BOB LANE

With one eye to the future, Bob Lane, our veteran reporter and long-time contributor takes a life-spanning and heartfelt look back at 20 years of PassageMaker.

The Coast Guard reacted quickly and properly when a female crew member aboard the ice breaker, Polar Star, was assaulted while she slept.

Is there anything bigger in Seattle than the 68th annual Seattle Boat Show? The answer may be yes if the Seattle Seahawks make it to the Super Bowl again.

The daily fee for tying up at fixed docks and on floating docks not attached to shore will increase from 60 cents per foot to 70 cents, with a minimum charge of $20.

With the coming and passing of Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer for many, residents of the Pacific Northwest will surely remember some of the larger visitors that graced their shores.

Sally Ride, a 238-foot oceanographic research vessel built by Anacortes’ Dakota Creek Industries, valued at $177 million. She will be operated by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego.

The seven-year-old ferry lost all power a few minutes from its destination and with the vessel drifting toward shallow water her captain dropped an anchor and called for help.

I said goodbye to an old friend recently, a friend I’ve known for 60 years. I watched from the damp, sandy shore of Ship Harbor in Anacortes as Evergreen State–a Washington state ferry–moved slowly toward her terminal.

From south Puget Sound to Bowen Island in British Columbia more than a dozen Pacific Northwest marinas will be celebrating National Marina Day on June 14 by offering fun and games, boat rides, safety inspections, live music and seminars on boating issues.

I’ve been asked many times about my introduction to boat ownership. Recently, in dumping old files into a recycling bin, I discovered the answer to that question. I found yellow flimsies, copies of a magazine feature I had written for the Seattle Times in 1975.

Seven months after a 382-foot Washington state ferry overtook and sank a 25-foot sailboat in Harney Channel in the San Juan Islands the captain, Patricia Whaley, has been fired.

My Grand Banks was splashed in Singapore harbor late in 1978 and delivered to Seattle about Thanksgiving time. I bought her, from the second owner, in the spring of 1990.

Sponsors of the annual Seattle Boat Show are enjoying great happiness because attendance was up this year even though they closed the show a day early so everyone could watch the big game on TV and because, simply put, business was good throughout the show.

What does it take to convince sponsors to close a hugely popular boat show a day early? In Seattle, a ticket to Super Bowl XLVIII will do the trick.