Who is? OCSC Alumni, that’s who!

OCSC Sailing is the sailing school in Berkeley, California where I taught for years. It’s a large, successful sailing school, and one with a unique culture nurtured by founder Anthony Sandberg and his (now retired) partner Rich Jepson over many decades. A culture of high standard for both staff AND students. A certification from OCSC really means something. It’s a great place to learn, and a great place to work. It has been a pleasure to run into former and current OCSC people in the least expected places!

In an ironic twist, although OCSC students are some of the best prepared sailors on the water, they also know how much they do not–yet–know. In dealing with the ocean, or any other parts of untamed nature, humility always serves you much better than hubris.

I never counted the total number of students I encountered in the 7 years I spent teaching, but surely 1000 would be a conservative guess. This year I have had the pleasure of meeting former students of mine, Tom and Nikki Murphy who are now sailing on their own boat here on the Chesapeake, a beautiful Sabre 36, Take a Bow. We had the pleasure of sailing with them on their boat while we had Harmonie in pieces! Visiting the bay were former students of mine, Danielle and Kivanc, who sailed with Tom and Nikki, and stopped by for dinner aboard Harmonie.

Last year Alicia Witham, former instructor, turned Club manager at OCSC, joined us on Harmonie to help us sail from the Bahamas back north to Norfolk

Another former student, Kevan Moize joined use for an extended time from Florida out to the Bahamas, and the again from the Turks and Caicos Islands to Puerto Rico.

In Newport, RI which battles with Annapolis for the title of Yachting Capital of the East Coast, we met Nate Hathaway, formally of OCSC’s front office, who was working on a beautiful racing boat.

A few years ago, on the docks here in Annapolis we ran into Dave Cranston, a former OCSC instructor who was cruising the east coast on a beautiful Halberg Rassey 40 named Flight.

And I have to mention coming into the dock in Hawaii’ with a women standing there helping to catch lines who looks over at the boat and says, “Bill?” It was Anne Bayly. In the “it’s a small world” category of stories, she was in the same BBC class as Kevan Moize, and is the only one of my students (that I know of) to have sailed around the world.

If you are a member of the extended OCSC family contact us when we are in your neighborhood (or you are in ours), and in the meantime follow along on our blog!