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West Marine: The Voyage Continues

By Tim Henry | June 30, 2017 | Watsonville, CA |

Yesterday, West Marine announced it had been acquired by Monomoy Capital Partners. As an alternate Silicon Valley, ‘started-in-a-garage’ story, West Marine began as ‘West Coast Ropes’, and was founded in 1968, by Randy Repass in a Sunnyvale garage after he left Fairchild Semiconductor. The first store was in Palo Alto, followed by locations in Oakland, Sausalito and Santa Cruz. West Marine continued growing from its Bay Area roots to become the nation’s largest marine retailer.

West Marine, then called West Coast Ropes, was in the very first issue of Latitude 38 in April 1977.    

latitude/Latitude 38
©2017Latitude 38 Media, LLC

Passionate sailors, Randy and wife Sally-Christine built the Wylie 66 Convergence and are on a multi-year circumnavigation, having recently crossed the Atlantic to Bermuda where they sailed north to cruise the coast of New England, likely passing Monomoy Point, which juts south off Cape Cod.

Founder of West Marine Randy Repass and his wife Sally-Christine left for the Marquesas from Santa Cruz over a decade ago on their Wylie 66 Convergence. 

Convergence
©2017Latitude 38 Media, LLC

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