Racing Rio: How It All Started

by Zuzana Prochazka, boats.com
In a world where boating is threatened by too many alternatives vying for our free time (and disposable dollar), there are those who persevere—and in the process help the sport not only grow, but thrive. This is the story of a man who, once he discovered sailing in his mid-thirties, quickly made up for lost time.

Manouch Moshayedi made his fortune in the Southern California tech world. A highly driven and accomplished man, Moshayedi is one of those people who seem to manufacture time. While channeling his endless energy into a very lucrative career, he looked around for something else he could get into.

Moshayedi was well into his fourth decade when he was first introduced to sailing by his father-in-law, Jost Von Kursell, who took him out and literally showed him the ropes. “I tried sailing,” Moshayedi told me, adding a trademark understatement: “It was good.”

From this small spark, Moshayedi caught the bug. and quickly acquired a succession of big boats: a McGregor 65, a Farr IMS 50, and a couple of Transpac 52s. “The most exciting part was going fast, and it still is.”

Talking on the patio of his Newport Beach, CA waterfront home, Moshayedi is very practical and understated when discussing his sailing accomplishments; it’s clear he mixes equal parts passion and control in all he does, traits that have served him well on the sailboat racing circuit. He tells tales of losing rudders in mid-race, and raves about the accelerated learning curves that professional racing crews make possible. It’s clear he enjoys the planning, control and coordination of big boat racing over the past 25 years of sailing.

In 2014, Moshayedi purchased a 2003 Bakewell-White 98 footer named Lahana and revamped it into the 100 foot speedster Rio. The refurbished boat came out of a New Zealand yard in late 2014 and headed straight to Sydney, Australia, for the start of the Sydney-Hobart Race—quite a shakedown cruise. – Full story