Here are the simple unvarnished (merely linseed-oiled) facts about that historic sequence of events:  the founding of Edey & Duff, Inc.  Why historic?  Today a huge multi-million dollar industry exists devoted to the design, building, and equipment of cruising sailboats.  Seventeen or eighteen years ago this industry did not exist.  The experts consulted at the time were unanimous in their opinion that it could not exist.  To be sure, people went cruising under sail. But appropriate new boats were not being designed or built for the purpose, except as occasional custom jobs. People had a choice between older wooden boats or new fiberglass racer-cruisers, so-called. The latter existed in degenerate form because the market was serving inexperienced newcomers to sailing, and such customers could be captured by mass production and mass marketing.  No company was building a line of wholesome cruising boats, in modern materials, appropriate for cruising.  The prevailing dogma was that the fashion had to be obeyed, no matter how unseamanlike.  Here we honor the man who proved that dogma false.  Today there are many companies building a great variety of boats for cruising; this entire industry follows the example first set by him.