AHEAD OF THE SHIFT

This sailing coach abandoned the trodden junior sailing pathway to lay a divergent path to the promised land.

- CHRIS MUSELER

USING the term "epic" too often makes one a kook. It's equally uncool to overhype one's sailing experiences because, let's face it, there's always someone who has won more, sailed faster or gone to a cooler place. The summer of 2022, however, was truly epic for Jesse Andrews, the Pied Piper of Hawaii's Kaneohe Bay, whose followers stormed North America and Europe, and ascended to performance sailing's world stage. Under Andrews' direction, these young sailors are charging hard in the Waszp and Olympic iQFoil classes today, and getting serious looks to fill slots on the rosters of youth and women's America's Cup development teams.

Kaneohe sailing's epic and timely ascent into everyone's collective radar has been a long time coming, but the whole phenomenon was accelerated when the US Sailing Olympic Development Program doubled down on performance youth sailing in 2022. Kaneohe, naturally, was the first proving ground.

Oahu's sailing teams were chasing ILCA and Club420 medals this past summer too, but most of the kids, whether because of geographic isolation or lack of interest, avoided the traditional path of racing in large Optimist and 420 fleets on the mainland. Instead, they began their careers with O'pen Skiff "Un-Regattas," and then went on to 29ers and eventually anything with a foil they could get their hands on.

Deconstructing how these junior programs have grown to become a new model for enabling dedicated youth sailing talent despite their isolation starts with Andrews, a once-frustrated New England kid who refused to wear shoes and ended up in the Aloha State.