Mark Reynolds and Magnus Liljedahl receive their gold medals at Sydney 2000 to add to Reynolds’ previous Olympic tally in the class of a gold medal in Barcelona in 1992 plus silver in Korea in 1988. To add to this remarkable Olympic haul are two Star world titles, won in Laredo, Spain, in 1995 sailing with Hal Haenel and in 2000 in Annapolis racing once again with Liljedahl
the 2000 World Sailor of the Year award. 2014 was the last Star Worlds Mark
sailed; he finished 11th, sailing with Beppe Oggioni. Shortly after that he sold the loft to Quantum International; now they also do the same R&D for several other classes. ‘We’ve got a C Scow main and jib on
the floor right now. For some of the classes it’s just easier to build a few sails here, while others are built in Sri Lanka.’ But he says his own job is still ‘pretty much focused on Snipe and Star sails’. Mark has also become an important
bronze medal in 1948. And he’d just happened to be going to school in the UK… he said, “Hey, the Olympics are in London, do you want to sail the Swallow?” ‘And my Dad did the Olympic Trials
twice, during his two weeks of vacation.’ (With Malin Burnham, Jim Reynolds just missed out on the 1964 selection.) ‘So things have changed a little over the years.’ Even Mark’s own approach wouldn’t
work any more, he points out. ‘Olympic sailing now, if you’re not out on the water every day you’d better be at the gym. ‘But back when I started there were
basically three ways you could do an Olympic campaign. You could have a wealthy family who supported you. You could be a good fundraiser; there weren’t too many guys like that, but Robbie Haines would be a good example… he was really good at raising funds to go do all the sailing he wanted to do. Although he ended up being a sailmaker too! ‘And otherwise everybody basically
worked for a sailmaker at some point. That’s just what you did, because there wasn’t any other way.’ Today’s sailors can earn a decent living
as pros, he continues. ‘And that’s my theory of why the United States is not as competitive on the world level any more. Things started changing in the 1990s, when people had the opportunity to sail [for a living]; that’s what Cayard and Kostecki started doing. ‘Today guys can crew on a J/70 for
somebody and get paid real money; as Cayard has pointed out, you can either get paid to go sailing or you can pay to go sail- ing. Pretty easy to make that choice when you need to eat and have a place to live.’ (After the interview I realise that I failed
to ask the logical follow-up question: how did he balance work/sailing and family? Because somehow that never came up…)
Why would you make your competition faster? The regatta circuit was a great place to interact with customers and explain what
44 SEAHORSE
he was doing with the sails, Mark says. ‘Being able to talk to those guys during the week was certainly better than working at a job somewhere else! And I got to fiddle around with trying to make the sails better, and do some sailing.’ Even at the height of his Olympic
career, when Mark was supplying almost all of his competitors’ sails, he never strayed from the lesson he’d learnt as a teenage rudder salesman. ‘I never had any- thing special,’ he insists. ‘I always had a good reputation for using the same sails as my customers, and letting them know straightaway when we were developing something new.’ But making his competitors faster wasn’t
always an easy choice. ‘I won the Olympic Trials in 1988 because we were really fast, particularly in the lighter air. Dennis actu- ally told me, “Well, just don’t sell any sails until after the Olympics!” ‘I go, “Well, Dennis, that’s how I put
food on the table.” And Dennis responds, “But then when you win the Olympics there’ll be an even bigger demand!”’ Mark shakes his head. ‘It wouldn’t be the
best way to work with customers… like “No, I’m not going to sell you the sail that I’m using myself.”’ Sydney 2000 was what Mark calls ‘the
ultimate situation’. He’d just changed over his loft affiliation from Sobstad to Quan- tum, and almost every boat in Sydney was using his designs. ‘At the Olympic measure- ment our jibs were oversized on the rein- forcing patch. Which is kind of a stupid measurement to have in the first place; you should almost have it the opposite… Specify a minimum rather than a maximum. ‘But it was over by 2mm along maybe
4cm, just a little slice on one of the corners. And everybody had two sets of sails, so I had to take 45 jibs up to a sail loft not too far away and recut all of them… open up a little bit of stitching, cut it, and then sew it back down again. I had a lot of things I had to deal with… but obviously it worked out.’ After a rocky start he and Magnus Liljedahl won the gold medal – as well as
custodian of Star Class history. When I need clarification about the switch away from Olympic scoring for an upcoming book, A Century of Star World Champi- onships, I email him; he replies promptly with the exact year, 1994 – and adds that in 1988 the older scoring method (along with a broken rig) had cost him and Hal Haenel the gold medal. I have no doubt that his memory for such details is correct. As for Mark’s retirement date? That’s another question I forgot to ask.
Any hobbies? This is a leading question, because I already know Mark and DeAnn are into biking. But instead of talking about their most recent off-road adventure there’s a long pause until Mark finally comes up with photography – a passion that dates back to his FD days. A photo that he took in Kiel won him a
magazine contest, he remembers; the prize was a 10-day charter in the Caribbean, which he and DeAnn turned into their honeymoon. ‘Otherwise, yeah, not really too many hobbies. I pretty much just focused on sailing and the business. No big surprise, really…’ So I ask if he has any bucket list items.
‘A sailing bucket list? No, not really… I’m not saying I’m retired, but I don’t really have much in the way of plans.’ Then his eyes light up again. ‘But DeAnn and I are having a tandem [bicycle] built! Titanium, with couplers so it fits in two suitcases. We plan to do some travelling with that in Europe and other places. New Zealand, maybe Japan…’ Yet another question I forgot to ask
(which only occurs to me now, as I finish up this story) brings with it a tiny giggle: who will get to steer that tandem? When he and DeAnn bought their first Snipe together she claims they agreed to switch helming duties – which never happened. ‘She’s probably right,’ Mark admits, with another SoCal chuckle, ‘but it never even occurred to me!’ Maybe I’ll drop him another email – or
maybe, once he reads this, he’ll send along his answers to my unasked questions. q
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