Author: Joe Cooper

Coop: We left off chatting with you in the midst of a skipper-driven review of the day’s Laser sailing, pre-coaching.   BA: Then match racing came onto the scene and I started doing that. I was sailing dinghies, keelboats, match racing…we did everything. I think we were a lot more versatile than these days, when people focus on one class and sail just that boat until they finish and pick another boat and sail that. We were…

  Editor’s note: This month’s Corner first appeared in Sail1Design.com. © Catherine Roche With summer not far off, sailing programs around the country are gearing up for their lesson sessions. There will be high school sailors teaching and coaching Opti sailors, college sailors teaching and coaching high school sailors, and adult coaches coaching college sailors. The interaction between instructor and student is an important one. I am in my fifteenth season of coaching The Prout School Sailing team…

Betsy Alison is amongst the more successful racing sailors in the U.S. In August of 2023, she won the Sailing World Championships in the Para Athlete singlehanded class in Holland. This was roughly ten months after having massive surgery on her hip to remove a cancerous tumor. I spoke with Betsy at the US Sailing office in Bristol, RI where she is the Director of Adult Sailing.   Coop: Betsy, Hi. How are you doing? Thanks for taking…

Editor’s note: This is the second installment of “Coop’s Prout Sailing essay,” part 1of which you’ll find at windcheckmagazine.com/article/coop-on-mindset-in-sailboat-racing-part-one/. “These are two parts of the same idea,” explains Coach Coop, who emails this wisdom to The Prout School Sailing Team before the start of each season. “It’s the same philosophy of sailing and by extension, at least in my view, life.” © Rick Bannerot, Ontheflyphoto.net The very first thing you need to settle on in your mind…

We left off the first part of our conversation with Trish contemplating ownership of a Sunfish and not a Laser (windcheckmagazine.com/article/women-on-the-water-trish-sellon/). Coop: OK, Sunfish not a Laser… TS: Yeah, and Mom was like, “Deal with it.” Well, OK…There were about eight or ten kids in Lasers, and I was in my Sunfish trying to chase them and telling myself, “Grrr! This sucks.” I was used to winning, being in front in Optis. Then I thought, “If I…

Editor’s note: This month’s missive precedes another in our next edition entitled ‘Get Used to Being in Front.’ “These essays are two parts of the same idea,” explains Coach Coop, who shared this wisdom with The Prout School Sailing Team years ago and continues to do so before the start of each season. “It’s the same philosophy of sailing and by extension, at least in my view, life.” Why this essay? As you will read, and (continue…

We left off last month with Erica in Australia after some epic sailing in the Indian Ocean, when she came ashore in Sydney. Coop: Ah, my hometown. What happened after the cold beer and hot shower? EL: I was involved with the Maiden program on and off for five years during the first two World Tours, right up to the Ocean Globe Race. At the time we’re talking about, I left the boat in Sydney and rejoined…

Much rum has been spilled, I suggest, over discussions pertaining to “The Perfect Boat.” Most likely The Perfect Boat is the one that suits your purposes, closely followed by the one you have…The boats for folks who like racing, gunkholing, entertaining their mates or ocean voyaging are all vastly different, yet each owner might argue theirs is the perfect boat. Few of us are in a position to create a craft we view as the perfect boat….

By Paul Elvstrøm and Søren Krause Adlard Coles, an imprint of Bloomsbury Nautical   $30 Review by Joe Cooper A long time ago in a galaxy far, far…etc., the go-to book on the Racing Rules of Sailing was a pocket-size paperback called Elvstrom Explains the Racing Rules. This was the Great Dane’s overview of the rules and his explanation of situations and outcomes, a precursor, say, to similar publications today written by either of The Daves. Anyone racing…

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…