Claiborne Young dies in motorcycle accident

[Andy Denmark]

Many ICW cruisers use Claiborne Young's Guidebooks as information resources for cruising the Intracoastal Waterway and regularly check his blog site, Salty Southeast Cruisers' Net, for real-time information about the ICW, Florida Keys and Bahamas.

I am saddened to report that Claiborne died yesterday as a result of a motorcycle accident. He had just acquired his ultimate cruising boat in the Chesapeake and was looking forward to a happy retirement of cruising along the waters he so loved.

Fair winds and Godspeed, Claiborne, our good friend.

[Skeep]

That is a sad post. Condolences to the family members. Our lives are so very short.

[pete faga]

Sad day for Salty Southeast Cruisers Net

[Andy Denmark]

Excerpted from my post in Cruisers' Forum:

"Claiborne and I go back to the formative days of the Salty Southeast Net. We met several times in Oriental to discuss format, software limitations and affordability, information sources, and the like. His aim was to provide current and relevant information to ICW cruisers, a free resource that would be updated by its users with a minimum of editorial changes; information for cruisers, by cruisers, in a real time format that was immediately usable. Through several iterations, software upgrades and personal struggles, Claiborne always held to his basic premise of providing a rock solid information resource to the boating public, the scope of which covered everything from knot tying to political action. That Claiborne was an experienced and capable cruiser himself lent credibility to his valuable contribution to his fellow boaters. Through all of this Claiborne's character, integrity and endearing personality was apparent. His pleasant demeanor, sense of humor and ability to communicate showed through to all who met him. He will be sorely missed but leaves a wealth of good memories with those in the cruising community.

Fair winds and Godspeed, Claiborne Young, our good friend. We wish you calm anchorages, beautiful sunsets, the fellowship of your friends, and peace."

[Russell]

The only book of his I ever had was the Coastal NC book and I loved it. The old style cruising guides like his are so refreshing, before all the guides took on the Dozier style and ended up as half advertisments (in which case you could never fully trust the info in the guide, since it is now biased). I fear the days of these old style guides, written for the love of an area rather then for the advertising dollar is now gone.