Eric Takakjian is the master of the Chincoteague, a 504-foot, oceangoing articulated tug and barge engaged in the coastwise petroleum transportation trade. He has been sailing ships and oceangoing tugboats to various corners of the world since 1978. Takakjian and his wife, Lori, owned and operated the oceanographic research vessel Quest for 17 years, conducting oceanographic and shipwreck research in the northeastern United States. He has conducted extensive historical research on the naval history of the region. A diver since 1972 and an avid shipwreck diver since 1975, Takakjian has been a National Fellow of the Explorers Club since 1997. He has been a member of the Steamship Historical Society of America since 1989 and has served on their board of directors since 2016. He lives in Massachusetts. Randall Peffer is the author of 12 nonfiction books as well as over 350 travel-lifestyle features for National Geographic, Smithsonian, Reader’s Digest, and Sail. His travel features have appeared in most US major metro dailies, including the New York Times and Washington Post. The son of a career naval officer, Peffer holds a 100-ton master’s license and has logged over 100,000 miles at sea. He has been the captain of the research schooner Sarah Abbot for 38 years and has been elected to the prestigious seafarers’ organization the Cruising Club of America. After more than three decades of teaching writing and literature at Phillips Academy, Andover, he has left teaching to write full time. He sails out of his homeports of Marion, Massachusetts; Great Guana Cay, Abaco Islands; and Long Beach, California.
