Pete Crawford and The Amazing TillerClutch™

or

Pete Crawford: At Play in the World of an Inventor

by Kirk Hathaway

PREVIEW

Did you ever read Bob Fulton’s Amazing Soda-Pop Stretcher? It’s out of print now, but when I was a boy, it was one of those adolescent paperbacks I couldn't put down.  At its core, rather than crime or treasure, is the spirit of an inventor: young Bob Fulton. Frustrated by an experiment exploding in his garage, Fulton discovers he has accidentally created a liquid which eliminates friction and allows for a perpetual motion machine.  Naturally, crime, drama and little guy vs. big government quickly follow.

While my path veered off to literary pursuits, only recently was my memory again flooded with the sharp, imaginative process of fictional Bob Fulton as I had the opportunity to meet a real inventor: Pete Crawford, inventor of the amazing TillerClutch™.

AT PLAY IN THE WORLD OF AN INVENTOR -- ACT 1

PROLOGUE

When Cape Carolina was being previewed to diving customers in 2009, one of Bottom Time’s customers, Pete Crawford of C-Horse (a 27-foot Pearson then at Wayfarer's Cove) wrote to inform me that he was in final stages of pre-production with his TillerClutch, an invention designed to relieve the tension of tiller steering and provide a short hiatus from the helm to grab a sheet, possibly let out or pull in a jib, maybe even grab a quick bite to eat. Crawford offered Cape Carolina the opportunity to scoop any other publication in covering his invention. Unfortunately, Cape Carolina was moving ahead at a writer's pace while Crawford and his TillerClutch were moving ahead at an inventor’s pace: Full Steam Ahead.

As 2009 became 2010, Crawford kept Cape Carolina informed of his progress. He had finalized his design. He had found a manufacturer for the tiller's primary components. He had submitted his patent. Twice, Bottom Time had cleaned his sailboat, but even with the January premiere of this journal, I had yet to meet the person behind the exuberant voice promoting the newest thing since sliced bread. Of course, Crawford had the door wide open and declared, "The timing is perfect!” And so we scheduled an interview in the first days of March.

SET AND SETTING

Going to visit the inventor of a nautical device designed to revolutionize tiller steering, or at least provide some relief from it, you might expect to find the inventor in a converted crab shack on the edge of a coastal marsh, maybe in an old seaside town where an obsessed inventor has first converted an old fish house into a drafty home and studio, but that is only the art of assumption and cliché. Rather, I was given directions to a woodland peninsula in hills above Lake Jordan, southwest of Raleigh. Rather than seeing fishing traps or winches, drying lines or sails, the primary scene was a uniquely designed hilltop cabin accompanied by a lower, small pasture, newly built barn, a riding ring  and two horses quietly feeding in tall grass. The vessel C-Horse, as his wife Katherine Smart would shortly point out, represented his passion for sailing just as these horses represented her passion for riding. But who would know that with Crawford coming from the cabin in jeans, work boots, and plaid wool shirt.  It was nearly a scene from Jeremiah Johnson, which only meant I had given little notice to his other small, tiller-steered sailboat on its trailer, tucked into the corner of the driveway, a vessel called The Thrill.

ENTER THE PROTAGONIST

In such a peaceful setting, Crawford felt familiar standing in front of me, hand extended in greeting. I hadn't actually met Pete Crawford, but he presented a character of immediate recognition. Tall and slender, actively built, light brown wavy hair and a respectably trimmed beard cut by a generous smile, he might have been the mechanic stopping roadside on his way home to help a stranded motorist, possibly the manager of a major store assigned to deal with complaints and who really cares until he is driven out by a budget-minded administration.  Out West he is that rancher who truly does have a way with animals, and in the conglomeration of a major hospital, he is the pediatrician able to stop children from crying, even while drawing their blood.  In Greek, he's labeled "kalos anthropos," what translates simply as “a good man." You spot a dockworker carefully collecting scattering chinchillas and returning them to and fixing the crate from which they have escaped.  And you think, without ever speaking to him, “That's a good man.” In this busy world, with finance the center of so much concern, we spot such a character on the mechanical edge of our days, but it isn't everyday we actually get to meet a Pete Crawford.

ENTER FEMALE CHARACTER

Crawford and I shook hands and a moment later he had invited me into the passive solar cabin, a home he and his wife, Katherine Smart, designed and built on their own. Storage, aesthetics, and open views kept me busy taking in what invention meant to home and personal taste while Crawford went to the fridge asking if I cared for water or juice or something to eat.  We stumbled for a minute, my era of doing interviews and reporting some days behind me.  Crawford poured water, and I started asking questions. A moment later, Katherine Smart, smarter than two men put together, no doubt, entered, assessed the situation, and suggested we put ourselves in the proper setting: the workshop, the studio—where else should we be if not the inventor’s lab? Truly, I was still taking in the cabin’s setting, but Smart, a career in journalism and public relations within her vitae, was quick to set the stage as it needed to be.  As she said a few minutes later, speaking of her role in assisting Crawford in testing, promoting, and marketing his new creation, “I see myself as the nudger.” 

STAGE, PROPS, AND PULLEYS

About half of you reading this can tell me what little girls dream of.  I don’t really believe it is Barbie’s Seaside Palace or an Easy Bake Oven.  That is maybe what many boys want of little girls’ dreams.  But to be honest, I don’t have a clue.  On the other side of that equation, though, I can assure you that stepping into the clean, safe, brightly lit, mechanically complex, and efficiently compact laboratory of Pete Crawford’s workshop was just about as close to a boy’s dream as is possible.  The sight made Bob Fulton seem real and reminded me instantly of the workspace of my best friend's father, a man whose organization, purpose, and attachment to his space I admired more than my own organization, and certainly more than male members of my family.  Many of you are luckier. 

You have or are inspired directly by that space that looks like Crawford’s: bright lights over clean floors, organized shelves, tools oiled and rust free.  Hemingway called it “A Clean Well-Lighted Place.”  As boaters bound to small spaces we have need to groom ourselves to such neat habits, and do if we are lucky.  But for Crawford, the precision and detail of this space was clearly a reflection of his own mind, a mind equally sharp, precise, and keenly projecting forward on a project.  His workshop was a stage set for a purpose: secured with all its props and pulleys. And with Crawford present on his stage, the play was about to begin.

EXPOSITION

Aside from the clean machinery and organized shelves, two framed sheets of paper stood out like banners in the otherwise mechanical space. 

Katherine, pointing to one, identified it as Pete’s first patent, an ergonomic mouse, the patent of which he had sold to pay for equipment and research needed to develop what was indicated within the second frame: the patent application for the TillerClutch.

AS THE CURTAIN OPENS

And then the play was on.  There was an explosion of energy as I asked, or was it Smart’s suggestion, about the prototypes the invention had gone through to get to where it was today: on a production line in front of me, set for finishing touches, packing, distribution, and sale.  Pete Crawford set five models in front of me. As I started snapping pictures,

Crawford picked up one prototype after another and began explaining the process of creation and, as such, his creative process.

Cape Carolina Index

News Update: 3/1

Current Dive Info

NAV Station

All Ashore!

Underway

Dockside

Features

Readings

At Anchor

  Ship’s Store

Captain’s Logs

Submitting, About, Ads