Tuna and Kate, our first mother & daughter Women on the Water
This month I’m diverging from the usual Women on the Water story line. There’s a young woman on The Prout School Sailing Team, Madeline (Maddie) Ammatuna, known almost universally as Tuna. I discovered an interesting dichotomy between Tuna and her Mum, Kate Ammatuna. Tuna loves sailing and Kate does not. Interestingly, both attitudes stem from early experiences. I recently sat with them after practice.
Coop: Ladies, thanks for staying after school as it were.
Both: (Chuckles) We’re here!
Coop: Tuna, does your dad sail?
Tuna: I taught him how to sail.
Coop: So, you were the leader of the pack in Family Tuna? How did that happen?
Tuna: I was out on my grandfather’s scuba boat, sitting in the sun. I saw a boat sail by, pointed at it and said, “That’s what I want to do.”
Coop: You were taking a relaxing afternoon in the sun, and got hooked on sailing? How old were you?
Kate: She was 5. After we docked in Jamestown and were driving home, we passed a sign reading, “Learn to Sail at Greenwich Bay Sailing Association.” I looked them up, put a note in my calendar, and contacted them the next summer. Tuna was turning 7, and I signed her up for two weeks. She ended up doing whole of the summer there, and here we are every summer since.
Coop: What was it about seeing the boat sailing by that hit a nerve?
Tuna: I don’t really know. My parents play hockey and I play hockey, but I’d never heard of anyone sailing. There was no rhyme or reason, but on the first day of Sailing (a year later) I said, “This is what I want to do.”
Coop: Kate, paint me the scene at Chez Tuna when Tuna came home that first day.
Kate: She did not stop talking about it. She went into what a rudder is, what a tiller is, what a sail is… The director at the time pulled me aside and said, “She’s going to be a racer one day.” I said, “Oh. we’re just doing these two weeks,” A couple days later the director said, “We have a couple of openings for the rest of the summer.” We were always up for whatever the kids want to try: Hockey, wrestling, lacrosse. We’ve tried I think nineteen sports and we thought, “OK, we’ll see how it goes. She’s been passionate about sailing since that first day.
Coop: How did all this play with your dad?
Tuna: I think there are lot of aspects of sailing that tweak his brain. He’s an engineer and likes to know how things work, so when I started to talk more about sailing, he got more in depth with me on the nuances, the details of sailing. He became more deeply interested in sailing, then started looking into boats telling me about what he was finding. It just became “our thing.”
Kate: He was deployed overseas that first summer, so it became something they could talk about.
Coop: Geez, with husband/father away, in uniform, having that depth of shared interest must’ve been fantastic on so many fronts.
Kate: Oh, yes. She’s been through three deployments since that first summer. Sailing makes her feel good, and it’s something she and her dad can talk about and connect with.
Coop: And your sister sails, too. Has sailing completely locked on her as it has with you?
Tuna: I like sailing because of all the extra stuff going on. I think she likes it much more for the competitive side.
Coop: So, she’s like you competitive-wise. Does she play hockey too?
Tuna: Yes, but on a different squad. She’s two and half years younger.
Coop: I bet that’s a relief all around.
Kate: She initially started because her big sister was doing it, but she was not in love with it. I said, “You don’t have to do it just because she’s doing it.” Then she made some really good friends. That’s what brought her back the next summer. Now she really loves it and I’d say she’s almost more competitive than Tuna in Sailing.
Coop: Kate, how has the Soccer (sailing) mum life been, first I guess in Optis and now in 420s?
Tuna: (Under her breath) …and Lasers, J/22s, keelboats…
Kate: Tuna was sailing Opti sailing. There’s a family at East Greenwich, the McAteers, owners of Divided Sky. They were running the race committee one year and invited me to come out with them. An easy, closer way to watch the kids, and I’m always volunteering, no matter what it is. I said, “Yes, I’ll learn how to do race committee” and ended up going out more and more. Eventually, Kristy McAteer became president of G.B.S.A. and she asked me to join the board. And sidebar, I was part of the group that hired you to run the fall coaching a couple years ago.
Coop: Ah, right, where I first met the Tuna…
Kate: Yes, then Kristy asked me to take on the presidency of G.B.S.A. That’s really cool. Sailing has become a big part of our lives, which is unusual, because my “learn to sail” experience at age eight or nine was not great. I did not care for sailing at all.
Coop: What was it that put you off?
Kate: It was another facility, not G.B.S.A. I felt like I was not in control. They just put us in boats and pushed us off. I think it was a Sunfish, and I was getting tossed about, and day I was praying “Just let me get back to land.” But, when Tuna wanted to try it I had no objections. She had a totally different experience, and sailing’s a part of our everyday life almost year-round.
Coop: Tuna, what do you see with you and sailing, say halfway through college?
Tuna: Well, I had a five-year plan for sailing, but hockey became a bigger part of my life this year in high school. A lot of opportunities to play collegiate hockey were dropped in front of me, to play. My original plan was for hockey to end at sigh school. I wanted to sail in high school, I chose Prout for sailing, then I got asked to play hockey on the Boys team. The next year the Girls Co-Op team got off the ground and I started playing in that team, so right now I’m not sure what I’m going to do.
Coop: I imagine hockey, being an NCAA sport, has opportunities for scholarships to college? Sailing’s invisible in the wider world of college sports. Hockey’s a winter sport I imagine, so you may still sail in the spring. Might even get some time for schoolwork too…What’s the radar showing in that scenario?
Tuna: I really want to go to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, then Yale, and I want to sail at both schools.
Coop: Hang on, that’s eight years. Are you thinking of a Master’s at Yale?
Tuna: No, Yale Law School.
Coop: Oh, really going to load up on the debt. You better work on the Hockey scholarships.
Kate: We’re looking at a few plans if hockey does not work out.
Coop: Well, I have friends in low places at the Naval Academy if that helps. What are you thinking for sailing after the school river has run its course? The three biggies are the Olympics, the America’s Cup and The Ocean Race. Which of those rings your bell?
Tuna: Definitely The Ocean Race.
Coop: What about that race attracts you?
Tuna: I love being on boats, so the idea of being on a boat for a long time…And there’s so much more that goes into long distance sailing – the mental processes – and I like a challenge.
Coop: Well, you’ll definitely have one of those getting around the world in The Ocean Race. How old are you?
Tuna: Fifteen.
Coop: OK, in ten years you’ll be 25 and in 2044 you’ll be 35. If you map out a 20-year plan, it is possible.
Kate: A few years ago, she told me she wanted to be the first American girl to race around the world. Now of course, Cole Brauer is that woman.
Tuna: That was supposed to be me! When I found out about Cole, I spent hundreds of hours watching her Instagram posts.
Kate: She did the Ida Lewis Distance Race last year, a pretty windy race. I was a wreck for those 24 hours, glued to the Yellow Brick. She has a place on the J/44 Digger, owned by James Phyfe, the boat she did the Ida on, bringing the boat back from Bermuda this year. She was hoping to do the Bermuda Race itself, but the return will be a great experience. In 2026 she’ll be turning 18, much more experienced and hopefully be able to do the race then.
Coop: Great adventures in yachting. Well girls, this has been great, and thanks so much for much for hanging around after practice to talk about sailing.
Kate, Tuna: Thanks for asking, Coop! ■
