About me
Courtney Andersen was born in Minnesota of good Viking heritage. Water has always been in his blood: first the small and Great Lakes, then travels following the Mississippi in the wake of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. As a child his family moved down to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, then Florida where his fascination with pirates and sailing ships began. Savannah, Georgia, kindled a love of atmosphere and walking through an historical setting. After moving back to Florida, he believed for a time that he would become the next Jacques Cousteau. HMS Bounty had other plans for him, and he became ensnared in the world of historic ship rigging. Sailing and moving up the Eastern Seaboard, he settled for a time on the Hudson River on the Half Moon, and delved in earnest into 17th Century Dutch rigging, including a research sabbatical sojourn to the Netherlands. Hollywood called, and he answered, moving to LA to work in film production, designing and building the rigs for various pirate and historic sail movies. Next came a move that was to last for 15 years to San Francisco as he became the Historic Ship Rigging Supervisor at the SF Maritime National Historical Park, tending to several National Historic Landmark vessels dating from the late 1800's. Research and historic rig design were his focus, with an emphasis on esoteric techniques and "doing it the way grandpa did". After 2019, he returned to film production ship rigging and established his own rigging company, and began working on The Whole Art of Rigging. He currently is deep in a restoration of his 1960 Angelman ketch.
