About Ken Williams

Hi, I’m Ken. My wife Roberta and I have spent the last 27 years living aboard and cruising — something like 60,000 nautical miles by now, on a string of boats: a Nordhavn 62, a Nordhavn 68, a Grand Banks 60, and currently a 90′ Moonen motoryacht called North Star. We’ve taken them through the Pacific, the Mediterranean, Central America, and we’re working our way toward the Northwest Passage. Along the way I picked up a USCG 100-ton license and a Yachtmaster’s ticket, mostly because I wanted to actually understand what I was doing out there instead of just muddling through.

Radar is one of those instruments you don’t really learn from a book. I’ve relied on it to pick a target out of rain clutter in the Med, to sort out traffic in the fog off the Pacific Northwest, and more than once to convince myself at 3am that yes, that boat really is on a collision course. None of that clicks until you’ve sat in front of a scope and made the calls yourself, which is exactly why I built this simulator — I wanted something that gives people that same hands-on repetition, without the 3am part.

Before any of this, Roberta and I started Sierra On-Line back in 1979, where we made King’s Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and a bunch of other games from the early days of the industry. Simulators were a big part of Sierra too — we published military aircraft sims, helicopters, jets, and the NASCAR racing simulator — so I’ve spent decades thinking about what makes a simulation actually teach rather than just look impressive. (I’ve also logged untold hours in Microsoft Flight Simulator. Strictly for research, of course.) Between the simulation background and the sea miles, a radar trainer is about the most natural thing I could have built.

If you want to follow what we’re up to now, there’s Ken’s Blog and the MV North Star YouTube channel.