62 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {due west} been on vacation my whole life.” Rich brings a fearless attitude to sailing that he honed through numerous outdoor extreme sports. “I had an appetite for challenges in my youth that I probably should have thought twice about,” he admits. “I sailed from Maui across the channel to Molokai on a windsurfer by myself. The excitement of river rafting also drew me in as well as climbing rock faces without ropes.” While teaching sailing, Rich also raced sailboats for many years. He applied this same adventurous spirit as a sailing perience the outdoors locally and beyond. In fact, several Spinnaker students have completed classes and taken off sailing around the world. Rich relays how an ambitious newly-certified sailor recently set off for Cabo San Lucas with the help of a Spinnaker skipper. In Mexico, the student found a crew mate to continue sailing through the Galapagos, Australia and all through the Indian Ocean. Back in Redwood City, as Wednesday night racing draws to a close, sailors maneuver their brightly-colored boats back to the marina to swap stories. “Sailing becomes part of your lifestyle and it’s a very soothing environment,” reflects Rich. “It’s like being rocked in your mother’s arms.” come aboard spinnakersailing.com world entrepreneur, developing projects like Mountain View’s Shoreline Park, Redwood City’s Seaport Conference Center, sailing schools at local waterfronts and a Peninsula windsurfing retail store: “Opportunities would avail themselves and I would say, ‘Let’s go do that!’” After marrying his wife Kris, Rich’s life gained balance, and he stayed in port to raise their two now young adult children Nikola and Sean. Clearly influenced by his upbringing, Sean lives on a 41-foot sailboat in Marina Del Rey. With a substantial portion of the Bay Area located on the water, sailing offers a way to ex-
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