Hard chines and unasked questions
It would be almost impossible to find anyone in the sport with an ill word to say about double Olympic gold medallist and Star World Champion Mark Reynolds. Carol Cronin talks to the San Diego sailmaker with the breathtaking sporting CV that still pales by comparison with the successes of the countless rivals who he has helped to achieve success
There are a lot of sailmakers in the United States. There are even a lot of sailmakers who’ve started their own lofts and then kept them afloat for a decade or three. But Mark Reynolds is pretty sure there are only two sailmakers in the entire country who can claim an impressive pair of longevity statistics: the loft they started is still operating out of its original location, and they’re still married to their first wife. ‘Buddy [Melges] and I are, I think, maybe the only ones,’ he says, with a dry but thoughtful SoCal chuckle. When Mark was elected to the Snipe
Hall of Fame Class of 2021 it seemed like the perfect opportunity to present this
40 SEAHORSE
incredible sailor’s career to the Seahorse audience. It wasn’t until I started putting our discussion down on paper that I realised there were at least two questions I’d forgotten to ask. What can I say; I was distracted by Mark’s deep love of sailing and competition, which is well-supported by a frenetic memory for obscure details. It’s impossible to cover every single
success, but here are a few highlights to get us started: Mark is the only US sailor who competed in the same discipline at four Olympics in a row. He’s won two golds and a silver, as well as two Star Worlds, a Snipe gold medal at the Pan Am Games, a Farr40 Worlds and a string of other less obvious victories. Now stay with me, because there are so many questions that did get answered…
When did you start sailing? Mark was born in San Diego in 1955, and he’s never really lived anywhere else. When he was four his father (a World Champion Star crew) introduced him to sailing. ‘I think it was Robbie Doyle, when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, who said that we stand on the shoulders of the people who came before us,’ Mark says… from the Zoom comfort of his loft desk. ‘My dad gave me a Sabot [the local
pram] for Christmas when I was eight. It was actually not on my list, and I wasn’t
thrilled about it. But I figured out right away that I was pretty good. And I was very competitive, so it was better than baseball – where I was not very talented. My first Sabot sail I actually paid for half of it!’ He pauses for a wry grin. ‘After that my parents wouldn’t buy boats for me, but they did loan me the money; I’d then have to pay it back, to learn responsibility.’ Growing up, Mark says Star sailing went
hand in hand with Snipe sailing, because all the good local sailors competed in one of those two classes. San Diego Yacht Club was the Star stronghold, while ‘Snipes pretty much sailed on Mission Bay; and I was also hanging out at the North Sails loft [for whom the Star sails were also big busi- ness].’ A bunch of the salesmen there were Snipe sailors, and he crewed for a few until he outgrew that position. Meanwhile, his father provided inspiration; Mark was at the 1971 Star Worlds in Seattle when Jim Reynolds and Dennis Conner won their Star gold… the first of two for Conner – a fellow San Diego resident. Mark started his first business while still
in his teens, building lightweight Sabot and Snipe rudders for his competitors. That experience taught him an important lesson: it’s OK to make better equipment than what’s already on the market, but it’s not OK to build something better for your- self than what you sell to your customers.
PHOTOS ALAMY
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