Here’s the funny part, says Electronics Editor Ben Ellison, In June 1971, I moved directly from college graduation in Connecticut onto an old 40' wooden sloop in Camden, Maine. Some friends and I had bought the boat with plans...well, dreams...of sailing around the world...but I’m still in Camden!

Electronics Editor: Ben Ellison

"Here’s the funny part,” says Electronics Editor Ben Ellison, “In June 1971, I moved directly from college graduation in Connecticut onto an old 40' wooden sloop in Camden, Maine. Some friends and I had bought the boat with plans...well, dreams...of sailing around the world...but I’m still in Camden!”

Ben did cruise that boat twice to the Caribbean in '70s, as well as run her as a commercial daysailer. He also shipped out aboard everything from oilfield vessels in the Gulf to herring and scallop boats in New England, eventually earning a 100-ton captain’s license. He managed and/or delivered numerous power and sail yachts, and taught seamanship and navigation—even credit bearing courses—at several schools. Highlights of those years include skippering a 144-foot tall ship doing whale research and education off the Dominican Republic, and directing the very successful WoodenBoat School in Brooklin, Maine.

Ben has always had a fascination with navigation technology, including traditional tools like the sextant, which he’s taught about extensively. In the early '90s he worked for a company that developed tide and current prediction software, a job that evolved into creating tables for Reed’s Nautical Almanacs and eventually to editing the entire Almanacs. Soon he was researching and writing about marine electronics and software, which he now does full time, including on his blog Panbo. Ben is also an active member of the Camden Harbor Committee, and tends to an eclectic fleet of small craft, including the 25-foot I/O Ralph he “made over” (pictured).