Seattle sailors gather to grow

A weak southerly breeze straggles across Lake Washington as the last of Seattle’s fall colors cloak the hillsides of the still-leafy Leschi neighborhood. Four local J/70s are gathered for a driving clinic, and the onboard combinations are unusual: all captains and no crewmembers.

Ron Rosenberg, an Olympic-level coach and world-champion sailor, is helming a borrowed coach boat—a VHF in one hand, a Timex Ironman strapped to his wrist. “Be thoughtful about your next 35 seconds,” he advises the group as they roll ­rapid-fire into another starting sequence.

Absent are the sharp elbows that often define one-design ­starting lines. Instead, each team focuses on hitting the line on time and at pace, while extending the “grace and space” to one’s ­neighbors that Rosenberg outlined in his dockside briefing. – Full report