REUEL B. PARKER was born in Denver on 2/19/46. He grew up in Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts and New York. Much of his childhood was spent on the south shore of Long Island (Bay Shore), where he learned about boats, boat building and boating. He built many models as a child, and began building and restoring full size boats around age 12.
   
Mr. Parker was educated at Colorado State College, State University of New York at Farmingdale and Columbia University in Manhattan. He studied physics, engineering and music. He studied oceanography and emergency medicine in California.

After a "back to the land" stint in California in the early 70's, Mr. Parker built a 54' ferrocement cutter named FISHERS HORNPIPE, in which he traveled some 35,000 miles, visiting twenty foreign countries in Central America and the Caribbean. In 1985 he built a 44' cold-molded wood cat schooner named TERESA (the original Exuma-44), to directly test his design and construction concepts for that type of construction. His next personal vessel was the 75' Virginia Pilot Schooner LEOPARD (the original Pilot Schooner-60), on which he lived and traveled for five years. His next cruising home was the 50' on deck ketch T'IEN HOU, a modernized Lorcha - a traditional vessel combining Chinese and Portuguese technology from the 16th century. Perhaps another large schooner is now on the drawing board? 

Mr. Parker has worked in residential and commercial construction, boat building and restoration for over forty years. He has designed, built, repaired and restored boats in wood (traditional and cold-molded), ferrocement, steel, aluminum and fiberglass. He has been living and traveling aboard his own cruising sailboats since 1975, and intends to continue doing so  indefinitely. Much of Mr. Parker's design work draws on the wisdom and practicality of working sail from previous centuries, combined with contemporary materials and construction techniques.

Reuel Parker created Parker Marine Enterprises in 1974, both as a design house and custom boat building operation. Although Parker Marine no longer builds boats commercially, they still build an occaisional prototype, hull/deck package, masts, keels, rigging and other components. Parker Marine also can be coaxed into woodenboat restoration projects, especially if the boat is of a high pedigree.... Capt. Parker began writing books and magazines articles in the late 80's. He is a regular contributor of articles to WoodenBoat Magazine and BoatBuilder Magazine, and he has started writing articles for Good Old Boat Magazine. His books are published by McGraw-Hill under the International Marine imprint. There are several new books in the works: THE VOYAGES OF FISHERS HORNPIPE, about those first long cruises along the Pacific Coast, Central America, the Caribbean and the East Coast; a new construction manual on PLYWOOD BOATBUILDING, and a book on WOODEN BOAT RESTORATION.  

Mr. Parker spends summers cruising Penobscot Bay and the coasts of Maine and Nova Scotia, and spends winters in Key West, South Florida, Central America and the Caribbean.