Back to Our Roots
This is where it all began. The old saying that we all come back to our roots is absolutely true.
Pete began as a marine mechanic in 1962, in a local boatyard.
He replaced the existing old-school mechanic, who had become a dinosaur because there was no longer a need to turn commutators on generators & starters, or file distributor points. (He was a true mechanic who fixed what was broken.....he didn't just replace it.)
Pete continued that same old-school mechanic role; except that he brought more up-to-date skills & knowledge to the job.
Alternators had replaced generators, electronic ignition systems had replaced points & condensers, and Pete knew how to fix them.
Then computerized ignition systems were introduced.....and Pete became a dinosaur.
Fortunately, computerization of marine engines was still years away, so Pete kept on keeping on.
First at the boatyard, then in 1967 he struck out on his own starting a mobile marine repair business he named "Wychmere Harbor Marine Service", where he repaired inboard/IO marine engines in nearly every marina on Cape Cod that didn't have their own full-time mechanic.
While sub-contracting as a mechanic to the boatyard he started in, he convinced management to take on a Chrysler Marine dealership franchise. They did, and because of Pete's expertise, and referrals by the Chrysler Marine folks, Pete was designated as Chrysler's technical advisor for the East Coast from Maine to Virginia. (He even resolved a long-standing cooling issue with Chrysler's M80 "Sea V", V-8 engine which the factory had never been able to resolve.)
Technology continued to advance. Unfortunately, the newer (younger) mechanics never learned how to diagnose problems, (they had machines to do that) and the replacement parts industry was making it cheaper to simply replace parts rather than spend the time to diagnose and fix them.
Given the rising labor costs necessary to find an offending/broken part, they just started replacing parts until they stumbled onto the right one, and VOILA!, it worked again. These people, although paid as mechanics, were nothing more than parts replacers.
They cost their employers small fortunes stocking every conceivable part they might use someday. ROI plummeted.
Knowing that life often throws curves.....like aging, Pete by example and tutoring, passed along to his son-in-law Rich, and Rich's son Luke, some of the forgotten arts of old-school methods of repair/maintenance, while learning himself about new-fangled diagnostic tools and equipment that makes you look much better than you really are.
Pete never gave up learning, and when he couldn't resolve an issue on his own, he had developed a resource list of people who could.
Resources are how we got here and now we have become a resource ourselves.
Pete has now backed off. He still knows what & how to do things, he just can't do it anymore.
That is where we came from.....we can't wait to see where we go from here!
Contact us: info@northcapemarine.com OR call/text: 508-237-0780
