Smooth sailing

Before she was an Olympian, Molly (O’Bryan) Vandemoer was a three-time All-American who led the Rainbow Wahine to the 2001 national championship.

"Sailing here, everyday, is so much better than anywhere else you’ve ever sailed," Vandemoer said back then.

It seems nothing has changed as Hawaii heads into the Sperry Top-Sider/ICSA Women’s National Championship this week at the Austin (Texas) Yacht Club on Lake Travis.

The remarkable life of former coach Charley Dole will be celebrated when Hawaii gets home. He died in March at age 97, still sailing almost to the end.

"He was a world-renowned sailor," says current coach Andy Johnson, who was on Dole’s first team. "You’d see history when you’d go to his house. He had trophies from championships in Havana before Castro. To have him as coach was … well, the best part of it was, he just enjoyed being around young people.

"He kept it happening and the program would not have survived without him."

Dole was inducted into the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association Hall of Fame in 1995.

Ted Livingston, the UH assistant athletic director who founded the program in 1969 and coached it the first decade, was inducted in 1982.

"Ted came to the (coed) national championships we won in 2004," recalls Johnson. "He died one or two years later. It was pretty cool to have him there. He just hung with us the whole time. He was right there. He got a chance to see something he created win the national championship, which was pretty cool."

Johnson, a hockey player from Minnesota who came here in 1980 in search of warm weather, will be inducted this year. He took over when Dole — his mentor and youngest son of James Dole, the "father" of Hawaii’s pineapple industry — retired from what he called "one of the two smartest things I ever did."

Johnson, 51, was recently honored as the sixth recipient of the Richard H. Lough Memorial Service Award, for "extraordinary service" to collegiate sailing within the Pacific Coast Collegiate Sailing Conference. He also won the Graham Hall Award, for "outstanding service by a college sailing professional." He is in his 23rd year as Hawaii’s coach, longest of any UH coach aside from volleyball’s Dave Shoji.

Like Shoji, Johnson had an annual salary of $5,000 early on. It is still small and he runs both the coed and women’s teams, which supplement his position as the school’s assistant director of Recreation Services.

His impact on sailing has always been full-time.

"We try to do our best to keep it like a family," he says. "It gives them something else beyond the academic side. We are close-knit. Over the years we’ve formed a good group of alumni. The last couple alumni regattas we didn’t have enough boats. If you’ve got a problem, somebody can help you out. I think we’ve turned out a lot of good people over the years."

Like Livingston and Dole before him, Johnson is the heart and soul of a unique program. Just listen to the Wahine, or look back at the progress made, including the two national championships.

Hawaii sailing is cut from a different cloth. While other coaches are often intense and bundled up for bad weather, Johnson always shows up with music blasting and flipflops flopping.

"We definitely take the spirit with us," says Bree Nidds, a junior from Lenoir, N.C.

He is relentlessly upbeat, at a Keehi practice or a huge regatta. His sailors have always spent lots of time off the water together. There are 25 on the roster, in a sport with more than 200 teams and zero scholarships.

"Andy sets the tone for our team," says Hanne Nagatani, a junior from Point Richmond, Calif. "I feel like it’s family, like I’m traveling with my sisters. With Andy, it’s like having another dad or uncle traveling around. There’s a lot of support for each other and from the sailing community, too."

Johnson found Nidds and Holly Nishiguchi, from Illinois, on campus. He convinced them to give the sport a try because they were the right size and appeared athletic.

"I’m like, ‘Hey, do you like the water? Are you a good athlete?’ " Johnson explains. "If you can get someone like that you can make them into a pretty good crew."

He has an eye for talent and has also shown an ability to convince "free spirits" attracted to sailing and Hawaii’s other unique attributes to come a very long way for no financial compensation. Johnson’s teams have qualified for more than 40 national championships and produced 24 All-Americans.

This is the Wahine’s 13th national appearance in 15 years. They were second to Stanford in their district and sail a semifinal Wednesday. Johnson believes they have what it takes to get to the two-day final, which features the country’s top 18 teams.

"Conditions could make things a lot easier for us," Johnson says. "Five to 15 knots would be good. The other day it was 25 knots. Maddie (Kennedy) and Lani (Johnson) are really fast in that, but it’s a little too much for Lindsay (Stewart) and Hanne."

Charley Dole’s Celebration of Life is June 9, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Waikiki Yacht Club. It follows the scattering of ashes off Waikiki at 9 a.m. Memorial contributions can be made to the University of Hawaii Foundation, for varsity sailing.