Venture to Alaska 2012.

[Manly Q.]

Over this weekend I have watched the excellent documentry made by Tony Flemming of his voyage to the Pacific North West and Alaska in his beautiful 65 ft Venture.

Not only is this bloke an esteemed boat designer / builder he could teach everyone who picks up a camera how to take interesting informative travel videos. This man knows when to speak to camera and when to just let the viewer enjoy the ride.

I have read many posts by those on here who speak of this magnificent part of your country but until I watched this doco it just never rang true. The beauty of the water, the floating ice, logs and the marinas / villiages.

If more people could paint pictures as clearly as Mr Flemming does I am sure we would all be booking flights to the P.N.W.

I do not know very much about Tony Flemming, but I am sure many of you know of his history with Grand Banks, American Marine and the fact that he took with him from G.Bs.the designs for the Alaskan with the first R.P.H. on a Fibre Glass yacht.

If you have not seen these videos then may I sugest that you seek them out, they do the North American continent proud the way it is presented.

We have nothing here in Australia to match the beauty of this landscape, though we do have thousands of miles of voyagable coastline to enjoy.

Totally jealous of what I have seen here.

Well Done Mr Flemming on a great video and a beautiful Yacht [ design ]

Regards.

David.

 

[gaston]

Link to the documentry please

 

[Russell Clifton]

www.youtube.com/user/FlemingYachts/videos

 

[rochepoint]

This link is to Tony's webpage Fleming Yachts - Tony Fleming's page with links to his trip blogs and videos. A great way to spend a few hours(days) of dreaming about cruising the world on great his vessels, Venture I and Venture II.

 

[BandB]

He's nearing the completion of this 2015 Alaska trip and it's all shown on his pages on the website. You can track him on Delorme as well. Also, on the site are stories of other's adventures.

Also, mywanderingstar.com has incredible photography.

My impression of Tony Fleming is that this is a man who truly loves to cruise, loves boating. While some builders have rallies for PR and he certainly gets PR from his trips, I get the feeling always that he's doing it because he loves doing it. This isn't a one time thing, but a life of cruising.

There are few men involved with building boats today who have such a love of them. I think of Orin Edson who just sold Westport and well in his 80's and he's out cruising. He's boated since the days before he founded Bayliner. The Chouest family that now owns Westport but also owns Edison Chouest and ACY and they all have boated all their lives in spite of being in the commercial boat business. Some of the sportfish builders are still fishermen and boat lovers.

There just are not many builders still owned by passionate boaters today. And for those that are, the owners often have little time for boating as business interferes.

I look at his current trip and while much of it is the path we took in 2014, I see some additional areas he has just covered that we didn't make it so adding to our next Alaska trip, whenever that might be. Might be 20 years from now or more, but always thinking ahead.

The Fleming website is perhaps the most entertaining boat builder site there is.

 

[Old deckhand]

Yes, he is here in Eliason Harbor, Sitka. Our boat is in the same harbor.