by Denise DeVries
The Reedville Fishermen’s Museum (RFM) is seeking a new volunteer captain for the skipjack Claud W. Somers after the retirement of Gerhard Straub, who took the historic vessel’s helm in 2014.
Captain Straub started sailing while a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and eventually wound up on the varsity sailing team there.
“My last year there, one of the alumni donated a Hinckley 38 to the school and I started sailing on that, which got me interested in larger boats,” he said. He and his wife, Barbara, moved to the San Francisco area, where they had a 30-foot sailboat. He also volunteered as a crew member on a 110-foot square topsail ketch, which exposed him to more traditional sailing vessels.
“We sold our boat when we moved to Maryland in 2002,” said Straub. “At a maritime festival, I met Captain Jack Russell, a waterman out of St. George Island, Md., who was giving rides on his skipjack….
