Since 2013
It started because summer ended.
Ten junior sailors, a dock in Mystic, and an unwillingness to stop sailing in September.
How we got here
Drag, scroll or use the arrows.
The fleet
Every boat here was given to the program. Not one was bought.
Who taught them
Volunteer coaches have always run this program. Some of them have gone on to skipper round-the-world winners and run America’s Cup teams. Two of them ended up at the same one.
Ben Bardwell
Guest coach aboard with the sportboat sailors in 2016.
A professional offshore sailor who has raced as a grinder for the United States SailGP Team and won the Transpac Barn Door Trophy twice.
Nikki Barnes
Visited the team in 2018 as an Olympic 470 hopeful.
The first US Coast Guard member to compete in the Olympics, sailing the women’s 470 at Tokyo 2020.
Cole Brauer
Coached the offshore team aboard Spitfire for the 2022 Newport Bermuda Race.
The first American woman to race solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world, finishing second in the 2023-24 Global Solo Challenge.
Tom Burnham
A MudRatz coach, cheered on by the team in 2017 as he reached the America’s Cup challenger finals with Artemis Racing.
Head coach of American Magic, the US America’s Cup challenger, after five America’s Cup campaigns and spells leading Artemis Racing and the United States SailGP Team.
Doug Clark
Coached the sportboat squad and the After Dark program across several seasons.
The year he coached the Ratz to the J/70 Youth Championships, he won the qualifying regatta himself.
Lara Dallman-Weiss
Ran a clinic for MudRatz youth sailors in 2018, then the Farr 40 North American champion.
A two-time US Olympic sailor: women’s 470 at Tokyo 2020 and mixed 470 at Paris 2024.
Charlie Enright
In 2016 he walked over while the kids were rigging and asked whether they had an open spot. He sailed with them that night as guest coach.
Skipper of 11th Hour Racing Team, which in 2023 became the first American team to win The Ocean Race in the event’s 50-year history.
Nick Ewenson
Coached the team, and was Assistant Sailing Director at New England Science & Sailing in Stonington, where MudRatz has long run its dinghy practices.
An ICSA Team Racing national champion with St. Mary’s College in 2004. He coached at College of Charleston and the University of Rhode Island, and is now Director of Race Programs at Sail Newport.
Sam Greenfield
An original MudRatz member who came back as a volunteer coach, including aboard at Block Island Race Week.
A two-time Volvo Ocean Race onboard reporter, with Dongfeng Race Team in 2014-15 and Turn the Tide on Plastic in 2017-18, and a sailing filmmaker.
Mike Hennessy
One of the coaches who got the offshore team to the start of the 2022 Newport Bermuda Race, alongside Cole Brauer and Sara Stone.
Owner-skipper of the Class40 Dragon out of Mystic. He won the solo leg of the 2021 Bermuda 1-2 first overall on elapsed time across every class, then won the return leg doublehanded with Cole Brauer, who captained Dragon for years before her solo circumnavigation.
Marty Kullman
Helped get the team started at the J/70 Midwinters in 2017, alongside Quantum Sails.
A professional sailmaker and the 2005 Melges 24 Corinthian World Champion, who went on to win the 2016-17 Quantum J/70 Winter Series.
In memoriam · 1954 – 2024
Ken Legler
Coached our sailors and taught our coaches for years. He gave a fourteen-year-old in a beaten-up 420 exactly the same attention he gave a national champion.
Head coach at Tufts for 43 years, where his teams won 20 national championships and he coached more than a thousand sailors, 86 of them All-Americans and four of them Olympians. He died in May 2024.
Joey Mello
Joined the coaching roster in 2017 alongside Doug Clark.
A 2013 Melges 20 world champion, sailing aboard Ninkasi, and a former University of Rhode Island sailing coach.
Sara Stone
Coached the offshore team through the run-up to the 2022 Newport Bermuda Race, one of the three coaches who got that crew to the starting line. She won the inaugural Bermuda Doublehanded Return Race the same year.
Team skipper for New York Yacht Club American Magic at the 2024 Puig Women’s America’s Cup, and the first female navigator to win the TP52 World Championship. She navigates for Quantum Racing on the TP52 Super Series, and has sailed for the US Sailing Team and the United States SailGP Team.
Taylor Walker
Prepared and coached the offshore team that won its class at the 2018 Newport Bermuda Race, alongside Neil “OJ” O’Connell, and was still coaching MudRatz Bermuda campaigns four years later. He first turns up in the archive in 2015, showing the 420 kids how it is done.
Mark Zagol
Coached the Opti sailors for years through the program’s cooperation with New England Science & Sailing. One MudRatz sailor called him the person he looked up to most in sailing, having been his Opti race coach for four straight years. Sailors he coached went on to race Optis for Team USA in Belgium.
Managing Director of Sailing and Operations at New England Science & Sailing, and US Sailing’s 2015 Outstanding Program Director. A 2023 Viper 640 Corinthian World Champion, 2021 Viper 640 North American Champion and 2013 505 North American Champion.
And the rest of the roster
Coaches who have run practices, driven safety boats and taught our sailors over the years.
- Alex Bowdler
- Brigette Croke
- Peter Cronin
- Jon Faudre
- Fritz Finkenauer
- Lily Flack
- Lindsay Gimple
- Jay Greenfield
- Patt Murphy
- Neil "OJ" O'Connell
- Lincoln White
- John Winder
Alongside dozens of local volunteer coaches, parents and former MudRatz who keep coming back. The team hashtag for it is #realprosgiveback. If we have missed you, tell us and we will put it right.
What we are proudest of
A world first on sustainability
Our dinghy race was the first junior sailing event anywhere to earn Platinum Clean Regattas certification, and it did it twice. The sailors ran the beach cleanup and wrote the letters, not the adults.
Kids actually in charge
On our boats junior sailors take the helm, call tactics and rotate through leadership roles. That is unusual in youth big-boat sailing, and it is the point.
An award for teaching
US Sailing's Captain Joe Prosser Award recognises excellence in sailing instruction. MudRatz received it as an organisation, which for an all-volunteer program is the one that counts.
Equal Opportunity
The second Melges 24 was named and funded to get young women skippering and holding leadership positions, not just filling a rail.
Sailors who kept going
Of the original ten, half were racing at collegiate level within five years and the rest were still sailing in high school.
Boats nobody could buy alone
Nine donated keelboats, from a Melges 24 to a Swan 48, all of them sailed by teenagers rather than sold off.
Keep it going
Every boat on this page was a gift.
We are currently looking for coach boats, Optis, 420s, and Offshore vessels to expand our fleet. Every donation directly supports the next generation of world-class sailors.
Sources for everything on this page
Drawn from published reporting and official results. If you spot something wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
- US Sailing, Association Award winners
- Sailors for the Sea, first youth regatta to achieve Platinum
- Newport Bermuda Race, 51st prize giving
- Scuttlebutt, Going where no program has gone before
- 11th Hour Racing, MudRatz lead on sustainability
- Marblehead to Halifax Ocean Race, 2019 results
- Scuttlebutt, Ida Lewis Distance Race 2022
- WindCheck Magazine, MudRatz coverage
- Newport Bermuda Race, Cole Brauer coached the MudRatz youth team
- US Sailing, Cole Brauer finishes the Global Solo Challenge
- The Ocean Race archive, Sam Greenfield
- US Sailing, Lara Dallman-Weiss
- 11th Hour Racing Team, Charlie Enright
- URI, Tom Burnham leads the US America's Cup challenger
- Tufts Athletics, on the passing of Ken Legler
- US Sailing, Eight Bells: Ken Legler
- MudRatz on Instagram, @ratzracing