Coaches

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Following a sabbatical racing transatlantic and a season of Caribbean regattas.

Kevin returned to career in food and drink as National Account Director. Running teams overseeing the UKs major multiple retailers. 

Marriage and a start up business brought him to Manhattan in 1998.  An 18 month stint with the leadership team of the BT Global Challenge – “The worlds toughest yacht race” in San Francisco and a move to Florida Kevin became the operations director for the largest commercial sailing school in the US. This is where Kevin developed the stay-aboard Caribbean leadership events for the MBA programs at Emory and Wharton universities. Other similar programs being run for the YPO, business consultants and major corporations.

As founding partner of Sailient Kevin now lives in Florida with his wife Clare and 2 daughters Abi & Milly.

Kevin keeps his finger on the yachting industry pulse as Sales Director for Hylas Yachts International. 

  Andy Cross brings a well rounded knowledge of sailing, team building and coaching to the Sailient team. With a background of teaching everything from youth sailing to offshore passagemaking and racing, his enthusiastic and passionate approach is as infectious as it is effective. 

After college in Oregon and then Florida, Andy earned a U.S. Coast Guard captain’s license and worked with Kevin as an instructor and manager at Offshore Sailing School for six years in Florida, the Bahamas, Caribbean and anywhere else they asked him to go. 

From there, Andy moved to the Pacific Northwest with his wife Jill and into a career as a writer and editor in the sailing industry. He and Jill bought a 1984 Grand Soleil 39 in Seattle in 2012 that they named Yahtzee and have been cruising, racing and raising a family aboard throughout the Pacific Northwest, Alaska and Mexico ever since. You can follow their adventures on Yahtzee by following the link below

Tyler grew up racing and cruising on Long Island Sound and southern New England. A desire for increasingly larger and more competitive yachts soon found Tyler crewing on the 80 Ft. maxi yacht Nirvana. He campaigned with Nirvana around the world racking up three trans-Atlantic and two trans-Pacific crossings and several “first to finish” results in several major ocean races. Tyler's passion for sharing his love of sailing lead to him being asked to develop a training and certification program for US SAILING, the governing body for the sport of sailing in the United States. Currently Tyler heads up the rigging division of a major yacht yard in New York Harbor. Tyler still races sailboats but is more likely to be found sailing his Baltic 42 sailboat with his wife and occasionally his three adult children throughout southern New England waters.

  Michelle has been ranked as high as 24th in the world for Women’s Sailing Match Racing. 
She graduated from Iowa State University with a double major in Political Science and International Studies but she decided to pursue a career in Sailing.  Michelle joined Offshore Sailing School and was heavily involved with Doris Colgate’s book, “Sailing: A Women’s Guide”.  

She has  spent several years selling new yachts , commissioning and delivering them. 

Michelle moved to Liberty Landing Marina as Dockmaster.  Promotion moved her to a corporate position  witin the parent company, Suntex Marinas. She now works developing new technology and training for operations and financial reporting. 

Michelle, her husband JP, and their dogs have lived aboard their Jeanneau 44 sailboat in New York Harbor for over 10 years.
  

Kevin is a sail racing coach for North Sails. His specialty is teaching with a soft touch. Sailing can be an exciting environment. His sail teaching style is to demonstrate things a couple of times and let students do it for themselves thereafter. He believes that "it’s not practice that makes perfect, it’s perfecting the practice that will bring you close".

 Kevin is also a Professor of Design Strategy at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His teaching and research focus is on designing cities for health and prosperity. Kevin’s university teaching style is to collaborate with students. Students learn by watching him struggle through the problem together with them. 

Michael first learned how to sail as a boy Sea Scout on the south coast of England. Growing-up he crewed for his father aboard their 1930’s vintage cruiser and then worked his way up through the ranks of weekend race crew.

His sailing ambitions and accompanying skills soon had him competing at the very highest level. in 1981, he gained a place in the British ‘Victory’ team preparing for the 1983 America’s Cup. For the following 18 months, he trained on Twelve Meter class sloops out of Nassau, Bahamas and Newport R.I.

In the early 2000’s and as a full time resident of the BVI Michael worked alongside Kevin as the Chief sailing instructor for Offshore Sailing School in the Caribbean. 

Michael works independently as a sailing consultant and coach and now considers the BVI very much his home waters.

Louise began sailing instruction in 1993 on the Moray Firth in Scotland, later at the Outward Bound in Malaysia and from 2005 alongside Kevin Wensley in Florida, the Bahamas and the West Indies. For her, the satisfaction of coaching students is to bring out their confidence and competence. 

She worked in the world of private yachts for the intervening years and acquired her RYA Yachtmaster Instructor, US Sailing Certified Instructor at Basic Keelboat, Cruising and Coastal Navigation, and MCA Master 3000. 

A vital tack was taken in 2015 to move with her family to New England.  She took time to return to college for a year to gain qualification in renewable energy and energy efficiency. 

 Mark came to sailing through scuba diving when a dive buddy invited him on a sailing dive trip to Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, where he now keeps his own sailing yacht. 

Mark has sailed and raced extensively for over 21 year, in the New York Harbor area, in Nyack NY, as well as Long Island Sound. Mark has played an important role in helping shape corporate programs with Kevin (Sailient Executive Partner) in the New York area.

He holds a US Coast Guard masters license and US Sailing Instructor certificates. Mark has cruised extensively in the Caribbean Windward and Leeward Islands. He has also cruised in the Great Lakes, the Chesapeake and French Polynesia. Mark does deliveries on the East Coast. He has been teaching sailing and navigation part time in the NY/NJ area for 12 years now. When not on the water he also works in Technical Theater, Managing the lighting, rigging and scenery for live theater productions in New York City. 

Mark now lives in New Jersey with his competetive ballroom dancing wife Arlene.

 Kat brings her love of sailing and unwavering positivism to SAILIENT. "Helping people to work  together to achieve something greater than the sum of the parts is hugely rewarding" . Kat has been part of the SAILIENT project team for over a decade.  She captains the schooner "Adirondack" for Classic Harbor Line, sailing in New York Harbor during the summer months.   In the winter she is an educator at the Liberty Science Center as a STEM Educator , delivering and creating science programming in alignment with NGSS standards  

 Kat has also been a facilitator for New York City Outward Bound Center, Adventure Associates, and InnerWork, among others.  Clients include J.P. Morgan Chase, Nickelodeon, and Yale School of Management.  She enjoys sailing places she’s never been before, favorites include Sea of Hebrides, Baltic Sea, and Gulf of Thailand.

She holds a USCG 100 ton Master License with a sailing endorsement and is a US Sailing Certified Instructor at Basic Keelboat, Cruising and Coastal Navigation levels.