Three days a week, the USF St. Petersburg sailing team sets out for practice on the bay from 3:30 p.m. until sundown.
On this particular evening, the wind pushes the waves against the hard seawall that borders the city. The waves bounce back out into the bay, making it a challenge for sailors to know where to position their boat in relation to the shifting wind and waves.
Coed sailing coach Tim King is having the team work on starting drills. Sailors in two-person dinghies work on rabbit starts—setting their boats up in an equal line to start a race. A boat soon falls out of line and trails behind another.
“You’re in a dirty breeze! Crack off and find a fresh lane!” King called out through his megaphone.
“What does dirty breeze mean?” asked freshman Sarah Smith, from the bow of King’s boat.
“You ever see an old movie with a station wagon driving down a dirt road, and the dust stays behind the car? Same thing when you’re sailing; there’s a rag coming off the sail … it’s very turbulent and when it hits your sail you’re going much slower,” he said.
Tim King is 26. He graduated USFSP in December 2009, but returned to his alma mater this semester to coach sailing.
He hasn’t had a day off since August; five-day workweeks and regattas (boat races) every weekend make for a busy season. In the wee hours of most Mondays, King is just returning back home from a weekend away with the sailing team, only to be back at USFSP at 9 a.m. the same morning. But this was expected.
“I knew exactly what I was getting myself into,” he said. “It wasn’t like walking into a dark room. I had an idea where the walls were, where the chairs were.”
The venue wasn’t the only familiar thing. When he was in high school at Plant High in Tampa, his coach was Allison Jolley, who is on her tenth season as USFSP women’s sailing coach. Jolley was pleased to learn that King would be coaching alongside her.
“He has the right balance with sailing expertise and the psychology of sailing. Even though he’s young, he’s mature for his chronological age,” Jolley said.
When the coed coach left mid-season spring semester, King and another contender worked with the sailing team to determine who would be the right fit.
“As soon as he came, it was unanimous,” Jolley said.
King is quick to pull his boat alongside team sailors during practice to carefully check out their technique, or to toss them a water bottle.
Every week, the team participates in a cardio workout lead by Brent Stephens, the Waterfront’s head instructor. Jolley and King always participate along with the team, doing lunges, push-ups and scissor kicks on the green behind Davis Hall.
Unlike other sports, age isn’t a factor for sailors. King and Jolley are still involved in competitive sailing — King is competing in the Western Hemisphere and Orient regatta in Buenos Aires, Argentina in November.
“It’s a lifestyle — you meet sailors that are 85,” said Abagail Featherstone, a senior sailor who qualified to compete in a single-handed sailing regatta in California the first weekend in November.
In college, King’s major was psychology. He thought he wanted to be an academic, but the window of his research office looked out to a windsock. When the windsock would pick up with the breeze, he could feel himself being pulled out of the office to go sailing.
