Age, Experience and Enthusiasm

Santa Cruz’ Ernie Rideout has added another Santana 22 National Championship to his lengthy sailing resume — 79 years lengthy to be exact. That’s 79 years of sailing mind you, because when Rideout took a comfortable 11-point win in Santa Cruz on July 27, he was actually 90 years old.

While we were in Hawaii meeting arrivials in Kaneohe and Hanalei, Rideout and crew Ray Pingree and Phil Worthen on Maybe were tearing through the 19-boat fleet with a scoreline of two thirds and three bullets. Talking with Rideout, you’d never know just how much success he’s had in that nearly eighty years of sailing because he’s not really the toot-your-own-horn kind of guy, as far as we can tell. Earlier this year he told us about his motivation to keep sailing: "It keeps us young and occasionally we can say, ‘old guys rule.’"

We can’t think of a better reason than that.