In his Sailfaster podcast, Pete Boland recently spoke with Charlie Enright, winner of the Ocean Race and new US Sailing CEO, about preparation, teamwork, and why resilience matters on land as much as at sea.
Sailfaster: What keeps you coming back to ocean racing?
Charlie Enright: Two things: competition and adventure. I’ve always been a competitive person, but ocean racing adds that extra layer of human experience. You’re not just racing sailboats; you’re doing it in the most remote places on earth. I think of it like a mix between chess and climbing Everest, except you’re racing other people up the mountain. It’s that blend of precision and raw adventure that’s addictive.
You’ve been through some extreme moments at sea from winning the Fastnet to dismasting in the Southern Ocean. How do you handle those limits when they come?
Offshore sailing tests everything: physically, emotionally, and mentally. I remember one campaign where, in the middle of the Southern Ocean, I got a call from my wife that our son was in the hospital. That was brutal. Then, the team had a collision in Hong Kong, and later, we lost a rig near Cape Horn. It felt like one hit after another, but you keep going. You deal with the next leg, the next problem, and you learn from it. When we finally came back and won The Ocean Race in 2023, it meant even more because of all those moments when things went wrong.
What are your biggest lessons about preparation for offshore?
Preparation is everything. It’s not just turning up with a fast boat and a handful of good sailors—it’s about the cumulative detail and the culture you build around it. We begin long before the start line: boat design decisions, crew selection, gear choices, and training programs; many of those conversations happen 18 to 24 months ahead.
From the hardware side, we learned early that you don’t need radical overhauls every time. You need consistent improvement in many small areas. After a mid-leg in the The Ocean Race where our backs were against the wall, we realized the difference wasn’t a totally new boat; it was a mindset shift: “What can I do in my role today?”
On the people side, it’s about selecting the right crew—not just for speed, but for resilience, accountability, and culture. Even weekend racers can draw from this: you may not pick all your crew, but you can pick attitude, expectations, and preparation rhythms.
There’s also the mental side: training your head for the discomfort, the fatigue, the moment when things don’t go your way. I’ve said before that learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable is core offshore.
Finally, don’t leave preparation to chance. As an example: we logged thousands of miles on our transatlantic run before the big event so that we could test systems, shake down foils, and adjust sail plans. You need time for testing, failures, and recovery, not just sailing fast.
So: think long-term, refine the little things, build the right team, train the mindset, and test early and often. That’s how you turn preparation from a checkbox into a competitive edge.
Now you’re leading US Sailing. What’s your vision for the future?
I want US Sailing to be something people want to belong to again. We need to be real about where we are, but also proud of what’s ahead. This sport has given me everything, and now it’s time to give back. We’re trying to create a movement here.
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