Jim Donovan at 23 Has the World to Sail
In our modern world it is rare to meet a young man who has built his own 30’ boat and taken to the sea early in adulthood. Because I greatly respect such industriousness, it was a real pleasure for me to meet Jim Donovan – a focused young man of 23 who spent the last five years of his life building a 30’ Bristol Channel Cutter on Cape Cod and then sailing it to St. John this past winter – just the first stop on his world sail.
Jim has boat building and the sea in his genes. His great grandfather, Fred Bennett Jr., was a wooden boat builder at Crosby Yacht Yard in Osterville, MA, which was a famous Cape Cod Boat yard. Jim’s grandfather, Fred Bennett III, was a commercial fisherman and it was he who first taught Jim how to build wooden skiffs when he was 13. As a result, proving his diligence the following winter, Jim built ten skiffs, in an 8’ X 12’ garden shed with only a wood burning stove.
“My father loved power boats; my mother grew up on fishing boats, so neither of them were sailors. My love for sailing began when I was around nine in a community sailing program. I am in the middle of two brothers; we all joined Chatham Yacht Club where we started sailing Beetlecats, a gaff rigged wooden boat that is for kids. We raced in pairs and I really got into racing – on occasion I even won a few. I ended up buying one of those boats, which I named Miss Molly, when I was 11 on money that I made from my paper route.” My Mom also learned how to sail at CYC and sometimes she crewed for me.
His first job was at Arey’s Pond Boat Yard where he started, at 15, as an apprentice boat-builder working with Tony Davis and Dan Gould, well-known builders in the area.
“I was lucky – I just walked in and asked if I could work for them. I learned just from watching these shipwrights and then copied their ways. After I had done something a few times I knew I could figure a better way. I didn’t like school so I home-schooled until graduation and worked full time for Arey’s. When I was seventeen, I decided that I was going to build my own boat Carina, named after a constellation. She is a wooden 30’ cutter, 1979 Lyle Hess design, based on a 19th century harbor pilot boat. As I was still working, I built it during the weekends and at nights, which didn’t leave much time for a social life. I was working alone so it took five years to complete. My plan was always to live on it and sail. I didn’t know anyone living or sailing in the Caribbean but as the winter of 2005 approached I thought about warmer weather. As you can’t cross the Atlantic in November I decided to try the Virgin Islands.”
Jim sailed out into the Atlantic in November of ’05 with $500 in his pocket. With only a self steering wind-vane, a propane stove, oil lights (even the running lights) and four cases of tinned food and Heineken; he reached Bermuda within six days. Then using a GPS (ah, the modern world comes into play) he sailed directly to Jost Van Dyke.
“I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. I pulled in at 6 am, after 10 days at sea - seeing that island was pretty nice. I soon sailed to St. John (Coral Bay) looking for work and had the good fortune to meet Robin Claire, the owner of Liberty, a 70’ Alden schooner that needed some work. Robin also runs the KATS program so I am helping rebuild a boat for them plus doing some work on Liberty.”
In the late spring, Jim is planning on sailing to Ireland, stopping in the Azores and then just sailing around – “I don’t have a schedule and I don’t want one. We’ll just see what happens.” I really enjoyed meeting this productive young man. Through his vision I re-experienced the thrill of starting out on your own with a vision in mind. I salute Jim and only wish that there were more young sailors like him.
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