CALEB PAINE —
Latitude 38: Did the opening of the FAST USA Olympic training facility at Treasure Island Sailing Center have anything to do with you moving to the Bay Area? Caleb Paine: Yes it did. The main reason was that Bill Kreysler offered me a job after the Olympics. His company, Kreysler and Associates does massive fiberglass architecture. I actually did the façade on the San Francisco MOMA museum. So it was to work for him, and I wanted to continue sailing for the 2020
"The first time I was on a boat I was two weeks old." Games. I took time off and now I'm doing that, and helping wherever I can. 38: And what was your job with Kreysler? CP: I was a fabricator, basically helping with programming robots. 38: Now that you're back racing and training for the Olympics, how much of your time is spent in that other occupation, and how much is spent in your Page 92 •
Latitude 38
• July, 2018
LATITUDE / CHIRS
F
ollowing an upset in the rankings at the European Championship in March, 2016, it was then-unknown Caleb Paine, not 2008 silver medalist Zach Railey, who would be going to Rio in August. Paine, then 25 years old, came from behind to place 24th in the Finn, with Railey placing 29th. Going into the medal race at the 2016 Olympic Games, he was in fourth place with 74 points. Giles Scott of the UK was pretty much assured of the gold medal, but Paine knew he had a shot at the podium. He took the lead early in the final race and never let up, rounding each of the four marks in first place. His performance in that last race earned him a bronze medal, the first US medal in sailing at the Olympics since 2008 (Jean-Paul Creignou and Jennifer French won silver at the 2012 Paralympics, as did Rick Doerr, Brad Kendell and Hugh Freund in 2016). Caleb grew up in San Diego, but last year, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and joined Richmond Yacht Club, where he lives aboard his Nauticat 33. We caught up with him there in April.
Caleb Paine at Richmond Yacht Club. He also belongs to St. Francis, Mission Bay and Southwestern YCs (the latter two of which are in San Diego).
training and sailing? CP: 100% sailing. If you want to be the best in the world, you've got to give it everything you've got. 38: It's a full-time job and then some. CP: Absolutely. Basically, I got back from Europe last week, and I've been in training at the gym to stay fit, and going to start sailing here in the next week or two. So yeah, it's been full-time. 38: Here in the Bay Area, where do you keep your boat, and where do you sail? CP: Just right out here. Richmond Yacht Club. I sail right out here in the Circle. It's an awesome place to sail, as we all know. I've always thought it's kind of under-utilized. With athletes, especially on the Olympic team, there's a variety of conditions you get. You want light air? Just go out in the morning. Almost every day in the summertime you're going to get 18 knots, and you get the fluky stuff as well. People tend to focus on one general type of condition, when in reality, with the Olympic Games and all these events we sail, we get everything. You have to sail on the challenging stuff, on the breezy stuff. 38: Do you still have a home in San Diego as well? CP: My parents have a home there, so if I ever wanted to move back there… but no, basically I'm living on a boat now. It's good. 38: And you have your boat here in the yacht club?
CP: Yeah, good old F Dock. 38: What's the name of your boat? CP: The boat has a funny story. It's Lost and Found. A retired NYPD officer was cruising her down the coast, and he and his wife were going to travel to the Caribbean. She was off getting papers for the Panama Canal, and he was trying to meet her down there. When he was off the coast of Costa Rica, there was a storm. I think he got a little freaked out, something with the engine blew — he didn't know how to sail very well and called the Coast Guard in a panic, and the Coast Guard told him to leave. So, he jumps on a shipping freighter and abandons the boat. The boat then gets picked up by some Costa Rican fellas, and everything gets stripped out of it. They push it back into the ocean, where it floats for six months around the Pacific Ocean. It was then found about two miles off the coast of Honolulu, where the Harbor Patrol pulled it in and contacted the guy; the guy picked it up and then brought it to San Diego, where it sat for about six or seven years. I was fortunate enough to pick it up, and it's been a work in progress ever since. [Laughs] But it's a cool story. I named it the Lost and Found. 38: A true fixer-upper. CP: [Laughs] Oh yeah! In every sense of the word. But, it's got good bones, a Nauticat 33, so basically half an inch of fiberglass with no balsa core or anything, just solid fiberglass. It's built well. 38: So you had her in San Diego and you sailed her up the coast? CP: Actually, we trucked it up. We weren't sure what the deal was with it, so we were fortunate enough to just put it on the truck and bring it up here. It's great for a liveaboard. Everyone's like, "It's not a race boat!" I can race fast whenever I want, but I want to be as comfortable as possible, and it definitely gets me that. 38: Especially when you're over six feet tall… CP: Oh yeah. A pilothouse I can stand up in definitely adds to the practicality of it. 38: Going back to the beginning, how did you get involved with sailing and