Over 50 Years of our family giving you more of what you go to sailing school for!SM
Our Instructors scored 3.98 out of 4 for 2023 + 2024 (ytd) in the ASA Student Survey! More below…
If we had to choose only one great attribute for a sailing school, we’d go with the pros. We have arguably the best boats, program and locations, but it still takes a great instructor to bring it all together and make you a sailor. This is super important to your progression in a sailing club, too! They’re the ‘tangible’ intangibles – and here are their traits:
- Patience. There’s a lot of repetition in sailing instruction…
- Purpose. They teach because they enjoy it.
- Professionalism. They balance careers, lifestyles, and credentials.
Allow us to introduce a few of the Crew… our most prolific instructors in recent years!
Our Director & ‘Dockmaster,’ Stephen Glenn Card (blue shirt), supervising some heavy-weather steering. Aboard our Pearson 10M in 25 + knots during a Start Bareboating course (ASA 104).
Steve’s ASA Survey results for 2022: 3.92 out of 4! (And our school scored 3.84 overall.) This means that confidential survey responses from students who answered American Sailing Association’s course surveys scored him (and the school) very close to perfect or “excellent” on average, with many perfect 4’s and nothing less than 3.5 or “very good.” 22 completed surveys for a small ’boutique’ school such as ours says it all. Update: For 2023 + 1st Q ’24? 3.94. Here’s the background that led to this boastable stat:
- Extensive racing experience on sailing dinghies and keelboats
- Lifelong cruiser
- Holds US Coast Guard Masters License
- ASA Certified Instructor through 205 + 214 levels (Basic – Bareboat, Cruising Catamaran, and Coastal Navigation)
- Author of two textbooks: learn-to-sail (101), and coastal navigation (105)
- Certified Snowboard Instructor (PSIA/AASI Level I)
- Graduate of SUNY College at Purchase (BA, Political Science/Economics); High School of Music & Art (Regents Diploma)
Also known as head muckety-muck or HBIC (Head Bozo in Charge), Steve is the founder and owner of the school. He followed in the footsteps of his father, Glenn F. Card, Jr. (who was also a licensed Captain), starting his own school 11 years after Glenn sold his. Steve has a passion for taking newbies and making them skippers – and then taking them to the next level to pursue chartering and/or boat ownership, or even racing.
Steve used to be a very active racer, competing mostly in smaller one-design dinghies and keelboats ranging from Lasers to Solings. He now favors chillaxin on performance cruisers, as well as traditional designs like Ensigns and Folkboats, locally and abroad. His book on Coastal Navigation, Navigation for Numbskulls, got past the first round of consideration for publishing at a major house and is used for our Coastal Navigation course as well as offered for sale to the public. Feeling the need for a better learn-to-sail textbook, he resurrected and mostly re-wrote the one his father authored in the 1970’s with updated illustrations. He writes our eNewsletter, Tidings, including educational and informative articles, and for better or worse, constructed and wrote the content of newyorksailing.club (the cyber place you’re visiting right now!).
Update! Steve got back into dinghy racing in 2023. He resurrected his Laser sailing, but also jumped into the Vanguard 15 class and later, the venerable Sunfish.
His favorite activity when not sailing? Snowboarding! Steve started this late in life after an adulthood of not skiing (let’s not count birthday candles here). He became an instructor after essentially one season of snowboarding experience. A main motivation for this was instructional cross training for the benefit of the Sailing Center, especially for the extra experience teaching kids as young as 7 as well as tweens, teens and adults of all ages. It was time well spent!
- Grew up sailing and racing dinghies in Latin America
- Resumed sailing on keelboats in the US
- ASA Instructor through Bareboat 104; student-certified through Advanced Coastal Cruising 106
- Extensive time daysailing through coastal passages on East Coast
- Director of Sailing at a non-profit that teaches kids how to build small boats and, then… sail them!
JP, for short, is seen above with his partner (she’s helming), doing what he loves most – chilling out on the water and enjoying that special twilight time.
To get back into sailing in the US, he took a 2-day course at one of the schools operating on the Hudson River and NY Harbor. It sucked. So, he came to us with his wife and they started from scratch to do it right. That gave him unparalleled perspective on how students learn in a sailing school setting.
Now, JP has advanced his sailing skills to an impressive degree, often going out in near-gales and also able to finesse a boat out and back in zephyrs. And, due to his natural inclination to teach and explain, we invited him to start the process of becoming an instructor. He has. And, he’s been our most prolific instructor besides our Director in the last few seasons. And… he’s getting gushing unsolicited reviews from his students.
- extensive small boat racing experience on the Eastern Seaboard
- Routine racing and coastal passages in Europe
- multiple boat ownerships
- ASA Certified Instructor, 201 level
- Captain, US Army (Retired)
- Credit Analyst, CitiGroup
Chip grew up bopping around on and racing our Western Long Island Sound waters on sailing dinghies ranging from Blue Jays to Lightnings (including the highly competitive development class 505 dingy). He moved on to venerable one-design keelboats including 110’s and Stars. He became more of a cruiser later in life and owned a Hughes 38 for awhile before simplifying to a J-24. He threw himself into sailing instruction as his well-earned fun career, and has distinguished himself with his entertaining and uber-patient nature, garnishing an impressive amount of unsolicited positive reviews.
As well as sailing, Chip loves to ski, mostly in Europe, where he has an extensive network of friends. He races each winter in the south of France, and crews on North Sea and English Channel passages (in which vicinity he was a volunteer member of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution). He used to be into surfing big-time on the Outer Banks and in Puerto Rico. Now if Steve can just get Chip on a snowboard…
- Lifelong cruising sailor
- Diverse racing background
- Holds USCG Masters License
- ASA Certified Instructor (201)
- Maritime writer & editor
Betsy started sailing as a 13-year-old in Marblehead, Massachusetts—and hasn’t stopped since. She has cruised the East Coast from Newfoundland to the Caribbean, participated in offshore and round-the-buoys racing, and has been teaching sailing professionally since the late 1980s. We’ve been blessed to have Betsy teaching with us for most of the school’s existence. She takes sailing, and your learning, seriously and gets you to your goal with a smile on your face.
When she is not on a boat, she is in front of her computer, continuing her career as an award-winning maritime writer and editor. She was editor in chief of Offshore Magazine, and her freelance articles and photographs have appeared in many publications including Sail, Sailing, Soundings, Voyaging, Workboat and Professional Mariner.
- on again/off again boat owner
- Regular cruiser here and abroad; occasional racer
- holds US Coast Guard OUPV license
- ASA Certified Instructor (201)
- school psychologist & child development specialist
John has been helping us make sailors out of you for quite awhile. Effusively friendly, yet laid back, John sets his newbies at ease instantly, enabling them to focus on learning and having fun. John teaches sailing for the fun of it, but also enjoys biking, travel, and is active in a band at local venues. He conducts anti-violence workshops here and abroad, and is involved with a clean drinking-water initiative in Bolivia. No wonder John isn’t available to teach with us as often as we’d like!
- Extensive racing experience on sailing dinghies and keelboats
- Delivery skipper
- Enjoys kicking back and chilling on sailboats as much as the next sailor
- Holds a high level US Coast Guard Masters License
- High-level ASA Instructor and one level of US Sailing Instructor Certification
The fellow steering in this race prefers more privacy than many people on the internet – and who can blame him? He started out at a sailing school not much different than ours, fell in love with it, and basically threw himself into it. He’s been a full-time mariner for decades now. He holds a USCG 500GT Master license, and also is highly credentialed through ASA as an instructor (can run instructor clinics). He can be found on anything from a “frostbite” sailing dinghy to a serious offshore sailing yacht in true blue water on long distance deliveries and races.
Thinking of becoming an instructor yourself?
We host ASA Instructor Qualification Clinics at our City Island base. One of our own is an ASA Instructor Evaluator! Hit us up for more info, or check our blog/rant page for what’s on the current horizon.