Richard V. Simpson is a native Rhode Islander who has always lived within walking distance to Narragansett Bay; first in the Edgewood section of Cranston and in Bristol, where he has lived since 1960. A graphic designer by trade, he has worked in advertising, printing, display and textile design studios. After retiring in 1996 from a twenty-nine-year Federal Civil Service career with the U.S. Navy in Newport, he began a second career as an author of books on subjects of historical interest in Rhode Island's East Bay, with his principal focus on Bristol. This is Richard's sixteenth published title and the third with America's Cup yachts as its subject. He continues as a contributing editor for the national monthly Antiques & Collecting Magazine, in which eighty-five of his articles have appeared, a position he has enjoyed since 1985. Bristol's famous Independence Day celebration and parade has also been the subject of Richard's pen. His 1989 Independence Day is the singular authoritative book on the subject, and his many anecdotal Fourth of July articles have appeared in the local Bristol Phoenix and the Providence Journal.