Sail to Win Gets Vets On The Salt

In Fall 2001, a group of sailors in Newport, Rhode Island, organized a regatta called Sail for Pride to raise funds for New York City firefighters and others affected by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The 180-plus-boat race around Narragansett Bay’s Conanicut Island raised more than $100,000.

Now called the Sail for Hope, it’s become an annual event benefiting a host of nonprofits. I’ve competed in this event on multiple occasions on a wide variety of yachts, but last fall’s edition, sailing aboard the C&C 30 Chinook, was easily the most interesting. Never before had I sailed with a crew that included several Iraq War veterans, including a helmsman named Steve Baskis who lost his sight while serving in Baghdad in 2008 when an improvised explosive device blasted his vehicle. I’ve raced with some tough hombres, but never on this level.

Chinook was on the starting line, flying a figurative flag for the nonprofit Sail to Win (sailtowin​.org), an organization founded by another decorated Army vet, Aaron “Ike” Isaacson, and professional sailors Mike Patterson and Whitney Curtin, whose family owns the vintage 12-Metre Intrepid. Isaacson is also an accomplished alpinist who met Baskis on a climbing expedition to Nepal.

“But mountaineering is a young man’s game,” he told me before we set sail. “I also love sailing because it’s a sport you can continue to do well throughout your life. I approached Mike and Whitney about doing something to help disabled and wounded veterans as well as first responders, to teach them sailing, which was the start of Sail to Win. We approach racing from a mission mindset: You get your team, you train up, you work out the logistics as a team, and you conduct the mission. Today’s mission is the Sail for Hope.”

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Ultimately, the group intends to score a larger, donated boat—which is how they acquired Chinook—for offshore racing, and perhaps even a transatlantic race. They also conduct regular daysail trips aboard Intrepid, which is why I asked Baskis the difference between driving a stately 12 compared to the skittish C&C.

“On Intrepid, you’re standing at the wheel, and you can feel the tension and the weight and the energy it takes to carry it through the water,” he says. “On Chinook, you’re steering with a tiller. It’s way more reactive. You feel like you’re dancing through the water.”

During my time on board, it was a demanding day for steering, to say the least, with fluctuating breeze just above a zephyr mixed with occasional double-digit puffs in the low teens. As we made our way around the 20-odd-mile racecourse, there were plenty of sail changes, including a long spell under spinnaker. With Patterson camped beside him, keeping him informed of the ever-changing conditions, Baskis never missed a beat.

“We didn’t spend a lot of time sailing upwind,” Patterson says. “So, the fact that we were reaching a lot, with the pressure constantly changing, was very challenging.”

When all was said and done, Chinook finished a respectable sixth in our 10-boat class. We may not have taken top honors for the day, but for the Sail to Win squad, it felt like winning just the same.  

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