Robert A. VanBlaricom

1930 - 2019

Robert A. Van Blaricom Oct. 12, 1930 to Sep 20, 2019 Robert A. (Bob) Van Blaricom, engineer, sailor, boat builder, author and long-time resident of Tiburon, CA passed away comfortably at home on September 20, 2019. Bob was born in 1930 in Great Falls, Montana and later lived briefly in Rexburg, Idaho. After the death of his mother and the end of WWll, he moved to California to rejoin his father who had been working at the wartime shipyard, Marinship, in Sausalito. His new home was on the shore of Raccoon Strait, a location which changed his life. Bob attended Tamalpias High School then U.C. Berkeley where he graduated with a degree in Civil/Structural Engineering and pursued a career in San Francisco at the consulting firms of International Engineering Co. and John A. Blume & Asoc. Engineers. In 1956 he married Jane Lindley, his wife of 58 years and moved to Sausalito. In 1967 they moved to Tiburon partly because ferry service across the Bay had returned. It was a case of love at first sight when Bob saw saltwater and realized the opportunity for adventure at his doorstep. Starting with a 10' skiff which he rigged up as a little sailboat, he owned a series of boats almost for the rest of his life. Shortly after he married Jane, they bought a 45' cutter named "Armorel" and spent a year sailing her back to San Francisco. In 1987 he and a friend built a 39' steel cutter in San Rafael and sailed her on cruises to Hawaii, Alaska and the South Pacific as far as Australia. Four Transpac Races and an attempt to transit the Northwest Passage totaled over 150,000 nautical miles. Bob recorded many of these adventures in articles and in a published memoir titled "Time and Tide". Bob was a member of the San Francisco Yacht Club and the Cruising Club of America. He is survived by his sister Jan Power of Waldport, OR, his daughter Anne Van Blaricom of Indianapolis IN, his son Robert G. Van Blaricom of San Rafael, his grand-daughter Lacey H. Van Blaricom and his great-grandson Dominic Charles Ruiz Van Blaricom.