John Joseph Martin III

Born: February 15, 1947

Died: November 25, 2021

John J. Martin III, 74, passed away on Thanksgiving, his favorite holiday, at home surrounded by his family after a three-and-one-half year journey with glioblastoma multiforme.

John was born in New Haven, Connecticut to John J. Martin Jr. and Eunice Chandler Warner. As a young man, John rowed and sailed small boats on Long Island Sound at his grandparents’ shore cottage. His love of rowing and sailing continued throughout his life.

Upon graduating from Hopkins School in 1964, John attended Yale University where his father had earned an engineering degree and his maternal grandfather had been a professor of engineering. John III, however, graduated with a degree in anthropology in 1968. Shortly afterwards, John was seriously injured in a car accident and received a military discharge,

which luckily kept him out of Vietnam. Upon recovering, John sailed to the Caribbean in a thirty-foot wooden sloop. He was bartending on one of the islands when some guerrillas showed up, and, being a resourceful, prudent yet adventurous Connecticut Yankee, John departed and made his way to Seattle in 1970 hitchhiking across the United States and Canada. His original plan had been to go to Alaska or California, but he ran out of cash in Seattle. It was in Seattle that he met Mark Kabush, bonding over a mutual interest in wooden boats and developing a friendship that lasted for John’s lifetime. John and Kabush were part of the Hippie Generation with long locks, facial hair, and love of camper vans.

They went into business as fishermen and formed the ill-fated company Cosmic Cod. Situated in Doe Bay on Orcas Island in the San Juans, where they plied the local waters for Cod. Running the operation came easily to John, as he became “Cap’n John”, a title which followed him throughout his life. Cosmic Cod was a colossal failure since all they caught were dogfish (a small species of shark)—so many that John attempted to develop a market for them. Yet, it was not to be.

John returned to Seattle and began a series of odd jobs including ownership of Beltane, a 70’s store, while living in a commune with Kabush on Capitol Hill. The guys bought a small day-sailer, Jonquil, and sailed it to Camano Island where John began work as a surveyor for the county. Thus began his inevitable drift toward engineering.

In the mid 1970’s John got a job as a party chief on a surveying crew near Gakona, Alaska. He worked summers there and returned to Seattle for winters where Kabush and he began building a thirty-foot junk-rigged Sharpie schooner, “The Golden Moron.” The Moron launched in 1978, and John and the boat moved to Mystery Bay on Marrowstone Island. John built a small home on six acres, planted a hundred trees and strawberries, and began work as a surveyor for Jefferson County.

After several years on Marrowstone, John returned to Seattle and bought a home on Queen Anne Hill. He married Jane Leimbacher, with whom he had two daughters, Katy and Nikki. John was a devoted and much beloved father. By this time, he had become a licensed professional engineer, passing the exam despite the fact that he had never taken an engineering class. John was employed by several large engineering firms (surviving various mergers and buyouts) as project manager, designing and building airports throughout the US and abroad. John had devoted coworkers who became lifelong friends, among them Cindy Hirsch and Nabil Jammal. During this time John, Paul Diedrich, and Joey Cohlmeyer formed the “bridge club” which met weekly in his shop. Madison Batt and Lucky Miller were brave fourths. He also continued to remain close with his Timothy Dwight friends from Yale.

Even though parenthood came later in life for John and Jane, John was a natural and a very hands-on father. During the family’s nightly dog walks to various playgrounds, John played hot-lava monster, tag, or “capture John’s hat.” On non-bridge nights John could frequently be found in his favorite armchair with a glass of beer, basket of peanuts, and a nerf football playing “monkey in the middle” with Nikki and Katy while watching Seattle’s professional sports teams. John even designed and built a lamp with a sturdy concrete base (that children and dogs couldn’t knock over) and a small table attached, perfectly suited for a beer and nuts.

The water was always John’s element, and his girls fell in love with the water, too. Every summer the family traveled to the shore cottage on Long Island Sound and clammed, sailed, and swam. Occasionally John would get stung by jellyfish, but he kept clamming if he had found a good spot! John always treated the water as an adventure, from boogie boarding and body surfing to swimming out to a sandbar in the Mediterranean with six-year-old Nikki and eight-year-old Katy (which the lifeguards were not too pleased with).

John spent almost as much time on Lake Union—no matter the weather—as he did at home. In the summer he sailed another boat project: his Garvey boat, the Snout. John designed the sails and rigged a man-overboard line with a loop so he could climb back into the boat after a dip in Lake Union. John and Jane sailed most evenings June through September, always discussing current events. Every fall he hauled the Garvey to his woodshop for maintenance and launched his rowboat, the Idiot, into the chilly waters of Lake Union for the winter rowing season. These two boats, plus the Moron comprised the Imbecile Fleet. John rowed the Idiot every Saturday and most Sundays; sometimes the Idiot was the only boat out on the lake. He was always prepared with foul weather gear, sock-gloves (specially crafted to protect his hands from the elements while still being bare for oar-gripping), and a Gatorade. These voyages lasted hours, with him rowing from Fremont to the Ballard Locks or sometimes heading east to the UW Arboretum’s Foster Island for birdwatching. When the girls were younger, he often took them along and taught them about various waterbirds and the art of rowing while simultaneously playing hangman. This water-loving family was often seen on Lake Union or Lake Washington on the Moron cruising around with friends, even in the winter as John steered from his self-designed pilot house.

The Moron still made it out to the salty waters of Puget Sound as John took annual “moronic” cruises with Kabush, Bill Coomber, and John Wiseman. The Moron voyaged as far as Tatoosh Island and was often anchored at Hope Island in Skagit Bay where they fished and crabbed. During those years, from 1990 to 2020, John and his moronic crew took several vacation trips to Priest Lake, Idaho, where they camped, boated and fished on the lake. No matter where he voyaged, Cap’n John was never too far from the water.

So John is gone from us, his family and friends. Expert boatbuilder, devoted father and husband, accomplished engineer, and loyal friend.

May Fair winds guide thee to Thy rest.

John is survived by his wife, Jane, and their two daughters, Katy Thorpe (Robby) and Nikki Martin (Wayne Hoskins). Also survived by his sister, Nancy Mastin, and his father, John J. Martin Jr.

A celebration of his life will be held on the shores of Lake Union April 30, 2022.

Finally, in John’s own words, “He’s off for a good sail and a long row.”

Donations may be made to:

The Musella Foundation: https://virtualtrials.org/musella.cfm

StacheStrong: https://www.stachestrong.org/

Seattle Brain Cancer Walk: http://support.swedishfoundation.org/site/TR/Events/TR/Events/BrainCancerWalk?fr_id=1170&pg=entry

Providence Hospice of Seattle: https://www.providence.org/locations/wa/hospice-of-seattle