Hank Schmitt // Offshore Passage Opportunties
On the Wind Sailing
Andy Schell
4.8 • 593 Ratings
🗓️ 9 June 2015
⏱️ 89 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
#106. Hank and Andy go back several years, having continually bumped into each other in various landfalls around the US and Caribbean. Those of us who work in sailing full-time are few and far between, so it's a small world. Andy sat down with Hank in Bermuda during the ARC Europe stopover and chatted for almost an hour and a half! Hank talked about his career working on offshore oil rigs, how he got into racing as a teenager (and lived a sailing bums life in the 70s), & how he started OPO and the NARC Rally.
Towards the second half of the episode, Hank discusses candidly some scary stuff - the loss of a crew member in the NARC Rally in 2010, and the abandonment of the Alpha catamaran during an ill-fated delivery last January. It's an inspiring look at one of the biggest names in the American offshore cruising business.
Want to go ocean sailing with Andy? Book a berth Isbjorn, our Swan 48, at 59-north.com/offshore.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, this is Anna Winners, live from Sweden. |
| 0:02.8 | Welcome back to the 59 North Sailing podcast with your host, Andy Shell. |
| 0:07.1 | Enjoy the show. |
| 0:09.3 | Greetings, greetings. |
| 0:10.4 | Good morning, good afternoon. |
| 0:12.1 | I'm still recording from Copenhagen. |
| 0:14.1 | So if you've been following the show, you'll know that the last three episodes have all been, |
| 0:18.3 | the introductions have all been recorded in Copenhagen Airport. I'm on |
| 0:21.6 | my way to Stockholm, had an overnight flight, still tired, still delirious, still recording. |
| 0:26.9 | Anyway, this is episode number 106, and this is Hank Schmidt. I want to thank our sponsors, |
| 0:34.8 | Weems and Plath and Collegro Marine. Of course, 59 North, a promo code on the Weems-Path.com website. It gets you 30% off their entire catalog. And check out Collegomoran.com for all their synthetic rigging products. We're going to be rigging up East Bjorn with Coligo. And, of course, Arcturis is rigged up with it so I'm a huge fan and yeah I encourage |
| 0:55.8 | you all to check it out so thanks to Weems and Plath and Caligo for their continued support |
| 1:00.0 | of the podcast right number 106 is Hank Schmidt I've run into Hank many times over |
| 1:07.2 | the years there's not that many people that do this sailing thing full-time. |
| 1:11.7 | So it's a very small group of people you end up seeing in all the same places down the |
| 1:15.6 | Caribbean in Bermuda at the boat shows. But Hank and I have been meaning to do a podcast together |
| 1:22.0 | for some months now. Actually, Hank took Mia and I out to dinner in February, I guess it was, |
| 1:26.8 | or January. And we had started this conversation way back then then but this is the first time we've actually been in the same place at the same time with time enough to record it Hank spent the first half the episode talking about his sailing career how he got into it he has a really interesting story about being a sailing bum heading to Florida to do some races, working on the oil rigs in the |
| 1:44.7 | Gulf of Mexico and doing some really interesting stuff. Very non-traditional career path, |
| 1:51.5 | obviously. And of course, talks about starting OPO, his offshore passage opportunities. |
| 1:58.3 | Check that out at saleopo.com if you ever want to go |
| 2:01.1 | crewing with Hank on one of his trips. Technically Hank and I are competitors now I guess, |
... |
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