Nigel Calder is best known for his Boatowner’s Mechanical and Electrical Manual and Marine Diesel Engines, both considered definitive works. In addition to hundreds of magazine articles, he has also authored A Cruising Guide to the Northwest Caribbean, Cuba: A Cruising Guide, Nigel Calder’s Cruising Handbook: A Compendium for Coastal and Offshore Sailors and How to Read a Nautical Chart. He recently released a memoir, Shakedown Cruise, details his family’s first extended cruise from New Orleans to Venezuela, via the West Indies, and back. Nigel was the technical director of a European Union-funded investigation of marine hybrid systems. He has been a longtime member of the American Boat and Yacht Council’s Electrical Project Technical Committee. Nigel is a freelance consultant on marine energy issues. He and his wife, Terrie, spend several months every year aboard their Malo 46, Nada. Over the past 35 years they have cruised and written about the East Coast of North America and the Bahamas, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and points as far north as the Faroe Islands and Scandinavia and as far south as Portugal.