Eight Bells: Bruce Kessler, circumnavigator and so much more
Pivotal in stimulating the surge of interest in ocean-going powerboats.
Bruce Kessler was a man of many talents, and a single burning passion.
He was an international race car driver, pioneering director of high-speed chases in motion pictures, a sought-after director of many popular television shows and a documentary filmmaker.
But boating and fishing were his passion ever since he could barely walk down the family dock on Vashon Island near Seattle, Washington, where he was born 88 years ago.
Bruce left this world on April 4 at home in Marina del Rey, California, with Joan, the love of his life for 53 years, at his side.
The first boat Kessler built was a 26-foot sports fisherman in 1960. As he wanted to fish farther and farther from home, in ever more exotic locations, his sportsfishers grew larger and larger, eventually reaching 48 feet LOA. By then, he was roaming deep into Baja Mexico from his home port of San Diego.
"At that point I realized trawlers had become a logical progression for me," said Kessler. "Range and sea-keeping abilities were paramount in my mind."
Thus, he became the man to convince Delta Marine, one of the largest and most successful builders of commercial fishing vessels, to take what they knew about rugged boats and the open sea and develop a trawler yacht for him.
Zopilote was launched at Delta Marine in Seattle on May 1, 1985. She was designed by Steve Seaton, 70 feet LOD, displacing 116 tons.
Five years later, Bruce and his wife, Joan, set out from their home in Marina del Rey, near Los Angeles, on what was essentially a three-year fishing expedition but became known and celebrated as one of the earliest circumnavigations of the world under power.
Here is the route for the circumnavigation of the world with Zopilote:
Departed from Los Angeles (Marina del Rey) on March 1, 1990
Returned to Los Angeles (Marina del Rey) on May 30, 1993.
The circumnavigation had covered about 35,000 miles. In total, Kessler had left about 100,000 miles in Zopilote's wake.
Devastation is the only way to describe the loss Bruce and Joan felt in 1994 when Zopilote was lost on an uncharted seamount 70 miles west of Ketchikan, Alaska.
But the shock of losing Zopilote soon was replaced with determination to return to boating with a smaller trawler yacht to be named Spirit of Zopilote.
Like Zopilote, Spirit of Zopilote was designed by Steve Seaton, and built by Northern Marine. In the ensuing years, Bud Lemieux had left Delta Marine to start Northern in Anacortes, Washington, with Chuck Worst and Clifford Rome.
Spirit was the first boat to be launched by Northern. It is the first in a line of long-range trawlers that embody all that Bruce Kessler has learned and experienced after more than 100,000 miles of voyaging under power. Steve Seaton created the impressive lines, and Bud Lemieux made it all happen in 163,000 pounds of boat and machinery.
Spirit is 12 feet shorter on deck than the original Zopilote, yet retains the powerful lines of her Alaska seiner heritage. Overall, Spirit measures 64 feet. She has a beam of 18 feet with draft of 6 feet 4 inches. Power comes from a 300-hp Cummins. Fuel capacity of 3,100 gallons means a range of 5,050 nautical miles at 8 knots, or 2,100 miles at 10 knots.
"It was very difficult to find a boat to follow in Zopilote's wake," Kessler told me when we met in Anacortes during the build. "Northern Marine gave us the opportunity to create a smaller, more manageable long-range vessel for Joan and me to live and cruise on."
Kessler and his wife took up residence in Anacortes for the 18 months that it took from start of the project to the launch on July 1, 1997. After a shakedown cruise in the Pacific Northwest, they ran down the coast to Marina del Rey where Spirit was docked in front of their home.
"My wife would just love to stay put for a while," Kessler said at the time to explain the lack of any firm plans for further cruising and voyaging in the spirit of the legendary Zopilote.
His circumnavigation with Zopilote was widely covered in national boating magazines during the early part of the 1990s. His voyaging, and those fantastic pictures of that green trawler in exotic locations around the world, were instrumental in promoting the concept of long-distance cruising under power to countless yachtsmen world-wide. Including me, boatless and living at the time in Yellowknife, in Canada’s Northwest Territories, after my record-setting passage under sail to San Francisco from New York City via Cape Horn.
What Bruce and Joan Kessler accomplished in 1990-93 with Zopilote was pivotal in stimulating the surge of interest in ocean-going motorboats. That interest was further fueled by the publication of the revised edition of Voyaging Under Power in 1994 and the circumnavigation by Jim and Susy Sink in a Nordhavn 46.
In the years that followed, what Bruce Kessler did was as remarkable as his voyaging with Zopilote. He tirelessly and selflessly spread the word for the trawler cause, answering any question, being available on almost any occasion, helping hundreds and even thousands of others realize their dreams.
He never asked or accepted fees for his appearances. As Milt Baker, a close friend for 35 years, recalls, Bruce was always modest, calm, and “aw-shucks” self-effacing. He simply loved being around cruising yachties.
By then I had founded West Marine Trawler Fest which I ran in major markets around the U.S. In 1998, it was my great honour to salute Bruce Kessler as Passagemaker of the Year at the Trawler Fest in Solomons, Maryland.
Kessler retired from the television industry after 30 years as a respected director, while Joan was a successful actress in film. He directed television shows such as Monkees, Mission Impossible and A-Team and, more recently, Commish, Diagnosis Murder and Touched By An Angel. With his background in auto racing, Kessler helped pioneer high-speed car chases in films such as Bullitt.
As Jim Flannery wrote in Soundings:
Kessler has raced cars and directed films and television shows, teamed up with Dan Gurney at Le Mans and worked with James Garner in Hollywood. None of that has gone to his head. He still prefers hanging out on boats, with boaters. “It has been a lifestyle for me,” says Kessler. “I just like boats. I like boat people.”
In recent years, the Kesslers divided their time aboard Spirit of Zopilote between Fort Lauderdale in Florida and Southwest Harbor in Maine.
In 2015, Lin, my wife, and I were fortunate to be invited to cruise in Maine waters with Bruce and Joan aboard Spirit. It was a most memorable week in so many ways, as we recapped on our boating blog as the Hunt for Red Lobster:
In the days since we learned of Bruce’s passing from Milt Baker, Lin and I have spent many a moment reminiscing about Bruce and Joan. The phrase we keep repeating is how warm and welcoming they always have been, simply “so ever nice.”
We can only imagine the heartbreak Joan must feel after losing her soulmate of 53 years. We cherish our memories of Bruce but we hold Joan ever so close in our hearts.
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Eight bells
When a sailor has died he or she can be honoured with the sounding of eight bells; meaning "end of the watch". The term "eight bells" can also be used in an obituary, as a nautical euphemism for finished.
Beautifully done, Georgs. You and I are blessed to have known Bruce for so many years and to have cruised with him. As someone said on Nordhavn Owners Group after reading of his death, ""We cruise on the shoulders of giants."
This is a wonderful tribute. Great work.