Our Captains

All of our captains are Coast Guard certified. 

Captain Trevor MacLachlan

Trevor MacLachlan founded Seattle Seafaring in 2012. He holds a USCG 100 Ton Master’s license and has over 40 years sailing and power yacht experience in the Pacific Northwest and worldwide. Having literally spent his entire life sailing, Trevor is competent on virtually any sailing or power vessel from tiny sailing dinghies to over 85′ luxury yachts. He has circumnavigated Vancouver Island twice and runs deliveries up and down the coast. A cruising highlight so far has been the two years cruising from Seattle down through the Panama Canal into the Caribbean with his young family aboard the Taswell 43 “Lea Scotia”, the original yacht in his fleet. Trevor provides professional training, consulting and yacht deliveries worldwide on both sail and power, large and small. 

Captain Chris Howard

Chris holds a USCG Licensed 100 Ton Master Captain’s license and has extensive marine operations and captain experience from over 23 years working in several different sectors of the marine industry and ocean research. He has operated power and sail vessels ranging from 10ft dinghies to the 104’ King County Ferry vessels. He’s called the Pacific Northwest his home waters for the past eight years after many years running yachts and research craft in both Hawaii and Alaska. Easygoing and detailed, Chris can put just about any new skipper and crew at ease.

Captain Peggy Claar

Peggy grew up in a local boating family spending much of their free time on the water in a variety of pleasure boats. Her airline-pilot dad insisted all three kids be competent in boat handling, navigating, reading charts, and understanding the weather and tides. They traveled from Tacoma to the Broughtons, at the north end of Vancouver Island, every summer. One summer they made it as far north as Haida Gwaii. Peggy continued boating with her parents and friends while raising her own family, then finally purchasing her own boat in 2006. Peggy’s experience has centered around power pleasure boats. She’s competent handling outboards, Inboard/ Outboard, single-screw cabin cruisers to twin screw pleasure craft up to 65 feet. Currently, Peggy single-hands and lives aboard her 54 ft pilothouse trawler.

Peggy has a passion for teaching new boaters and empowering all boaters, and especially women, to be confident in handling their own boats as single-handers or active partners in the boating experience. She teaches close-quarter handling and docking to women in her yacht club. She is currently employed in healthcare IT and teaches boating skills evenings and weekends.

Captain Mark Rinker

Captain Mark Rinker has 20 years of recreational power boating experience and holds a USCG 100 ton license. Born to an Iowa farm family, Capt. Mark’s knowledge of heavy equipment operation and maintaining diesel systems began early in childhood.

Capt Mark’s boating experiences range from inland Iowa and Minnesota lakes to the Mississippi River, the Great Lakes (Michigan, Huron, and Superior) and most recently, 8 years in the PNW as a Yacht Broker, selling and training over 80 new power boat clients ranging from 30′ to 60′ LOA. Mark and his wife Marti own a 42 Sabre named “Osprey” and cruise with the Bellevue Yacht Club, averaging 100 nights aboard annually. Capt Having recently circumnavigated Vancouver Island, Mark is knowledgeable of recreational cruising, anchoring, and can share many tips & tricks about cruising the Salish Sea.

Captain John Price

Capt. JP has 25 years of boating the Northwest. When he’s not working on and restoring his 1953 Navy-built wooden trawler, he’s racing sailboats up and down the West Coast and beyond. JP has a knack for putting new boat owners at ease and helping get them up and running in short order.

Having ditched his desk job in tech, he’s now focused solely on boating consulting, instruction… and telling bad jokes. “I like to think I’ve helped save a lot of marriages… well, most of ’em”.

Captain Richard McCullough

Richard’s dad taught him and his four brothers to sail starting at a young age, beginning with a C-Lark sailing dinghy and progressing to larger cabin class sailboats and a power boat. He has countless fond memories of the long family boating trips he took every summer all over the PNW including to Alaska. In the early 90s, his family bought a power boat and he learned the ropes on a 61’ twin screw. He continued his love for sailing and power boating with bare charters in the PNW, Caribbean, and Maine coast. He has been a sailing instructor for 14 years and was part of the Puget Sound racing scene, culminating in his first blue water race to Oahu in the 2018 Pacific Cup.

He holds a USCG Licensed 100 Ton Master Captain’s license and is certified as an instructor by both the American Sailing Association (ASA) and the Recreational PowerBoating Association (RPBA) – single and twin screw.

Having been blessed to grow up with all this boating experience, he now enjoys helping others to live out the same dream.

Captain Brian Raikes

Captain Brian Raikes has 10+ years of worldwide yacht delivery and instruction experience. After retiring from his career as an airline pilot his lifelong passion for boating and the sea has developed into a second career as a yacht captain. With years of professional aviation training and experience in navigation and meteorology the transition to yachts was seamless. 

Captain Brian’s first priority is always safety, which shows up in his careful pre-departure planning and attention to detail, followed secondly by camaraderie and fun, the real reason we all get into boating in the first place. Captain Brian lives in Tacoma, WA.

Captain Tre Nabstedt

Originating on the East Coast, Captain Tre Snow has been on fresh and salt water from an early age. His boating began with sailing regattas on his home lake in NH beginning at age 10. As a young adult with time and inspiration diving in the Gulf of Mexico, he sought out blue water aboard sailing deliveries between New England and the Caribbean. After racing buoys in the competitive Newport Rhode Island circuits, Tre hired on as private yacht crew and would cruise the Caribbean, Mediterranean, and Eastern Pacific with 2 Atlantic crossing and 2 Panama Canal transits.

Recently Tre has been more locally PNW focused with sailboat racing favorites like Whidbey Island Race Week and VanIsle 360. You may also recognize him if you have taken a ferry or tour on Lake Diablo in North Cascades National Park, as he has been captain for Seattle City Light there. Whether training new co-captains, initiating friends on a bare boat charter, or coaching new sailors in ASA programs, Tre is eager to share his knowledge and love of the water with all.

Captain Skip Sethmann

Skip has owned and restored several vessels of his own and worked in many shipyards throughout the world. He spent much of his career as a chief engineer on yachts before moving up to the wheelhouse. Previously he was Captain and manager of the Boeing corporate yacht “Daedalus” which he took on many voyages around the world. Daedalus was sold 2 years ago and since then has enjoyed instructing boat owners and sharing the joys of boating. He holds a 1,600 ton master license and also runs deliveries on vessels of all sizes. Boating has always been his life’s passion and he enjoys passing on his experiences. 

Captain John Sheppard

At the age of sixteen, John and a friend impulsively pooled their money and bought a beat up Hobie Beach Cat. It ignited a life-long journey for all things sailing and maritime. That beat up cat was only the first of many boats, from racing dinghies to blue water cruisers. John is grateful to have boating in his life, it led him to his closest friends and greatest adventures.
John has sailed hundreds of races, crossed oceans, and cruised many of the world’s most beautiful locations. Sharing his passion and knowledge is one of his greatest joys in life. He is a U.S. Sailing instructor, an American Sailing Association Instructor, and does private custom instruction as well. John holds a USCG Masters License with an International 500GT endorsement. He and his wife live aboard their Jeanneau Yacht 51. They spend their time cruising the incredible waters of the Pacific Northwest. 
After a long career in corporate leadership, he turned his full-time professional focus to the passion that began so long ago. He is a working merchant mariner, a yacht sales professional, and a boating educator. 

Captain Matt Abraham

Matt began his professional maritime career when he moved to the US Virgin Islands on a whim in October 1999. He landed his first job as mate on a parasail boat and quickly fell in love with life on the water. In 2007, with 200 Ton Masters license in hand, he left the Virgin Islands to begin a career on ships. Starting out aboard NOAA research vessels he continued to build his sea time, gaining experience on offshore supply vessels and cable-layers before ending up at his current home away from home, a 750ft car carrier.

He holds an Unlimited Master license and when he’s not at sea you can find him on his paddle-board somewhere around Bainbridge Island, or aboard client’s new boats instilling confidence in a calm, measured manner. 

Captain Johann Thaheld

Johann has over 25 years of sailing and power experience that began with a small 15′ sailboat in the Caribbean. He studied sailing in Port Townsend on sailboats ranging from 16′ Lidos to a 45′ Gaff-rigged Cutter with 9 sails. He raced as crew around Admiralty Inlet and chartered boats from San Juan Sailing in Bellingham before earning his captain’s license.

He is certified by the Recreational Power Boating Association (RPBA) – single and twin engine – and the American Sailing Association (ASA). He’s taught ASA and RPBA classes and private instruction in the San Juan Islands and up into Canada. He’s sailed in the Pacific Northwest (the Salish Seas), California (Pacific Ocean) and the Great Lakes.

In his prior life he was an Intellectual Property Management attorney at Boeing and before that a Professor at Western Washington University teaching law and accounting. He is an instrument rated private pilot and has flown single engine, twin engine and helicopters on both East and West coasts of the USA. He’s flown for 46 years and brings cockpit resource management, navigation, safety, a reliance on manuals and checklists, and a healthy respect for weather to yachting.

Captain Gene Donaldson

Capt. Gene was born with sealegs. He has memories as far back as he remembers being on the family boat, traveling the San Juan’s and staying at the family cabins on Whidbey Island and Bucks Lake in Redding, California. In his early 20’s, he began working on a charter boat on Lake Union & Lake Washington & put in almost 20 years as first mate before officially getting his 100 ton Master Captains License, as well as every available endorsement through Compass Courses in Edmonds, WA.

Now, he considers every day a good day when he gets to spend it on the water. Driving boats and entertaining guests is Gene’s passion and it shows. He’s ready to share his passion with you.

Captain Steve Jacobson

The last thirty years Steve has based himself In the San Juan Islands.  Summer months were spent guiding on the water.  Starting with kayaks and small craft, he quickly progressed towards larger sailing and power vessels.  The last twenty years were spent working in the whale watching industry building a wealth of knowledge and experience to confidently and safely sail throughout the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere on a variety of vessels. 

During the off season,  he has delivered several yachts up and down the east and west coasts of North America, Mexico, Canada, Caribbean, South Africa to Uruguay, Belize, and Iceland, working as both chef and captain.  Most recently, he has delivered a double ended sailboat from Southern Florida to Annapolis Maryland.  

He enjoys working with Seattle Seafaring as both a delivery skipper and instructor.