind of annoys me. My understanding of how the plaque came to be is that his widow got tired of hearing me referred to as the designer, which I was for years, and had it made up. This is anecdotal, no one seems to remember. It just showed up at during a refit at a shipyard and someone screwed it to the bulkhead.
This picture of the ship committee standing aboard "Westward" recently surfaced:
I'm third from left looking pretty damn young. Parker (in the blazer with name tag) is on the other side of Dr. Susan Humphris, who is now Chairwoman of the Board. I think this may be the meeting after I announced my departure and got the rig design sub-contract which is why Parker looks so glum and I look so smug. He pretty much looked like that all the time though. This is probably the only day of my life that I looked smug
There are some famous people in this photo. Rod Stephens is second from the right. The fellow three over from Parker in the rear is none other than Irving Johnson. Just in front of him and to the left is Drayton Cochran, the original owner of the
Westward. Half hidden behind my head is Carl Kirkman who did the major analysis of the Fastnet Race disaster. Rafe Parker who became President after Cory Cramer and built the organization into a solid institution is all the way to the right.
BTW this has been the first thing I've seen after opening my eyes the past few mornings:
A majestic rig that I designed. Port visits don't get much better than this one has been.
My son arrives today and we depart for Portland routing through the Right Whale grounds which are reported to be full of whales at the moment.
