Hi, I’m Kirsten. In July I quit my job and married the man I love, Mike McLinn, he’s the head engineer in our story. Together, we’ve been living aboard our boat, ‘Gaia’, for over two years in the safe harbor of Boston, MA. In January 2015, we decided it was time to break our stationary streak and start planning to cruise down South for warmer weather. This is our story (blog).
As for me, I’m Kirsten, 29, and only getting younger. I’m a fanatic of beers, cookies, economics, soccer, sailing, and adventures (with a slight obsession of jackets).Mike, he’s happy when he’s sailing, coding, working on a project, and able to add more sriracha to another meal (with a slight obsession of video games). In the end we make a great team, he likes olives I don’t.
The Crew: We’re Sailors!
About Mike,
He’s a computer programer and our head engineer. He keeps our computers up to date, and generally updates anything with an electrical pulse whether it needs to be updated or not. He’s the Captain, the co-mixologist on board, and chef every other night. He becomes angsty if we run out of sriracha. Born in California, he’s a New Englander at heart and thank god for that, otherwise he may have never met his wife Kirsten in the outdoors club at Northeastern University in Boston MA. Mike bought Gaia in 2007 as a cruising boat and has been true to keeping Gaia mobile.
About me, Kirsten,
I’m the Admiral on deck, chief safety officer, baker, and drama officer. I keep Gaia ship shape. I was in finance as a portfolio accountant and have found that routing trips and assessing risk/weather is something that comes natural to me. I was around boats as a kid but didn’t get into the sailing world until Mike, 5 years ago. Sorry mom and dad, I know you told me to never marry a sailor or a socialist.
About Otto VonPilot,
He’s the Austrian helmsmen. As you may imagine he’s very precise and great to rely on for long passages, EXCEPT when we get low on beer and whiskey. Otto becomes quite fussy and can lead Gaia in circles until we assure Otto beer is en route. Otto VonPilot is the driving force behind Gaia sailing, one could even say Otto allows Gaia to practical sail itself.