On Watch

No sailor on the Stamford Yacht Club lawn after this year’s Vineyard Race was prouder than Peter Becker, the chairman of the Junior Big Boat program at American Yacht Club in Rye, NY. Peter was the navigator on the winning boat, and among the eight young sailors aboard the J/122 Patriot were his 15-year-old son Key and daughter Carina, 14. “I was on a boat when I was probably a couple days old,” says Peter. “I’m the oldest…

The informative and entertaining “From the Captain of the Port” columns in WindCheck are written by Vincent T. Pica, II, the District Commodore of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary’s First District Southern Region. “I grew up in Westchester County, New York, and boating on Long Island Sound was always a part of my life,” says Vin. “Canoes, rafts, sailboats, motorboats…if it floated, we were on it. My friend Marty Boorstein started me on set and drift and things…

Iris Vogel is among the nicest people we’ve ever met, but don’t let her friendly, gentle demeanor fool you. A fiercely competitive sailor, Iris has won several national championships.  “I fell in love with sailing on a lake in Germany when I was 10 years old,” says Iris, who lives in New Rochelle, NY. “But I didn’t really learn how to sail until I was 20, when I took a course at the New York Sailing School…

In 2008, Justin Coplan became one of the first recipients in the International Lightning Class Association’s Boat Grant Program. Today, Justin (pictured at left with teammates Danielle Pryor and Mike Carney) is a co-chair of this unique program, which gives enthusiastic young teams an opportunity to sail a race-ready boat in a very strong one-design class. “I started sailing an Opti when I was 10 years old in the junior program at the Nyack Boat Club in…

A shared love of sailing and a desire to help others inspired Diane Kropfl & Bill Sabanski of Highlands, NJ to help build the Ms. Race, a unique charity regatta hosted by the Atlantic Highlands Yacht Club that raises funds for an organization dedicated to ending domestic violence and sexual assault. “I started sailing when I was five years old,” says Diane. “My father built an 11-foot mahogany Evanston Robin from a kit in our basement, and…

Gregor Tarjan is one of the most passionate people we’ve ever met. The founder and owner of Aeroyacht Ltd. in East Setauket, NY, Gregor has unbridled enthusiasm for designing and sailing fast multihull yachts and restoring and driving vintage race cars. “I was obsessed with boats as a kid, and I started drawing them when I was five years old,” says Gregor. “I was born and raised in Vienna, Austria, and started sailing with my brother Michael on…

An International 420 skipper from Darien, CT, Megan Grapengeter-Rudnick is one of America’s finest youth sailors. Megan was recently named (for the second consecutive year) to the US Sailing Development Team (USSDT), the Olympic pathway team supported by the U.S. Olympic Sailing Program and US Sailing’s Olympic Sailing Committee. She’s also among the best writers ever published in WindCheck. Her excellent articles, including “Sailing, Surfing, Empanadas and Car-Diving: Opti Racing in Argentina” and “Wind and Warmth: A Winter…

As many WindCheck readers know, our editorial staff produces the Block Island Race Week News for the Storm Trysail Club in odd-numbered years. In 2007, we were particularly interested in watching a Wyliecat 30 named One Up, owned and skippered by Lincoln Schoenberger of Shelton, CT and competing in the PHRF division. We’d seen this blue 30-footer at the Park City Regatta, a breast cancer charity event hosted by Fayerweather Yacht Club in Bridgeport. We admired her…

A love of sailing and a passion for creating stunning images of the sport have taken professional photographer and videographer Amory Ross across the Atlantic with the Oakcliff All-American Offshore Team and around the world with PUMA Ocean Racing, and he’s currently working with the America’s Cup defender, Oracle Team USA. Amory, known to his many friends as “Amo,” grew up in Morristown, NJ and did some sailing on the Jersey Shore each summer. “My mom grew up…

WindCheck is proud to have published many of Fran Grenon’s photographs of the Marion Bermuda Race and the Buzzards Bay Regatta over the years. Fran’s images have also appeared in SAIL, Sailing World and Cruising World, and his dramatic shot of Steve Hollis’ J/105 Sirocco in a stiff breeze at the 2004 J/105 North American Championship graces the cover of J/Boats: Sailing to Success by Anthony Dalton. When he was three years old, Fran, who grew up…