Antiguan resident Joe Hutchens began sailing when he was four, in
Minnesota. By the time he was 13 he was working on Gulf Clipper, a
sightseeing boat.
Several small jobs later, he soon found himself in the UK where he
worked in the famous Mercury Boatyard in the Hamble.
From there, he wound up in the USVI where he worked on the 71′ Oceana.
At the age of 22 he became captain, plying the well-worn route for the next six
years between the Caribbean and the Med.
He
was also captain of a Swann 55 Abracadabra and an Oyster Flying
Scotsman from Antigua, where he built a house and settled down.
Joe
then spent three years as a delivery skipper and worked for Tidewater Marine
supplying drilling ships in the Gulf of Mexico, but when the company insisted
he go to Nigeria, he quit and joined Inigo and Xavier Ross at Wadadli Cats
where he drove Sprit of Antigua for two years.
A
while later he couldn’t resist the chance to take on a large schooner called My
Way which had gone on the rocks in a hurricane near the entrance to
Falmouth Harbour. She rested beside Slipway for a long time, termites eating
her cabin by cabin, until finally she was recently scuttled in the deep water
towards Montserrat from English Harbour.
Last year he bought himself a charter yacht called Ivy and works
now, aged 39, in his Real Estate office and spends a lot of time with his
daughter, Arizona.
Joe
is a very likeable guy, ready for anything – we all hope that he can take some
time off in the spring to join the crew of St. Peter for the sequel of Pirates
of the Caribbean, to be filmed once again in St. Vincent.
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