JMSailingSeas
About Us
Joel Odhner:
My Father introduced me to sailing at a young age. We owned sailboats in the Delaware River, Chesapeake and down in the Virgin Islands throughout my childhood and young adult life. After a decade or so, I came back into sailing with my own s/v moored in the Delaware. I raced with our yacht club every week for years. From there, I began to sail as crew on longer passages and obtained my Captains license. In 2018, I started sailing instruction in Florida and doing deliveries and longer passages when time allowed. I decided to take a break from teaching and deliver boats with my partner Mercedes full time and sail our sailboat around the Caribbean.
L. Mercedes Gillett:
I bought my first sailboat in the spring of 2019 not knowing anything about sailing or boats. For the next 3 seasons in Sweden, I learned how to service the engine, man the helm, sail, anchor, maneuver and much more. In the winter of 2021, I found myself in the US and opportunities to work delivering sailboats from Florida and in the Caribbean. I had already helped a couple of friends move boats and sailed enough with my own, that I felt confidant I had something to offer. Later that year, I moved back to the US and worked at a boat builder for a couple of months. Intermittently, I would take delivery jobs, but it was hard to balance. In the end, I dedicated my time fully to working on and delivering s/v. A couple of months later, my partner Joel, decided to take a break from teaching and we began delivering boats together full time.
Our longest delivery was 10,507NM from Tortola, BVI through the Panama Canal across to Hawaii and up to Alaska. Photo: crew in front of Galapagos Islands.
