Why I Sail and Why I Started One World Sailing Academy
Looking for Something More The main topic of what I want to talk about is why I sail and why I started One World Sailing Academy. To really understand that, I need to go back many years, to when I first started sailing. I was in my early twenties at the time. I had spent my teenage years and early twenties partying and having fun—skateboards, motorcycles, racing, chasing girls, and all that kind of stuff. Back then, I worked construction, and I found working with my hands and learning the trades very rewarding. Although I was having a lot of fun with some of the more shallow endeavors of my youth, I was also getting older and starting to mature. I had reached a point where I was looking for something more substantial to do with my life. I guess I was looking for a higher purpose than what I had been doing up to that point. I had always been interested in working with my hands and learning how things worked. Even as a kid, I rebuilt bicycles, and later I built little hot rods and did a lot of mechanical work. I went to school and became a structural mechanic and built airplanes in the aerospace industry. I also worked in building construction. I worked on framing crews and plumbing crews, both residential and commercial. I did masonry construction and pipeline construction, operated heavy equipment, worked as a painting contractor, did drywall, and worked for a plastering company. I did interior and exterior plaster and stucco the old traditional way, and I worked as a hod carrier. There were a lot of different trades that interested me, and I was always interested in learning something new. I always needed new challenges throughout my life. Working with my hands, learning how to build things, fix things, and developing new skills was something I found very rewarding. In the process of learning all these different skills, most of the reward came in the beginning. It was almost like a self-taught apprenticeship. I would start out knowing nothing, gain some knowledge, practice, and then get better and better at something until eventually I became a journeyman at whatever it was I was trying to do. There was a lot of satisfaction in that process. The secondary reward was the income you could make doing these jobs. Once I became skilled at a particular profession or trade, the next goal naturally became trying to make as much money as possible doing it. Oddly enough, the money-making part was rewarding at first, but over time it began to feel shallow, similar in a way to some of my youthful endeavors—partying, chasing girls, and that kind of thing. The financial part of what I was doing just wasn’t as satisfying as the process of learning had been. Working with my hands and learning the trades still meant something to me, but simply making more money from those skills wasn’t enough. I was looking for something new. At the same time, I was applying for credit cards, buying material things, and chasing what I perceived society was forcing us to do. I fell into that trap—the idea that you’re supposed to make a bunch of money, you’re supposed to have a bunch of tangible things, and at some point you’re supposed to buy a house, get married, have kids, live the American dream, and then eventually retire and die. That was what society seemed to be forcing us to do. But my inner voice was telling me something different. I enjoyed working with my hands. I enjoyed learning new things and becoming good at them. What I didn’t enjoy nearly as much was chasing money, although I wasn’t terrible at it. So I was kind of cruising along, just going through the motions of day-to-day life—working your eight hours a day and trying to earn as much money as possible. As I learned different skills and became good at whatever trade I was in, I got less and less reward from accomplishing those skills, and eventually less and less satisfaction from the financial rewards as well. The feeling of buying a new car, a Jet Ski, a motorcycle, or a boat wore off pretty quickly. Whatever excitement came with acquiring something new didn’t last very long. So after a while, I just felt somewhat empty, you might say. Discovering Sailing Then, purely by accident, I was introduced to sailing. A friend told me I should go down to the marina because a friend of his had a little sailing school. He had some small boats and taught basic sailing, so I went down there to check it out. At the time, I really didn’t have any money, but the guy didn’t seem to care. He basically said, “Yeah, jump on this boat and go with these guys,” and he didn’t charge me anything. It was really nice of him. I think I was about 25 at the time. Anyway, I went sailing and thought, wow, this is really fun. It was challenging, there was a lot to learn, and I was out on the ocean. Suddenly, I had this rewarding feeling again that had been absent from my life for a long time. It sparked something in me, and I wanted to learn more. I did that for a while, but these were just very small boats, and I only went out a few times. Then I got sidetracked with work and life, and the next thing you know, I had a baby—a daughter I was going to be responsible for. Sailing just kind of got pushed off to the side. I needed to focus, grow up, be a man, and be responsible for this child. So I worked very, very hard. I made money, I was a good father, I supported my daughter, and I did what I was supposed to do. At the same time, not really knowing any better, I went