Opposite: Mark Reynolds and Magnus Liljedahl warming up on their way out to the start of the deciding final race of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Regatta. Reynolds specialised in last race showdowns during his long Olympic career… In Sydney he scraped home second in this race to take gold by 1pt from the GBR crew helped by fellow gold medal rival Torben Grael being OCS. In Seoul in 1988 he had gone into the last race odds-on for his first Olympic gold but dismasted in the rough conditions and had to make do with only silver. Above: quite the dashing SoCal boy… Mark Reynolds and Snipe crew Pat Muglia add to their trophy haul after a Snipe regatta at the Coconut Grove Yacht Club. Muglia would later also compete at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, crewing for Pete Melvin in the USA Tornado
He bought his first Snipe at 13 with
another teenager, but they were too light to sail together and the partnership didn’t last. His next Snipe investment would be with his girlfriend (now wife) DeAnn, soon after they started dating; they were a much better weight together, and that partner- ship persists to this day.
How’d you first meet? DeAnn grew up sailing in San Diego too, so Mark says they knew each other a bit before they both got to San Diego State. But she was two years younger so it wasn’t until they’d spent time together as members of the college sailing team that it clicked. ‘We both went to the co-ed nationals in 1976, and DeAnn also sailed the women’s nationals. I loaned her my stopwatch.’ Again that sly grin. ‘Which made a good excuse to call her when we got home, and ask her out.’ In 1978 they won the US Snipe Nationals.
A year later they finished second at the Worlds. They married in 1980 and had three kids; now they are grandparents. But I’m getting ahead of the story…
After college Mark moved to Miami to
crew for Augie Diaz in the Flying Dutch- man. The pair were favourites to win the 1980 US Trials after a 1979 victory at Kiel Week, so US Sailing, as it is now, suggested Mark stay focused on that campaign; he also doesn’t think they considered him ‘skipper material’ in those days – which now
Probably the most bizarre thing I ever did was diving off my Snipe in the middle of a National Championships race. We were drifting in no wind and the heat combined with the flies all over, I just couldn’t take it any more and just stood up and dived into the water. The race was abandoned soon after but my wife wasn’t too happy about me jumping off the boat
seems ironic. But Mark went and steered the 1979 Pan Am Games in the Snipe anyway, just one week after Kiel, and he and Craig Martin won every single race. A few months after that the US Olympic boycott was announced… so he headed back to San Diego and took a job at North Sails. He did consider an alternative career, he
admits now: boatbuilding. ‘I grew up around Carl Eichenlaub’s boatyard; he was the first person to take my dad sailing on a Star, in the late 1950s. But I pretty quickly realised that if you wanted to go sailing it was easier to do it as a sailmaker. ‘I saw a lot of boatbuilders who’d still
be building boats during the regatta… sails are a little easier to get finished and deliver to somebody in time!’
Why did you start your own sail loft? Mark was hired to market North’s Snipe designs, but he was also sailing Stars – and the loft already had an employee in that class. ‘It became evident that there just wasn’t room for both me and Vince [Brun]; really the only way to make that work would be to have my own loft.’
SEAHORSE 41
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