With Funding Issues Solved for Now, Navy's Offshore Team Is Back on Track

When last visited, the U.S. Naval Academy's varsity offshore sailing program was in limbo, having been raised to prominence by one academy superintendent, then nearly struck down by his successor.

By appearances, all is back on track, at least for now. The Navy's offshore team made the run down the Chesapeake from Annapolis to Solomons Island with three boats and three full crews last weekend to compete as scheduled in the Screwpile regatta.

The Midshipmen stayed in cabins at a nearby military recreation facility, where boat slips were cheaper. They fixed their own sandwiches, made their own beds and reached their own decisions on a crowded race course, sometimes to the dismay of head coach Jahn Tihansky.

When helmsman Thomas Oberdorf jammed the bow of the new, 30,000-pound sloop Defiance into a mob of hard-charging boats at the first turning mark of Race 4 on Monday, barely avoiding a crunching collision, Tihansky, watching from a support boat, all but covered his eyes.

"I've told you before, you can't slam the boat around like that," Tihansky fumed afterward. "The risk is not worth the reward."

"Sorry, sir," said Oberdorf, who proved less contrite once Tihansky was out of sight. A "firstie" who graduates next spring, he's bound for Marine pilot training if all goes well. "That's how we're supposed to operate," he said with a cocky grin, "fast and close."

The debate over whether offshore sail training has a place in the Navy curriculum reached a boiling point last spring when Tihansky and others, including Lt. Cmdr. Jay Cavalieri, who runs the academy's overall sailing program, voiced concern publicly over whether the offshore program would be funded at all.

Tihansky had an ambitious summer schedule planned for 82 students but no budget to prepare boats, arrange travel or pay entry fees for regattas. "We were on the verge of scrubbing it," he said, "but one day in mid-April, the money magically came through."

Offshore sailing appeared to slip through the cracks after a change at the top. When he was superintendent, Vice Adm. Rodney Rempt strongly supported it as a way to teach Midshipmen self-reliance, leadership and provide hands-on experience in navigation and the ways of the sea. He ordered 24 new 44-footers, including Defiance, to upgrade the academy's 300-boat sailing fleet and backed an aggressive schedule of events.

But Rempt's successor, Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler, made clear when he arrived last summer that he was more interested in getting his charges onto battleships and duty stations during summer deployments to learn the ways of the service in wartime.

When his budget came through in April, it brought no explanation or guarantee for the future, Tihansky said. But beneficiaries of the reprieve expressed gratitude anyway.

"We learn about navigation and seamanship in class," said Kait Bussell, who just finished her plebe year and was trimming headsails on Defiance at Solomons. "Here, you actually get to use it."