Work In Progress

WHILE MOST PEOPLE BUY A BLUEWATER CRUISER TO GET AWAY FROM IT ALL, THIS OWNER UNDERTOOK A REFIT OF A 15-YEAR-OLD KADEY-KROGEN 58 AS A WAY TO TAKE IT ALL WITH HIM. SAY HELLO TO THE NEW REMOTE OFFICE.

- Jason Y. Wood

Some people look upon Wi-fi access as being on the elemental level of survival, along with air, food, water, and sleep. For others there is some truth to that: Those who earn their living designing the systems we all use to live our online lives need to maintain that connectivity. But think about the advantage to that life: They can work from anywhere in the world—including a boat.

That was the thought process Scott Miller underwent. He is the principle group program director of the FastTrack Center at Microsoft, that supports the onboarding of commercial clients using Office 365, and he and his wife, Teri, are also avid boaters who have moved their way up from a 20-foot Sea Ray to a couple of 30-or-so-foot Chaparrals to a Silverton 48C. He also has a Robalo 300 center console for fishing.

The Millers now find themselves in a new-to-them 2002 KadeyKrogen 58. They wanted to paint her, refit the interior, and dial in the stabilizers and navigation electronics. And to take to the cruising life while still working full-time, they had big plans to build in the full Internet capability Miller needs to do his work.

He brought the boat to the Lauderdale Marine Center (lauderdalemarinecenter.com), where he worked with Luu Marine (luumarine.com) on the paint and Voyager Maritime Alliance Group (vmag.cc) on the electronics. He had some priorities and, being a project manager in his work, he had a very methodical way to make decisions along the way—point by point—until he thought he had answers to enough of the questions. While Miller was definitely focused on the onboard Internet access, he was equally attentive to other aspects of the refit, including the paint job.