FineEdge.com

Fine Edge Productions was originally started by Don Douglass & Reanne Heminway-Douglass, early pioneers in mountain biking. Their original mountain biking trail guides were small booklets featuring some of the best rides for a given area. These books evolved with success into a full line of well regarded mountain biking books covering the best rides in Northern and Southern California by a full slate of authors well known in their respective areas. During the 1980’s, Don and Reanne, who formerly had extensive sailing experience in different parts of the world, purchased a displacement trawler and began to explore the waters of the Inside Passage from Tacoma up to Glacier Bay Alaska. They looked at the guidebooks available and felt that they could do a much better job using what they had learned creating best selling mountain biking guide books. They also saw opportunity as a number of beautiful cruising areas either had no guidebooks or were sparsely and poorly covered. Out of this the original Exploring series was born consisting of a series of six guidebooks covering the waters from San Diego, up the Pacific Coast, through British Columbia, to the cruising areas of Southeast Alaska. In addition, they added books covering the Marquesas in the South Pacific and a series of sea stories and an instructional book on GPS.

In 2002, they decided they wanted to spend more time traveling rather than running a publishing business. Mark Bunzel, a marketing and technology executive, previously a Managing Director in the Entertainment and Media Management Consulting practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and a marketing executive at Intel Corporation, was looking to re-locate to the Pacific Northwest, and this was an opportunity to leverage his business and publishing experience in a fun and exciting business. Mark had been boating in the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia and other well known cruising area around the world for over 20 years and had previously been involved in the multimedia publishing business as well as authoring books and magazine articles on various subjects.

Today, Fine Edge is one of the leading Nautical and Recreational publishers in the Western US with over 50 books and maps in its catalog. Its products are sold in national chain stores such as West Marine and REI as well as through nautical book stores, general book stores, and mountain biking shops. In 2004, Fine Edge acquired the US rights to co-publish the well know Dreamspeaker cruising guides by Anne & Laurence Yeadon-Jones together with Harbour Publishing in Canada. The Dreamspeaker line of cruising guides is now moving into its 6th guidebook covering the best cruising areas of British Columbia and the San Juan Islands.

Fine Edge also created the Nautical Knowledge Series starting with The Radar Book. This best seller, by Kevin Monahan, is now in its second revision and has been adopted by the State University of NY (SUNY) Maritime College, the US Power Squadron and the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary as their standard text for instruction on the operation of marine radar.

Fine Edge is expanding their reach with new guides and maps for the Caribbean starting with Exploring the Virgin Islands by Joe Russell and Mark Bunzel and a new companion planning map for the Virgin Islands. The Exploring the Virgin Islands book is being released in its second edition after quickly selling out of its first printing. It is the first new cruising guide for this area in 15 years. Users have remarked about its contemporary design and ease of use with its aerial photos and clear, and concise color diagrams.

Fine Edge’s goal is to continue to acquire, develop and release high quality books and maps for the nautical and recreational industries and develop informational products to market to its loyal customer base.

Mark is the Publisher at Fine Edge with responsibility for all publishing, business affairs, and marketing. He is also the co-author of Cruising the Virgin Islands and the new Editor and Publisher of the annual Waggoner Cruising Guide.

Mark's boating experience began in Ocean City, New Jersey, where at the age of 15 he started working in a marina learning how to repair boats and engines. During this period he raced both power and sailboats in the waters around Ocean City.

He has always enjoyed boating and while working in the corporate world he annually would charter in the San Juan Islands and British Columbia as well as other places around the world including the Caribbean, the Bahamas, the Greek islands, Honduras, Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay area.

In 2002, while in the middle of a successful professional career as a business strategy and marketing consultant for companies such as IBM, Apple, Intel and many of the major media companies in the world, Mark elected to make a career and life-style change with a move from working in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley to the Pacific Northwest and Anacortes, Washington. He purchased nautical publisher Fine Edge, with the objective of combining his business experience with his interest in boating. He has expanded Fine Edge through the development of new nautical titles and the acquisition of the U.S. publishing and distribution rights for the popular Dreamspeaker line of six cruising guides covering the northwest and British Columbia waters.

Next, Mark expanded the reach of Fine Edge into the Caribbean with the first new cruising guide for the Virgin Islands in 15 years, Cruising the Virgin Islands, as co-author with the late Joe Russell. The 1st edition of this book was a sellout success. The expanded 2nd edition, and a new Virgin Islands Trip Planning Map, continue to be a big success and the book is now the standard guide for most of the major charter companies in the Virgin Islands.

Recently, Mark acquired the rights to the annual Waggoner Cruising Guide, the most popular cruising guide in the Northwest and British Columbia. The Waggoner is often referred to as – the "bible" for Northwest cruising. Mark is the new Editor and Publisher spending each summer visiting over 175 marinas, coastal towns, and anchorages for the most current information for northwest yachts and cruisers. He is expanding the Waggoner Guide to Ketchikan, Alaska and adding new apps on the Apple iPad and Android systems.

In addition to the Waggoner Cruising Guide, Mark has expanded Fine Edge to provide distribution of the top 150 cruising and boating books of interest to over 125 stores in the Northwest, British Columbia and Alaska. Recently, Fine Edge added seafood cookbooks to its distribution, which sell very well next to cruising guides.

Mark is also one of the principles of Fine Edge Nautical Seminars presenting nautical training and information courses at the Seattle Boat Show through Seattle Boat Show University, which he founded, and their annual Cruising the Inside Passage and Alaska, 3 day seminars, presented each spring.

In addition to new books, maps, and training seminars, Mark shoots for photo assignments and writes magazine articles on exciting cruising destinations that have been published in Power Cruising, Pacific Yachting, Latitudes and Attitudes, Soundings, and Dockside. He is a regular contributor to Northwest Yachting Magazine. His more recent charter cruising assignments have taken him to Kodiak, Alaska, Southeast Alaska, Haida Gwaii, Baja, the canals of France, and up the Intracoastal Waterway from Florida to Annapolis. In 2006, Mark lead the first American crew to charter cruise the coast of Vietnam which was chronicled in several magazines.

In addition to Fine Edge, Mark is the principal at Burrows Bay Associates providing Marketing, Strategy and Business Architecture consulting services to yacht builders and companies in the boating business, real estate developers and luxury goods companies.

Mark holds a U.S. Coast Guard Masters license with endorsements for towing and sail, and is a NAUI certified scuba diver. In addition to boating, Mark is an instrument rated, twin-engine private pilot with over 2000 hours of flight time. He is a long distance cyclist, recently completing his second Seattle to Portland (STP) cycling event. He is the 2011 President of the Anacortes Chamber of Commerce, the founder of the Anacortes Library Maritime Speakers Program and a leader of the Anacortes Futures Project to develop the plan for Anacortes in 2025. Mark is a past trustee of the Northwest Marine Trade Association (NMTA) and is the Chairman of the NMTA's Boat Show Committee in 2010-2012 responsible for planning the Seattle Boat Show.

Prior to his career shift to the nautical industry, Mark's past included creative and management positions in media, publishing and technology in New York, Los Angeles and the San Jose and San Francisco Bay areas as an award winning Producer, Director, Writer and Creative Director. He has been a consultant on media and technology for many of the major media companies around the world on the application and new business models for digital media. His consulting clients have included Intel, Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Disney, Sony Pictures, MGM, the International Motion Picture Association, and the Weather Channel/Landmark Communications to name a few. Prior to purchasing Fine Edge, he held a senior management position at Intel in their new business division and worldwide internet marketing division. Prior to Intel, Mark was a Managing Director in the Entertainment and Media practice for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Los Angeles serving the publishing, television and motion picture industry and the Vice President of Marketing and Sales for a joint venture of Apple and IBM. He is the author of several books, magazine articles and white papers and frequently has been a speaker on digital rights and media and technology issues around the world. Mark is the former Chairman of the Interactive Multimedia Association in Washington, D.C. and a former member of the Board of Directors for the Software Publishers Association. Over the years he has served on the boards of a number of companies and civic organizations. Mark is a graduate of Rutgers College in New Brunswick, New Jersey with a degree in business and communications.

For more information about Fine Edge books and products email Mark (mark@fineedge.com) or call him at 360-299-8500.

Don Douglass and Réanne Hemingway-Douglass have sailed from 60° N to 56° S latitude - Alaska to Cape Horn - logging more than 150,000 miles of offshore cruising over the past 25 years. They consider the cruising grounds of Northwest and Alaska some of the finest in the world and an unending source of excitement and pleasure. They spend summers cruising on their diesel trawler, Baidarka.

Don Douglass began exploring Northwest waters in 1949 as a youth. He has sailed the Inside Passage on everything from a 26-foot pleasure craft and commercial fishing boats to a Coast Guard icebreaker. Don holds a BSEE degree from California State University, Pomona, and a Masters in Business Economics from Claremont Graduate University. He is the author of Exploring Vancouver Island's West Coast and, with his wife, Réanne, co-authored the acclaimed Exploring the Inside Passage to Alaska, Exploring the South Coast of British Columbia, Exploring the North Coast of British Columbia and Exploring the San Juan and Gulf Islands. Don holds honorary membership in the International Association of Cape Horners. He has written several skiing and mountainbiking guidebooks and, as a father of the sport, was elected to the Mountain Biking Hall of Fame.

Réanne Hemingway-Douglass holds a BA degree in French from Pomona College. She attended Claremont Graduate University and the University of Grenoble, France. Sailor, writer, cyclist and language teacher, Réanne's articles have appeared in numerous outdoor magazines. Her best-selling book, Cape Horn: One Man's Dream, One Woman's Nightmare, describes pitchpoling in the Great Southern Ocean and has been published in French and Italian.

In the 1980s, Réanne led the first women's bicycling team to cross Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America. She is also the principal author of Mountain Biking the Eastern Sierra's Best 100 Trails. Her articles have appeared in numerous outdoor magazines, including Pacific Yachting and Cruising World. Réanne is the chief editor of FineEdge Productions.

The Douglasses have documented nearly 5,000 anchor sites between Seattle and Glacier Bay and their series of detailed cruising guidebooks are acclaimed for setting a new standard.

Anne and Laurence Yeadon-Jones are experienced offshore and inshore sailors who voyaged from Southampton, England in 1985 on their first adventure across the Atlantic Ocean. Over the last 17 years they have logged thousands of cruising hours charting, recording and photographing their travels, exclusively along the beautifully rugged coastline and islands of the Pacific Northwest. To date they have produced 4 colorful, information-packed Dreamspeaker Cruising Guides and see themselves as passionate ambassadors of the area’s unspoiled cruising waters, its coastal communities and local enterprises. Through their writing, charting and photography they endeavor to promote safe and enjoyable boating while profiling the uniqueness of coastal life. Anne and Laurence are also regular contributors to local and international boating magazines. They live in Vancouver’s West End and keep their 36-foot sailboat Dreamspeaker and faithful dinghy, Tink, close by.

Captain Herb Nickles grew up on the California coast and has been sailing since the age of eighteen. He has captained or crewed on 20-foot catboats, 30-foot sloops, 40-foot trawlers, and even a 100-foot schooner. Herb holds a U.S. Coast Guard Masters license with sail endorsement and has extensive cruising experience to varied and exotic destinations including Baja California, the Inside Passage to Alaska, Downeast Maine, and the Virgin Islands. Over the past few summers, Herb and his wife, Wendy, logged over 7,000 nautical miles in their Nordic Tug, circumnavigating New England from Lake Champlain to the Bay of Fundy.

Herb earned a BA in Zoology and an MA in Education from the University of California and an Alaskan Naturalist Certificate from the University of Alaska. A college professor and administrator with 39 years of experience in prestigious institutions from coast to coast, Herb is a recognized expert in the field of teaching and learning with technology, authoring eight books on the topic.

Herb's photographs of the Inside Passage adorn the pages of many of the Fine Edge cruising guides and appear in magazines including Pacific Yachting and Northwest Yachting. Aboard Baidarka, Don and Réanne Douglass’ research vessel, Herb and Wendy anchored and collected data in hundreds of coves in B.C. and Alaska and are contributors to Exploring Southeast Alaska, Exploring the North Coast of British Columbia, Exploring the South Coast of British Columbia, and Exploring the San Juan and Gulf Islands. Herb's primary role at Fine Edge is the design and maintenance of the FineEdge.com website.

When not cruising aboard Chinook, their Nordic Tug 32, Herb and Wendy can be found beachcombing near their home in Harwich Port on Cape Cod.

Captain Kevin Monahan is a Canadian Coast Guard officer with more than 20 years experience navigating the British Columbia coast as a small vessel captain. Born in London England in 1951, Monahan emigrated to Vancouver, and attended the University of British Columbia. His articles have appeared in various magazines including Westcoast Fisherman (now Fisherman Life), Pacific Yachting, Northwest Yachting Magazine, and the Fisherman's News. Monahan worked as a fisherman for 12 years, then on ferries and coastal transports, before joining Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans as a patrol vessel captain.

After the merger of the Canadian Coast Guard with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, he continued as commanding officer of a Coast Guard Cutter. In 1999 he joined the Coast Guard's Office of Boating Safety as head of inspections and investigations for the Pacific Region, where among other responsibilities, he developed training for police and Coast Guard in electronic navigation and enforcement of small vessel safety regulations. From 2001 to the present he served as the Superintendent of the Office of Boating Safety (now part of Transport Canada Marine.) Monahan holds a Master, Intermediate Trade (unlimited tonnage) certificate.

Captain Monahan has provided expert testimony in court a number of times, including expert testimony on the navigational uses of GPS. He is the author of The Radar Book – Effective Navigation and Collision Avoidance and Local Knowledge--A Skipper's Reference, and is the principal author of GPS Instant Navigation and Proven Cruising Routes Volume 1--Seattle to Ketchikan all published by Fine Edge. He is also a contributor to Don and Reanne Douglass's famous cruising guides, Exploring the North Coast of British Columbia and Exploring the South Coast of British Columbia.