All these photos were taken by my step-father. He's an excellent photographer and a great shipmate. I hope to get more cruising time with him on my boat.
The story goes that when my step-father's father, Graydon Smith, was building the winches for Intrepid, he asked Olin for someone with whom he could safely end his sons to sea. The recommendation came back as Eddy.
By the time I got to sailing, Eddy was already in his late 70's, and his passage making days were largely done, so anything here misidentified or incorrectly recalled is my fault. My mother did a passage or two to Bermuda with him and brought Puffin back from Tortola at least once. Puffin was wood and maintained immaculately; stored in the water year year and pulled out once a year for varnishing and painting. The hull was fair enough to look fiberglass and he had an interesting strategy of only varnishing vertical surfaces. The third edition of Puffin has an internal steel frame and was designed to be lifted by a single point for easy transport. According to Cabot Lyman, if he were to build the boat today, they would need to use some pretty advanced materials and techniques to get the boat to be the same weight and ballast ratio.
Poor weather never phased Eddy, even when boats nearby were getting pitchpoled in the Gulf Stream. Both my step-father and my mother claimed that Eddy would just sit on the settee while the gimbling table would reach as high as his chin and smile. Puffin had two companions ways - once for the crew forward and one aft for the skipper - not something that would fly today.
A mid-Altantic storm
My step-father's brother, David is in there somewhere taking a shower.
David again. Love the olde schoole foul weather gear and black diamond sou-wester
Naviguessing the old fashioned way
Gotta love the shirt - nice to have crew to row you around, eh?
Horta
His brother David getting a haircut on the dock
Azorean whalers
Their boat
This boat was built by S&S in Taiwan and unbeknownst at the time, the yard had left out a tie-rod in the coachroof which was stove-in later in the Med. The boat was then quietly sold and a third Puffin was built, but this time by Aage Walsted. The second Puffin is still around. 
