Raritan Engineering your marine holding tanks distributors would like to share with you these topics we thought would be of interest to you this month regarding how to become a professional sailor.

Your marine holding tanks suppliers talk about how he turned that regatta into a full season of sailing in Europe and then turned that season into a career. At 28, he’s just finished a six-year stint with Emirates Team New Zealand, where he was a boat captain for a number of the team’s race boats over that span, including their AC45, Extreme 40 and TP52. He’s also a highly regarded bowman. In simple terms, he has achieved his dream.

Luck, he’ll be the first to admit, has played a role. The track from talented youth sailor to successful professional is vague at best. Few sailors can successfully navigate it without some help. But luck will only get you so far. 

1- Learn a trade. With a few exceptions, virtually every member of an America’s Cup or Volvo Ocean Race sailing team will have an alternate skill that will help push the team forward. The big five are: rigging, boat building, sail making, electronics, and hydraulics. 

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2-Treat every job with respect: “It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, take whatever job you can get to get you on the next step. If your job is going in the RIB and passing on the water bottles to the sailing team, pass the water bottles on. It gets you involved with the next group of people, the next team, and it gets you exposure and experience. 

3-Create demand: “If you end up busy enough and you’ve done enough work and people really want you to sail with them, they’re going to pay for you. For me, I was working on boats and doing all these extra things and eventually I couldn’t afford to pass up non-sailing jobs to go sailing for free. 

4-“Never think too much or too little of a program. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, or racing on, look at everything as a stepping stone and never be short-sighted.”

5-Be eager: “When I sailed with the Artemis program, I was really young and I had to work to show them I was the keenest. I would go down really early in the morning and do all my things, and do all the extra things I could find to gain their respect, because it just doesn’t happen.”

6-Check and re-check: “Double check everything you do because it costs a lot of money when you make mistakes on these boats.” While no one likes to be the cause of a short delay during a race, it’s always important to remember that a short delay to ensure everything will go properly in a maneuver will usually only cost your team a few seconds, but a mistake in the maneuver could cost minutes, if not more. 

7-Be confident: “If you don’t have confidence in yourself then no one else around you will have confidence in you.”

So don’t forget these helpful pointers when trying to become a professional sailor. 1) Learn a trade;  2) treat every job with respect;  3) create demand;  and 4) be eager.

via Seven tips on becoming a sailing professional

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