Honorary Advisory Board
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The Sailing Museum and National Sailing Hall of Fame is a nonprofit educational organization that promotes sailing and racing by recognizing individuals who have contributed to the sport, highlighting sailing's contribution to the American culture; and demonstrating its value as a hands-on tool for teaching math and science. The organization was established in 2005. [1]
The Sailing Museum and National Sailing Hall of Fame was originally housed in the Captain Burtis House, located on the City Dock in Annapolis, Maryland. [2] Visitors to the site could participate in on-the-water experiences and learn about sailing history, art and lore. [3]
On 1 May 2019, it was announced that the National Sailing Hall of Fame would move from Annapolis to Newport, Rhode Island. [4] [5]
In 2019, the National Sailing Hall of Fame purchased the Armory Building in Newport, an historic building with connections to the America's Cup race. The space was restored to a full exhibit, event and meeting space, in collaboration with the Herreshoff Museum and the America's Cup Hall of Fame. [6] [7]
The new museum open May 10 2022, and includes educational programs and special events. www.thesailingmuseum.org
Gary Jobson and Tom Whidden serve as Co-Chairs of the Board. Ashley Householder is the Executive Director of the Sailing Museum and National Sailing Hall of Fame.
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The National Sailing Hall of Fame began inducting honorees in 2011. [8] As of January 2024, 123 inductees over 13 classes have been elected to the Hall of Fame. [9]
Nominations to the National Sailing Hall of Fame are made online. A nominating committee evaluates all the submitted nominations. [10] Inductees are typically announced in the summer, and the induction ceremony is held in the fall at different locations around the United States. Inductions began in 2011. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] The 2020 induction ceremony was held virtually in September 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic. [9]
2019: Arthur Knapp, Jr. [33]
2020: Briggs Cunningham, Jr. [42]
Harry C. "Buddy" Melges Jr. was an American competitive sailor. He earned national and international championships in several classes in conventional sailing and ice-boating and is widely regarded as one of the top racing sailors of all time.
Paul Jeffrey Foerster is an American sailor.
Olin James Stephens II was an American yacht designer. Stephens was born in New York City, but spent his summers with his brother Rod, learning to sail on the New England coast. He also attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a term.
Frederick Emmart Hood was an American yachtsman and naval architect. He founded the sailmaker Hood Sails in Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1952. Hood Sails operated until purchased by Quantum Sails in 2017. Hood founded Little Harbor Custom Yachts in 1959 and sold it to Hinckley Yachts in 1999. He won the America's Cup in 1974 skippering the yacht Courageous, which was built at Minnefords Shipyard in City Island, New York, after which he built a what he believed to have been a faster yacht and sold Courageous to Ted Turner, who beat him in it on his way to winning the 1977 America's Cup.
The Canada’s Cup is a silver trophy, deeded in perpetuity in 1896, to be awarded to the winner of a series of match races between a yacht representing a Canadian yacht club and one representing an American yacht club, both to be located on the Great Lakes.
The America's Cup Hall of Fame, located at the Herreshoff Marine Museum of Bristol, Rhode Island, USA, honors individuals for outstanding achievement in the America's Cup sailing competition. Candidates eligible for consideration include skippers, afterguard, crew, designers, builders, organizers, syndicate managers, supporters, chroniclers, race managers, and other individuals of merit. A selection committee of twenty-two members consisting of former America's Cup participants, yachting historians, and yachting journalists annually selects a class of one to four inductees. Rolex, Louis Vuitton, and Prada have been sponsors of the Hall of Fame's induction ceremonies.
Charles Barr, was an accomplished sailing skipper who three times captained winning America's Cup yachts.
Gary Jobson is a former sailor, television commentator and author based in Annapolis, Maryland, and a former Vice President of the International Sailing Federation. Jobson has authored 19 sailing books and is Editor-at-Large of Sailing World and Cruising World magazines. He is currently president of the National Sailing Hall of Fame.
Lowell Orton North was an American sailor and Olympic gold medalist. He competed at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, where he received a gold medal in the Star class with the boat North Star, together with Peter Barrett.
Mark Jeffrey Reynolds is an American Star class sailor and Olympic champion. He has sailed Stars since age four, training with his father James Reynolds who was the 1971 World Champion.
William Earl Buchan is an American sailor and Olympic Champion. He competed at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and won a gold medal in the Star class with Steven Erickson.
Thomas David Blackaller Jr. was a world-champion American yachtsman, America's Cup helmsman, sailmaker, and racecar competitor. He was a two-time world champion in the Star class keelboat, a world champion in the international Six metre class, raced in three separate America's Cup campaigns, and influenced the careers of many other sailors.
John Scott Biddle was a foremost yachting cinematographer and lecturer, establishing a film-making career that spanned more than forty years. His films captured not only the technical aspects of sailing but also the human story in events as tranquil as a Nova Scotia cruise and as grand as the America's Cup Races.
Randolph L. Smyth is an American competitive sailor and two-time Olympic silver medalist. He is a multihull specialist, who won two Olympic silver medals racing catamarans, and has won innumerable national and world titles skippering multihulls. In a 2003 profile on him in Sailing World magazine he was described as America's greatest multihull sailor. He was born in Pasadena, California.
John Paul Kostecki is an American competitive sailor of Polish descent. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He started his sailing career in the San Francisco Bay, California.
Thomas A. Whidden is one of the most-acclaimed sailors of all-time. He is a member of both the America's Cup Hall of Fame and the National Sailing Hall of Fame. Whidden joined North Sails, the world's largest sailmaker, in 1986, just before being part of the crew of the yacht Stars & Stripes in the victory over Australia in the 1987 America's Cup. He became CEO and co-owner of North Technology Group, formerly known as North Marine Group, parent company to North Sails, when it was established several years later.
David Ullman is an international yachtsman, sailboat racer, and sailmaker. Ullman founded Ullman Sails in Newport Beach, California in 1967.
Stan Honey is an American professional offshore navigator with world sailing records and a businessman who founded Etak and Sportvision.
David Adams Curtis is an American sailor and sail maker.
Timothea "Timmy" Larr is a naval architect and three-time winner of United States Women's Sailing Championship. She was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame in 2013. She is also known for her work in developing training programs for sailors in the United States.