You are right — Had there not been a virus, there never would have been a book. I really wasn’t thinking about Sierra. I do love all of the memories of Sierra, but Sierra was several decades ago and I’ve moved on to other things.
I was bored, and Roberta said, “Write a book” and I couldn’t think of anything to write about. Initially, I decided to write a book that was evenly divided between management philosophy, Sierra, and boating. It did start that way, but Sierra kept creeping in bit by bit, and then when Al Lowe read the first few chapters he suggested I dump all of the non-Sierra stuff and just write the history of Sierra. Al’s a smart guy. Some of the philosophy stuff stayed in, but overall .. it (the book) is the history of Sierra, from my perspective.
It’s a very long story .. and, I don’t have time today. But, running a boat prepared me for running a company much more so than running Sierra. Had I reversed my life and been a boat captain prior to running Sierra, Sierra would have been much better off for it. Crossing oceans on a small powerboat is serious business, and even one mistake can easily cost lives. You have to be a master of many skills (communications, diesel engines, electronics, electricity, navigation, etc), and you need to constantly be heading off problems before they occur.
-Ken W