Author: Joe Cooper

Interview by Joe Cooper For those with good memories and/or a penchant for solo offshore racing, the name Lush will ring bells. The sound of those bells leads you to Tony Lush, one of America’s prominent early solo sailors, famously rescued in the Southern Ocean by Francis Stokes in the 1982 BOC. A freelance delivery skipper and race boat preparatrice, Tony’s daughter Erica recently launched Lush Sailing (lushsailing.com), a campaign aimed at developing equitable opportunities for female…

By Joe Cooper I have read that the teenager’s brain is only half-cooked, versus a Mature brain. Human brains apparently do not cure until say 25 or so. I think about this in the sense of how we record and process information. And then act on the information processed. Imagine your Christmas shopping date, on Fifth Avenue, Christmas week. The streets are jam-packed with people shopping, armfuls of shopping bags extending out to the sides like an…

A Love of Sailing Coop: Trish, thanks for coming out. TS: Well Coop, thanks for the invite. I am honored. Coop: Are you a native Rhode Island, or a carpetbagger? TS: I am a native Rhode Islander. I was born in Rhode Island and raised in North Kingstown, very close to East Greenwich and in what turned out to be bicycle riding distance to East Greenwich Yacht Club. COOP: Ah, you likely had no chance, eh? What…

By Joe Cooper What was it like when you learned to sail? This is a question put to me by one of The Prout School Sailing team kids a few years ago. I had to stop and think about the answer for a moment. There was nothing like “sailing camp” or instruction for kids in Australia, in the late 1950s through most of the 1960s. It was very much “stick ‘em in the boat and push ’em…

We left off chatting with Kate as she was getting into the thick of the 2013 “Big Cat” America’s Cup in San Francisco. (Part 1 of this interview can be found at windcheckmagazine.com/article/women-on-the-water-kate-somers/). Coop: Ah, typical boat biz, On the job training, eh? Kate: Yup, crash course central in marketing and communications, especially at that very high level. It was quite an experience. I finished my Master’s out there, in the middle of the AC. I told…

Thirteen-year-old Wilson Meunier Mott is a rising eighth grader at Monsignor Clark School in Wakefield, RI. For his class service project, he had a corker of an idea: Sailing from New London to Stonington, CT in his Opti, solo, to raise funds for the New England Science & Sailing Foundation’s Fund a Student Scholarship Challenge, so that New London school kids can get time at NESS. I spoke with Wilson not long after he arrived at the…

It’s not often you run into two guys in their early twenties who have already racked up some serious performance credentials in the sharp-elbowed world of professional offshore solo sailing. German sailors Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink are two such characters. I spoke with them at Safe Harbor Newport Shipyard during the Newport stop of The Atlantic Cup.     Coop: Guys, congratulations on your third-place finish in Leg 1. You must be pretty happy with that……

Kate Somers (widely known as Wilson before marrying Brandon Somers) is a lifelong sailor and has morphed sailing and her interest in technology into her own media and web design firm in Rhode Island called risingT. Coop: Kate, thanks for jamming this into the midst of your work for the Newport Bermuda Race. Kate: (Flat out like a lizard drinking sigh) Sure, no problem. Thanks. Coop: Where are you from, and was sailing a “thing” in your…