For Sherryann Plessé, the sound of a Yamaha outboard starting on the Chesapeake Bay carries her back decades to a small skiff off the eastern end of Long Island and days spent fishing with her father. Those are some of her happiest memories.
Long before the area became what it is today, Sherryann remembers a childhood surrounded by farms and water. Her father loved to fish, and he often took her along in a small skiff powered by a Yamaha 50-horsepower outboard. She can still picture the red and white stripe that ran across the engine.
“I always thought it looked patriotic,” she said. “For some reason, that red and white stripe was profound to me.”
The engine was simple by today’s standards. They squeezed the bulb on the fuel line, pulled the cord to start it and steered with a tiller handle. From the waters around Montauk Point, they chased bluefish and striped bass and spent hours together on the water. What Sherryann remembers most, however, is the freedom.
“I never worried about the engine or the boat,” she said. “My dad always said, ‘Get a Yamaha and you’ll never have to worry.’”
Her father, an engineer, handled much of the maintenance himself. Sherryann watched as he changed the oil and filters and took care of the engine that carried them on so many adventures. She did not know then how much those experiences would shape the life she wanted for herself. She simply knew that someday, she wanted a boat of her own.
Going After the Dream
Life took Sherryann away from the water for a while. She went to law school and spent 25 years working as a retirement lawyer for a large financial services institution. Her husband, Paul, who also grew up on Long Island and around the water, followed his own corporate career.
They built their lives in Pennsylvania, but whenever they could, they found their way
back to the coast. Summers offered opportunities to get on the water from Cape May to Provincetown and Oak Island, North Carolina. Sherryann always preferred renting the small boats powered by Yamaha outboards to go fishing.
“I trusted them,” she said. “We took boats out in all kinds of situations, and I never worried.”
After years of corporate careers, Sherryann and Paul decided it was time to retire and pursue the life they had talked about for years. They knew they wanted to return to a place that felt familiar, somewhere defined by both farmland and saltwater.
They searched the East Coast from Maine to Florida before finding what they wanted in Easton, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.
The house came first, technically. But the boat talk started the very next day.
“We hadn’t even done anything to the house yet,” Sherryann said. “The boat was the most important thing to me.”
She headed to Tri-State Marine, where salesman Ron Young helped her find what she calls her dream boat: a new 23-foot Parker 230 Coastal Limited Edition center console powered by a Yamaha 250-horsepower outboard. There was one requirement for Sherryann.
“I said, ‘I have to have a Yamaha.’”
With a home on the water and their own dock, the dream she had carried since childhood finally became real.
Confidence on the Chesapeake
The boat arrived in April, and Sherryann wasted little time putting it to use. Within months, she and Paul had logged almost 100 hours on the Yamaha, traveling the Chesapeake from the Choptank to Annapolis and fishing whenever the weather and tides allow.
Some weeks, Sherryann spends four days out of seven on the water. Fishing remains at the center of the experience. She targets bluefish and Spanish mackerel during the warmer months and looks forward to striped bass as the weather cools.
“If it were up to me, it would be seven out of seven,” she said. “But I do have to take care of the house and the dogs.”
Owning the boat has also opened another chapter for Sherryann. She wants to become not simply someone who drives a boat, but a knowledgeable and capable boater. She quickly leveraged the resources of the Chesapeake Boating Academy, completing several boating safety courses. She’s also taking a captain’s course, studying marine electronics and learning the routines required to properly care for her boat and engine. Her goal is to have the knowledge and confidence to take the boat out by herself, cross the Chesapeake and eventually travel much farther.
“I want to take it to Florida down the Intracoastal Waterway and stop along the way,” she said. “I want to go farther.”
That ambition also prompted her to return to the classroom.
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Learning What Makes It Run
Sherryann readily admits that neither she nor Paul comes from a mechanical background. Knowing how to operate the boat and find fish was one thing. Understanding the engine that makes those experiences possible was another.
“I want to do everything I can to know about this engine,” she said.
A conversation with Sarah Lawrence, owner of Chesapeake Boating Academy, helped push Sherryann toward the next step. A discussion about topics such as ethanol versus non-ethanol fuel made her realize how much more she wanted to understand. She discovered that nearby Chesapeake College offers a marine technology program, including an introductory marine service technology course. So Sherryann enrolled.
This fall, at 54 years old and newly retired from a career in law, Sherryann will head to class with her textbooks and begin learning the fundamentals of marine service technology. She expects to be the only woman in the class.
Her goal is not to become a professional marine technician. She wants to understand the boat she owns and learn what she can do herself, from changing oil and spark plugs to understanding basic electrical systems and the importance of routine maintenance.
“Knowledge gives me confidence,” she said. “I want to be able to take care of the engine and intelligently have conversations with the guys
in service.”
She also wants to share what she learns with Paul and neighbors. Even seemingly small tasks, such as knowing how to properly perform a freshwater flush, can make a difference over the life of an outboard.
“Take care of your engine and it will take care of you,” she said.
For Sherryann, that responsibility is part of the pride of ownership. She wants her boat to look a certain way, run a certain way and be ready when the next opportunity to head out on the Chesapeake arrives. She relies on Yamaha-certified dealers for professional service and appreciates the protection of Yamaha’s standard warranty, but she also wants to understand what happens beneath the cowling.
Every trip adds another lesson. “Even when I’m trolling for four or five hours, I’m constantly learning how to be a better boater,” she said. “And it’s just fun.”
Back Where She Belongs
There is another reason the Yamaha 250 on the back of Sherryann’s Parker means more to her than horsepower.
Sometimes she looks back at the engine and sees that little skiff from Long Island. She remembers trolling for bluefish beside her father. She remembers the red and white stripe and the feeling that, once they were on the water, there was nowhere else they needed to be. Now she turns the key herself.
“When I start it and hear it, I feel secure,” Sherryann said. “I can go anywhere I want to go, and I feel safe.”
Today, that might mean fishing a few miles from home. Tomorrow, it could mean crossing the Chesapeake alone. Eventually, it may mean pointing the bow south and following the Intracoastal Waterway toward Florida. The destinations may change, but the feeling she found on the water as a child remains remarkably familiar.
“I’m not an expert,” Sherryann said. “But I can tell you that the engine starts, and a Yamaha has never let me down. No matter what boat I have, it will always have a Yamaha engine.”
For the girl who once rode beside her father in a little Yamaha-powered skiff, owning her dream boat on the Chesapeake is more than retirement. It’s a return to the freedom she never forgot.
Back to Blue Tales
Long before the area became what it is today, Sherryann remembers a childhood surrounded by farms and water. Her father loved to fish, and he often took her along in a small skiff powered by a Yamaha 50-horsepower outboard. She can still picture the red and white stripe that ran across the engine.
“I always thought it looked patriotic,” she said. “For some reason, that red and white stripe was profound to me.”
The engine was simple by today’s standards. They squeezed the bulb on the fuel line, pulled the cord to start it and steered with a tiller handle. From the waters around Montauk Point, they chased bluefish and striped bass and spent hours together on the water. What Sherryann remembers most, however, is the freedom.
“I never worried about the engine or the boat,” she said. “My dad always said, ‘Get a Yamaha and you’ll never have to worry.’”
Her father, an engineer, handled much of the maintenance himself. Sherryann watched as he changed the oil and filters and took care of the engine that carried them on so many adventures. She did not know then how much those experiences would shape the life she wanted for herself. She simply knew that someday, she wanted a boat of her own.
Going After the Dream
Life took Sherryann away from the water for a while. She went to law school and spent 25 years working as a retirement lawyer for a large financial services institution. Her husband, Paul, who also grew up on Long Island and around the water, followed his own corporate career.
They built their lives in Pennsylvania, but whenever they could, they found their way
back to the coast. Summers offered opportunities to get on the water from Cape May to Provincetown and Oak Island, North Carolina. Sherryann always preferred renting the small boats powered by Yamaha outboards to go fishing.
“I trusted them,” she said. “We took boats out in all kinds of situations, and I never worried.”
After years of corporate careers, Sherryann and Paul decided it was time to retire and pursue the life they had talked about for years. They knew they wanted to return to a place that felt familiar, somewhere defined by both farmland and saltwater.
They searched the East Coast from Maine to Florida before finding what they wanted in Easton, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.
The house came first, technically. But the boat talk started the very next day.
“We hadn’t even done anything to the house yet,” Sherryann said. “The boat was the most important thing to me.”
She headed to Tri-State Marine, where salesman Ron Young helped her find what she calls her dream boat: a new 23-foot Parker 230 Coastal Limited Edition center console powered by a Yamaha 250-horsepower outboard. There was one requirement for Sherryann.
“I said, ‘I have to have a Yamaha.’”
With a home on the water and their own dock, the dream she had carried since childhood finally became real.
Confidence on the Chesapeake
The boat arrived in April, and Sherryann wasted little time putting it to use. Within months, she and Paul had logged almost 100 hours on the Yamaha, traveling the Chesapeake from the Choptank to Annapolis and fishing whenever the weather and tides allow.
Some weeks, Sherryann spends four days out of seven on the water. Fishing remains at the center of the experience. She targets bluefish and Spanish mackerel during the warmer months and looks forward to striped bass as the weather cools.
“If it were up to me, it would be seven out of seven,” she said. “But I do have to take care of the house and the dogs.”
Owning the boat has also opened another chapter for Sherryann. She wants to become not simply someone who drives a boat, but a knowledgeable and capable boater. She quickly leveraged the resources of the Chesapeake Boating Academy, completing several boating safety courses. She’s also taking a captain’s course, studying marine electronics and learning the routines required to properly care for her boat and engine. Her goal is to have the knowledge and confidence to take the boat out by herself, cross the Chesapeake and eventually travel much farther.
“I want to take it to Florida down the Intracoastal Waterway and stop along the way,” she said. “I want to go farther.”
That ambition also prompted her to return to the classroom.
Learning What Makes It Run
Sherryann readily admits that neither she nor Paul comes from a mechanical background. Knowing how to operate the boat and find fish was one thing. Understanding the engine that makes those experiences possible was another.
“I want to do everything I can to know about this engine,” she said.
A conversation with Sarah Lawrence, owner of Chesapeake Boating Academy, helped push Sherryann toward the next step. A discussion about topics such as ethanol versus non-ethanol fuel made her realize how much more she wanted to understand. She discovered that nearby Chesapeake College offers a marine technology program, including an introductory marine service technology course. So Sherryann enrolled.
This fall, at 54 years old and newly retired from a career in law, Sherryann will head to class with her textbooks and begin learning the fundamentals of marine service technology. She expects to be the only woman in the class.
Her goal is not to become a professional marine technician. She wants to understand the boat she owns and learn what she can do herself, from changing oil and spark plugs to understanding basic electrical systems and the importance of routine maintenance.
“Knowledge gives me confidence,” she said. “I want to be able to take care of the engine and intelligently have conversations with the guys
in service.”
She also wants to share what she learns with Paul and neighbors. Even seemingly small tasks, such as knowing how to properly perform a freshwater flush, can make a difference over the life of an outboard.
“Take care of your engine and it will take care of you,” she said.
For Sherryann, that responsibility is part of the pride of ownership. She wants her boat to look a certain way, run a certain way and be ready when the next opportunity to head out on the Chesapeake arrives. She relies on Yamaha-certified dealers for professional service and appreciates the protection of Yamaha’s standard warranty, but she also wants to understand what happens beneath the cowling.
Every trip adds another lesson. “Even when I’m trolling for four or five hours, I’m constantly learning how to be a better boater,” she said. “And it’s just fun.”
Back Where She Belongs
There is another reason the Yamaha 250 on the back of Sherryann’s Parker means more to her than horsepower.
Sometimes she looks back at the engine and sees that little skiff from Long Island. She remembers trolling for bluefish beside her father. She remembers the red and white stripe and the feeling that, once they were on the water, there was nowhere else they needed to be. Now she turns the key herself.
“When I start it and hear it, I feel secure,” Sherryann said. “I can go anywhere I want to go, and I feel safe.”
Today, that might mean fishing a few miles from home. Tomorrow, it could mean crossing the Chesapeake alone. Eventually, it may mean pointing the bow south and following the Intracoastal Waterway toward Florida. The destinations may change, but the feeling she found on the water as a child remains remarkably familiar.
“I’m not an expert,” Sherryann said. “But I can tell you that the engine starts, and a Yamaha has never let me down. No matter what boat I have, it will always have a Yamaha engine.”
For the girl who once rode beside her father in a little Yamaha-powered skiff, owning her dream boat on the Chesapeake is more than retirement. It’s a return to the freedom she never forgot.
Back to Blue Tales