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About Me
If you have a question or want to leave a comment you can reach me at britton@triton680.com.
Britton Cooke - BA in Economics and International Relations, certificated aircraft mechanic, commercial pilot and flight instructor, one time horse trainer and barn manager, former Outward Bound sailing instructor, auto mechanic and production worker.
My first experience with sailing and cruising occured when I was about ten years old. My uncle took my father, brother, and I on an overnight trip from Pemaquid Maine to Monhegan Island on his 24 foot wooden cutter. The trip is just over ten miles, I think, but in the haze I thought I was traveling over the horizons of the world. The 3 foot swell made me think we were in the mid-Atlantic. I loved it. I loved making landfall on the 'distant' island. I loved setting anchor and sleeping in a strange harber. I was absolutely smitten.
Unfortunately, my family moved around this time to a location away from the sea in Oregon. So my passion for boats and sailing was left unquenched. Instead, I followed an equal passion for flying machines. As I grew older I became a helicopter mechanic and eventually a commerical pilot and flight instructor. After several years of traveling around the world for my job I decided to explore the world of academia and returned to college in my ancestral lands in Massachusetts.
My return to the maritime state of Massachusetts re-awakened my dream to sail and I purchased a few boats first an old old banks dory, then a 19 foot Compac trailer sailor. I studied Economics and International Relations. I was also introduced to early American literature and especially H.D. Thoreau. Around this time I found a copy of Don Casey's This Old Boat. The idea of finding an affordable cruising boat that I could fix up intrigued me. The thought of a Walden like experiment on my small boat intrigued me even more. I searched around on the web and stumbled across Tim Lackey's website detailing the day to day re-building of his own Triton. If you are not aware of that site you should leave here now and go check it out here. I was hooked on the concept. Upon graduation, I wished my friends well as they went immediately into their new careers while I jumped on my little pocket cruiser and sailed the coast of Maine for two months. It was a brilliant trip and I found Thoreau's ideas emminently adaptable to life on a small boat. The only problem was the sitting headroom in my little 19 footer. Being cooped up by the weather for 4-5 days on end drove me nuts and I spent a good deal of that time drawing out my ideas for my 'next' boat.
This Triton is that 'next' boat. A boat I can afford. A boat that doesn't 'own' me with financial burdens. A boat that happily slips the mooring in moments for a pleasant hour's daysail. A boat that can comfortably and safely carry me anywhere along the coast line I want to go. Indeed, many Tritons travel oceans and at least one has circumnavigated (twice) though that isn't in my thoughts. On top of it all I believe the Triton is a beautiful boat. This project has been a lot more work than I anticipated and it has cost me far more than I want to contemplate. Yet, I am deeply satisfied to date and I look forward to every day I can spend working on the boat. I am a truly happy man who loves what he is doing.
So that's a brief history of how I got here. For more information about how I found this actual Triton you can continue here.
About Jenny
Jenny, hull number 680, is a Pearson Triton manufactured in 1966 by Pearson Yachts in Portsmouth Rhode Island. Acquired by me in 2004, Jenny has been undergoing a fairly extensive rebuilding. Being one of the last Tritons to be completed, Jenny sports the last deck style with the higher forward coachroof section and a mahogany toerail (since replaced with something more substantial). Under water Jenny carries her lead ballast internally. Jenny is fractionally rigged with a 7/8ths foresail. Forward lower shrouds were added as part of the rebuilding project. Being a sail auxiliary, Jenny also boasts a smooth running gasoline fueled Atomic Four inboard engine that easily pushes her along at hull speed. Most everything else about the boat has been replaced as part of the rebuilding project and is, or will be, detailed in the Rebuilding section of this website. From a systems standpoint there is really nothing original about the boat and she has become a rather unique expression of my particular needs and wants.
Where is Jenny now?
Jenny is currently on the mooring in Salem Harbor Massachusetts.
About the 'Real" Jenny
My dear boat Jenny is named after my dear sister, Jenny. Slender and spry, with a quick wit and tongue, insanely active and with an intense sense of loyalty (unless you cross her but let's not go there) my sister exhibits traits that my imagination imparts on my boat and the fit just seems 'right'. In addition, I love my sister and I love my boat so it seems a natural convergence to me. The boat came into my care with the name Prudence emblazoned on the bow, which I had rather grown to like, but I found it hard to annunciate over the radio and a little awkward in general. Since there is so little original about the boat I didn't feel the need to stick with the old original name. The boat has been 'born again' and has a new name to go with the new boat.
About this Website
This website is hosted through services provided by Brushfire Media. Once I had decided to write my own website from scratch I found the book Creating Web Sites: The Missing Manual written by Matthew MacDonald to be extremely useful and my main source of information. The book and a text editor (Notepad) is what I used to create this site. I also have a copy of MS Frontpage 2003 which I found useful in diagnosing some of my problems but I find Frontpage, left on its own, creates messy code that is hard to read and have so far preferred to stick with my ultra-basic raw HTML code in the text editor. The code on the site is simple and I like it that way. Its easier for my simple mind to keep up with.
If you have a question or want to leave a comment you can reach me at britton@triton680.com.
