Out The Gate Sailing

For Luc Maheu, working on the water is all about heritage. Sailing is in his blood and he's keeping the tradition alive in style. He's a master mariner, a merchant marine, a charter captain and in his spare time runs a business building traditional rigging tools. We chatted aboard his 60-foot schooner, docked at the Pt. San Pablo Yacht Club in Richmond, CA. 

Many Bay Area kids and adults have learned to sail on Clipper Cove, the largest, most well-protected cove on the San Francisco city shoreline. Travis Lund is the Executive Director of the Treasure Island Sailing Center, a sailing school on the cove.

Pete Lyons likes sailing at highway speeds. Land sailing that is. Pete was driving along a lakebed when he saw sails in the distance. He went to investigate and discovered the boats were on wheels. He fell in love with the sport and has been running his own land sailing business for over 20 years now.

Jonathan Buser first learned to sail small boats at the Richmond Yacht Club junior program. Today, he still sails on SF Bay, but aboard USA 76, an 84-foot racing machine that nearly won the 2003 America's cup.

Marine biologist David McGuire is the founder of Shark Stewards, a non-profit focused on shark conservation. He tells the tale of looking a great white in the eye and how sailing in the Pacific led to his work saving sharks.

Randall left San Francisco Bay last autumn in an attempt to become the first person to circumnavigate both the American and Antarctic continents in one season. He's rounded Cape Horn and is now headed back for a second pass, before heading north. He'd been alone at sea for 123 days and was skirting under Tasmania when we spoke via satellite phone.

In this very first OTG episode, I talk to Heather Richard, a charter captain out of Sausalito who has been sailing on SF Bay nearly every day for more 20 years. She talks about being a strong woman sailor, nearly being swept away from her boat by bay currents, and navigating hurricane force winds in the Caribbean.