President of the North Sails Group and one of the world\u2019s most decorated sailors, Ken Read has risen to the top of both business and sport, writes Mark ChisnellPhoto: Amory Ross \/ Puma Ocean Racing \/ Volvo Ocean RaceThere are many successful sailors and many more successful businessmen, but it\u2019s rare to find someone who has achieved great things in both spheres. Ken Read is one of them. Twice Rolex Yachtsman of the Year, a College Sailor of the Year, nine-time world champion, America\u2019s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race skipper, he has also risen to the top of his profession as President of the North Sails Group.
\nIt\u2019s been a long and storied career both on and off the water, driven by Read\u2019s self-confessed intensity. \u201cI remember the fundamental change in my life going from loving to win to hating to lose. And it\u2019s been a long time since I\u2019ve technically loved to win, but man, oh man, do I hate to lose. And that\u2019s in anything. That\u2019s in selling a jib to a guy down the street in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, or sailing in the Volvo [Ocean] Race. Everything in between.\u201d
\nIt\u2019s no surprise then that Read grew up in a family that took sport very seriously. His father, owner of a home delivery milk business, sailed and played ice hockey, while his mother was inducted into the Connecticut College Athletic Hall of Fame. \u201cMy mother was the competitive one. My mother was the athlete. She was the one during hockey games screaming in the audience to hustle,\u201d he told me.
\nSlow start
\nThe sailing started when the family bought a 30ft Pearson Wanderer and a Sunfish, and while Read didn\u2019t like sailing initially, his father kept him at it and he was soon deeply involved in the Barrington Yacht Club junior sailing programme close to his Rhode Island home. \u201cI read about all these 470 youth champions, and all these hotshot kids travelling the world. We just stayed in Narragansett Bay sailing against each other and did a series of youth regattas.\u201d
\nIt all changed when Read arrived at Boston University. \u201cThe real thing for sailors of my generation was college sailing\u2026 that\u2019s where you proved yourself, whether you had it or not. And, for me for sure, without college sailing, I wouldn\u2019t have a sailing career. That\u2019s where it all happened.\u201d
\nRead was a history major, and his original plan had been to go on and take a law degree but being selected three times All-American and awarded College Sailor of the Year changed all that.
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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u201cThe design office were told specifically by me that if this boat wasn\u2019t the worst rated boat in history they\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI got drafted by Shore Sails and Bill Shore\u2026 Bill Shore taught me how to leave 420s, how to leave little boats and how to get into big boats, and what running backstays do, and the little nuances in tuning. Bill and I sailed together. He crewed for me in J\/24s, and I crewed for him in Lightnings.
\n\u201cSo I think there were a few years that we never lost a regatta together\u2026 preparation, teamwork, putting a team together, being proactive, how to spread out duties. Bill was hugely influential when it came to that.\u201d
\nRead\u2019s competitive intensity extended to the business side as well and Shore Sails quickly proved to be too small for Read and his business partner Dan Neri (now CEO of North Sails Group).
\nRead at the helm of the J Class Hanuman. Photo: Carlo Borlenghi
\nRead and Neri licensed the Sobstad name in a period in the mid- to late-nineties when there was a long-running patent dispute between Sobstad and North Sails over their new 3DL sail manufacturing technology. It was finally settled in the autumn of 2001, but by then Read had already switched sides.
\n\u201cWhen our license [with Sobstad] was coming up [for renewal], that\u2019s when Tom Whidden showed up.\u201d Whidden is now CEO of North Technology Group but had been president of Sobstad Sails International before moving across to North. Whidden offered to buy their loft and employ Read and Neri.
\n\u201cBecause of the advent of 3DL you didn\u2019t have to be a brain surgeon to know that the industry was changing. We struck a deal really, really quickly with Tom. I believe that was 1996\u2026 been there in one form or fashion ever since.\u201d
\nCup calling
\nIt was just prior to this transition from Sobstad to North that Read got his invite to the America\u2019s Cup. It had been an unavoidable part of his life, growing up in Rhode Island. \u201cWe were around 12Ms in the America\u2019s Cup our whole lives. So whether it was an ambition or not, it\u2019s really unclear, but it was constantly a part of your life, so it would be hard to imagine it wasn\u2019t at least some sort of subconscious ambition anyway.\u201d
\nDennis Conner wanted Read to steer his boat for the 2000 America\u2019s Cup in Auckland. They were both racing Etchells at the time, and Conner wanted some of Read\u2019s Sobstad sails. \u201cHe called me back and said, \u2018Now I really know I want you as my helmsman, because if you can win with these sails, which are the worst sails I\u2019ve ever seen in my life, then you can beat anybody.\u2019 So that was like, welcome to Dennis Conner really stroking your ego. Like, wow, that\u2019s harsh. Okay.\u201d
\nKen Read went on to do two America\u2019s Cups with Conner, the first of which was in 2000 and exceeded expectations, while the better funded and prepared second attempt in 2003 failed to live up to them. It caused Read to have a rethink.
\nKen Read has won more than 40 world and North American championships in a variety of classes. Photo: Carlo Borlenghi
\n\u201cI was tired after the 2003 Cup. I was tired of doing windward\/leewards. I was tired of these big programmes that I really didn\u2019t feel in charge of. I wanted to look myself in the mirror and be able to be self-critical of every good move, every bad move at the end of the day. And that\u2019s where those Volvo programmes came from.\u201d
\nAnd so Ken Read set out to run his own projects. He found the perfect partner in global sportswear brand Puma, and the perfect event in the Volvo Ocean Race. Puma became one of sailing\u2019s biggest and most innovative sponsors and together with Read they delivered two very successful Volvo Ocean Race campaigns in 2008\/9 (second overall) and 2011\/12 (third).
\n\u201cPuma was very influential [to me] on how they marketed, how they dealt with the public, how they tried to manage a new sport. I got to know the principals very, very well. So I would just sit there and pick their brains all the time, just watching. It was a great time. Any big campaign like that is something you\u2019ll never forget as long as you live. And as hard as it was at times, I wouldn\u2019t trade it for the world. It was spectacular sailing, spectacular camaraderie, adventure.\u201d
\nDown to business
\nThe two Cup campaigns and the two Volvo Ocean Race campaigns had been sabbaticals from North Sails, and when Read returned to the fold at the end of the 2011\/12 race, change was in the air. \u201cTerry Kohler [former owner of North Group] was moving on in years, and he and Tom [Whidden] were talking about selling.
\n\u201cThey came very close around 2008, at the beginning of both Puma campaigns. Of course, 2008 was no time to do anything. And then by the time I came back, Terry was in the process of getting serious again and soon thereafter along came Peter Dubens.\u201d
\nPeter Dubens\u2019s Oakley Capital invested into the North Group in 2014. \u201cBy the time that second Volvo was done, I was ready to take the business side more seriously and Tom was ready, and Peter Dubens was ready\u2026 it just kind of all fell together at the right time.\u201d
\nRead raced the 100ft supermaxi Comanche for her first owner, Jim Clark. Photo: Carlo Borlenghi
\nKen Read now sits atop the world\u2019s largest sailmaker as president. \u201cWe make 30,000 sails a year and have 2,000 people on the payroll now.\u201d He brought one rule across from his sailing to running the business. \u201cSurround yourself with the best people possible, and it\u2019s a silly expression, but make sure I\u2019m the dumbest person in the room.
\n\u201cUnderstand what your strengths and weaknesses are when you\u2019re doing anything. When you\u2019re on a sailboat, when you\u2019re managing a team, surround yourself with people who do other things far, far better than you do, and make sure that you listen and let them do their thing.\u201d
\nThe move into the top job hasn\u2019t stopped his sailing, although these days his rides are usually a little bigger than before \u2013 notably Jim Clark\u2019s J Class, Hanuman, and of course Clark\u2019s legendary Comanche, the 100ft maxi racing yacht.
\nBelow decks on Comanche \u2013 Ken Read knows the ins and outs of racing boats better than most. Photo: Carlo Borlenghi
\n\u201cWe met Jim in between the Volvo campaigns, and he had just put Hanuman in the water, and they were struggling to make J boat racing fun.\u201d Read and his Puma team were enlisted to help, and after a try-out weekend at the Candy Store Cup in Newport, they became an integral part of the team.
\nSuperyachts and sportsboats
\n\u201cBefore you know it, Jim wanted more of a sailing team and he decided to do this 100-footer. He wanted to break records. He wanted to do the Sydney Hobart\u2026 I actively tried to talk them out of it at the time because it\u2019s a crazy project. But in typical Clark fashion; do it, do it right, and the Comanche was the product\u00a0\u2013 such a phenomenal boat.\u201d
\nUnsurprisingly, Ken Read still has plenty of sailing to do. When I spoke to him, he was aboard a Jeanneau Sun Fast 3300, preparing to race the 160 miles from Fort Lauderdale to Key West with ex-America\u2019s Cup bow person Suzy Leech. The boat meets the criteria for the newly announced Mixed Two Person Offshore Keelboat class at the Olympics.
\n\u201cPart of my job is to go where the next trend is that you can help develop. I wouldn\u2019t say I\u2019m launching an Olympic effort for 2024. I\u2019m just thinking that, as leaders in the industry, it\u2019s up to us to look for trends and to help make them happen. This double-handed trend \u2013 especially in France and England \u2013 is going gangbusters right now for all the right reasons.
\nThe 2020 Fort Lauderdale to Key West Race saw Ken Read competing double-handed with Suzy Leech in the Jeanneau 3300 Alchemist. Photo: Billy Black
\n\u201cIn the few days I\u2019ve done on this little Jeanneau 3300, we\u2019ve had about as much fun as you can have sailboat racing. So it\u2019s time to help bolster it, especially if we can do it here in the United States.\u201d
\nKen Read won\u2019t be absent from the superyacht circuit either. \u201cI\u2019m going to sail with Tom Siebel\u2019s Svea for the foreseeable future so that\u2019ll be my J boat fix. The J Class is really starting to get cranked up again, which is great leading up to the world championship in New Zealand as a part of the America\u2019s Cup.
\n\u201cI think from a North Sails and a Southern Spars perspective, we are actively pushing for the more amateur-ish superyacht sailing to be fun and entertaining\u2026 allow different styles of boats to win, and just get people out there enjoying their boats, and not make it fully hyped up, pro programmes, because it\u2019ll go away if we do it that way. It will go away.\u201d
\nWhen the top man at the world\u2019s biggest sailmaker says we should dial back the intensity in our superyacht racing we should probably listen.
\nKen Read biography
\nBorn: June 24, 1961Nationality: United StatesMajor honours:
\nNine-time World Champion,
\nTwo-time United States Rolex Yachtsman of the Year (1985\/1994)
\nThree-time Collegiate All American (1981, 1982 and 1983)
\nWinner of the Everett B Morris Trophy as College Sailor of the Year (1982)
\nInducted into the Boston University Athletic Hall of Fame
\nCareer highlights and lowlights
\nHighlights
\n\u201cThe 1985 J\/24 World Championship in Japan. We had been the best in the J\/24 class for a while, but we were young, and didn\u2019t know how to win. And we finally learned how to win.
\n\u201cAnd I think finishing the first Volvo [Ocean Race] second after being a single boat, last-minute program against some big spenders and some big programs. What we accomplished there, bringing in the new sponsor into the sport, and having Puma turn around that same day and say we\u2019re going to do this [race] again.\u201d
\nLowlights
\n\u201cProbably under power from the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean heading towards Tristan da Cunha, trying to get diesel fuel off of a Russian ship in order to make it there because our mast had just fallen over the side in the first leg of a Volvo race, which we were probably one of the favourites in \u2013 that falls under the all-time low category, I would guess.
\n\u201cAnd another big low was certainly the 2003 America\u2019s Cup campaign, with lots of expectations \u2013 and after lots of success in 2000 \u2013 it just didn\u2019t pan out. Sometimes you get in a programme and what can go wrong will go wrong, and we just could never turn the corner and get our act together in that 2003 campaign. I think about that a lot, and how we could\u2019ve done things different.\u201d
\nFirst published in the April 2020 edition of Supersail World.
\nThe post Ken Read interview: The rise and rise of an all-American sailing hero appeared first on Yachting World.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President of the North Sails Group and one of the world\u2019s most decorated sailors, Ken Read has risen to the top of both business and sport, writes Mark ChisnellPhoto: Amory Ross \/ Puma Ocean Racing \/ Volvo Ocean RaceThere are … <\/p>\n