Nigel Calder, formerly a resident of Alna, Maine, and now hailing from Maryland’s Eastern Shore, grew up in the English countryside. During grammar school he didn’t care for rugby and football and happily found a dinghy to sail in a nearby pond. So began his love affair with boats.
After graduating from Exeter University, he worked at a car factory on the assembly line. He also built several canal boats on which he and his American wife, Terrie, lived. By 1978 they had moved to the United States, and Calder worked on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico as an electrician and mechanic. The couple bought a 39-foot ketch, a design from the 1930s. After he ruptured two discs in his back, they decided to sail in the Caribbean for some years. Calder realized that there wasn’t decent technical writing about modern sailboats, so he decided to become a writer to fill that need.
Sailing in warm waters for ten years, bringing up two children and writing at any harbor, he began his nautical books. Marine Refrigeration Systems was his first publication, but Calder couldn’t find a publisher because the topic was too technical. Diesel engines were the subject of his second book, and it became a standard reference guide in 1986. A third book zeroed in on repairs at sea, but it is now out of print.
Undaunted, Calder wrote on for two years. Boatowner’s Mechanical and Electrical Manual hit the bookstores and catalogues in 1989, and today it is recognized as the standard worldwide reference book for sailors and powerboat owners.
In his various jobs Calder had been collecting ideas about boat maintenance for many years. Blue water sailors were the first to respond to the manual; then surveyors and the American Boat and Yacht Council, a volunteer group that monitors safety standards for all water vessels.
A second edition of the manual was published in 1995. The third edition went to press in 2005, and 200,000 books have been sold. International Marine, located in Camden and part of McGraw-Hill, is the happy publisher of this boating best-seller.
Sailing on a full-time basis no longer was realistic with growing children, and the Calders began looking for a place ashore. Because Nigel had never met his publisher, they decided to head for Camden. They purchased their farmhouse in Alna in 1991.
Along with updating his manual, Calder writes articles for yachting magazines. His subject is always technical. There are many new cutting-edge technologies emerging, particularly from Sweden and Finland. He also does strategic planning for technology companies, discussing marketing options for them. At boat shows in Annapolis, Newport or elsewhere he leads seminars on boat electrical systems and sells books.
Electrically distributed power systems, which come out of the automotive business, “will revolutionize the systems side of boat-building,” Calder claims. Diesel-electric propulsion is a second breakthrough, promising fuel savings of 25 to 40 percent.
A yearning to return to blue
water led the Calders to sell their Alna house and head south. On the Eastern Shore of Maryland
two houses appealed to them, and they have already started to repair them. And they look forward to owning a new boat with all the latest technology.