A Madras man who charmed his new community with his model ship-making — and who was featured in The Bulletin’s Community Life section Feb. 27 — died March 5 at St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, where he had been airlifted to March 4 after suffering a heart attack. He was 75.

David Paul Earl Carter was born Sept. 21, 1940, in Falmouth, Cornwall, England, the home of a deep-sea harbor. Carter began his love affair with the sea when he worked as a shipyard apprentice at age 15.

Equally adept at physical labor as with the academic applications of ship life, Carter earned a degree in marine engineering after touring the world in completion of his five-year contract with the British Royal Merchant Navy.

He met his wife, Coralie, at an officers’ party in Auckland, New Zealand. The couple married in 1963 and settled in Orange County, California, a year later. Carter worked in aerospace engineering while the pair raised two children. He held a number of electrical connector patents and received a medal from North American Rockwell for his contribution to NASA’s first lunar excursion.

In July 2015, the Carters relocated to Madras.

Carter never felt landlocked in Central Oregon while he worked on model ships, most requiring four years of research and painstaking craftsmanship. Carter could “almost hear the waves, the chaps talking, the engines running — just beautiful,” he said in an interview with The Bulletin last month.

“People pass by this Earth just once, and they’re remembered as long as their kids are, but because of stuff like (model ship building), you might be remembered a little bit longer — and I appreciate that,” he said.

Carter is survived by his wife, Coralie, his adult children Tim and Robyn and three grandchildren.

Carter’s memorial service has not been scheduled.