Captain's Log: Eight bells

Oct. 22, 2013, 16:33

Skip Green turned over the helm; his watch was complete. Under a magnificent orange sunset and a rainbow over the Charles River, he dropped his mooring and started on his new voyage.

Capt. Skip, born Walter Carruthers Green, passed away from complications of surgery. During his life he had many ports of call. He was born May 19, 1947, in Dallas, Texas. Skip grew up in Worcester, Mass., until his parents moved to Mexico City in 1962, where he attended the American High School. He later graduated from Middlebury College and Rutgers University.

Skip became an avid sailor who owned a classic 48-foot wooden cutter named Baccarat. He was renowned for his dynamic solo sailing without an engine.

Skip was also a wooden boat builder involved in all aspects of the trade for 35 years. As an itinerant shipwright, he sailed the eastern seaboard on large sailing vessels, owned his own boat shop, and taught boat building and repair at the Wooden Boat School in Brooklin.

His next port of call was Islesboro, where he anchored Baccarat as well as took up logging, house building and furniture making. In 2005 he received a paralegal associate degree and developed Evergreen Decisions, a searchable database of Superior Court decisions for Maine's legal community.

Skip is survived by his blended family: his sister, Cinny Green and her daughters; his partner, Karen Betts and her children; his dearest friend, Marika Kuzma Green; and his beloved Boston terrier, D-O-G.