Supporting A New Generation in Maritime
By Abbe Don - June 19th, 2025
Abbe with her Dad on his sailboat in the 1990’s.
My connection to Spaulding Marine Center stems from the unlikely mash-up of values and experiences that I learned from my father— businessman by day/sailor on evenings and weekends — and my philanthropic, feminist-ahead-of-her-time great-grandmother. My love of the water was reinforced by my dad, who raced a Venture 24 and then a J120 at Waukegan Harbor on Lake Michigan, just north of Chicago, and who kept a Morgan 41 in a charter fleet in Tampa Bay, Florida, where we “cruised” as a family during school holidays. My great-grandmother immigrated to the United States at age five, in 1896, and proudly attended public school until eighth grade. She longed to have a high-school education and the right to vote. After a successful business career, she focused her philanthropy on organizations that helped women.
In 2016, after a career as an interactive media artist and user-experience designer in Silicon Valley, I received a generous “lay-off package”—an all-too-familiar rite of passage for people over 50 working in tech. Always wanting to be able to skipper a sailboat on San Francisco Bay, I enrolled in classes at OCSC in Berkeley. By 2021, a friend and I bought a Beneteau 393 and kept it at Sausalito Yacht Harbor. On my dock, I met Matt Zarem, another tech refugee, who encouraged me to check out Spaulding Marine Center.
From the moment I walked into the cavernous building, I loved the connection to history and tradition and the vibrant boatyard with boats in various stages of repair or restoration. I received an incredibly warm welcome from everyone. It was hard to know who was an employee and who was a volunteer, as everyone was equally friendly and equally seemed to love being part of Spaulding. I attended a concert event and fell more deeply in love. I spent an afternoon exploring the library and felt a deeper-than-ever connection to the spirit of the Sausalito working waterfront. Then, I learned about the wooden boat-making classes and was thrilled to have the opportunity to make something tangible after a career steeped in the digital world.
The Stitch and Glue Process, lying on the floor of the workshop, working on stitching the boat together.
Simulating sawing the boat in half—which I would eventually do!
Sawing the boat to create a “nested pram” once it had been epoxied.
The nest pram —a work in progress.
While taking my wooden-boat class, I regularly ate lunch with the Boatworks 101 Apprenticeship cohort. I loved their energy, their passion for learning, and their excitement about a career in the marine industry. As a boat owner, I knew all too well how many of the best marine craftspeople were retiring without a successor and how hard it is to get an appointment with the best marine technicians, because demand for their services is so high. I was especially impressed that the Boatworks 101 cohort included women and nonbinary people.
My personal philanthropy mission statement focuses on organizations that support women and girls in the areas of economic empowerment, reproductive justice, or climate education. I have made an initial five-year commitment to sponsor a Boatworks 101 apprenticeship for a woman or nonbinary person, as I think the program is a unique form of economic empowerment. I look forward to following the careers of Boatworks 101 apprentices.
Interested in supporting the Boatworks 101 Apprenticeship program? Learn more about the Boatworks 101 program. Consider making a donation to continue the impact that the program has on youth workforce development, confidence and skill.
