Shorewood Sisters Carry a Sailing Legacy

Even as Wisconsin weather forces their sailboats off Lake Michigan, Shorewood High School students Kate and Elizabeth Hayes hang onto their sailing lifestyle in any way possible. It involves adorning calculators and folders with sailing stickers, finding projects for their boats, analyzing YouTube sailing videos, talking strategy and reminiscing.

"Sailing for me is not so much a sport; it’s like a lifestyle," Kate said.

The sisters have recently become known by sailors around the country for their unusual talent and passion for sailing, and they take seriously their role in keeping sailing alive and healthy for the next generation as its popularity wanes among young people.

Kate, 16, and Elizabeth's, 14, role became clear after they took fifth place with two other young women at the National J30 Championship Sailing Regatta in Annapolis, Maryland in September. They were the only teenagers to compete.

Ahead of their arrival in Annapolis, word of the "wild card" team had already spread in forums and by conversations.

"We were like famous there," Kate said. "Everyone was so happy and interested because it's really rare to have two teenage girls who sail."

People became even more interested and in some cases less happy to see them after the girls unexpectedly took first place in the first race of the regatta with 20 boats competing.

"It gives me goose bumps still, to think about it," Elizabeth said. "A lot of them were professional sailors that I would have been honored to sit down and talk to, and we were competing against them, and winning." 

After the first race, things got harder as the girls weren't used to the current in the Chesapeake Bay, but they still came out with fifth place, a large trophy, and plentiful accolades from their older competitors.

"It took me a while to realize that they see their sport as something that they have to pass on and protect, and that’s pretty special to them," Kate said.

Preserving the sport and lifestyle of sailing is an issue the girls were already acutely aware of, as their father Nicholas Hayes authored the book Saving Sailing, which argues that people need to bring sailing back into the fabric of families rather than treating it like an individual sport.

Kate and Elizabeth said sailing has always been how their family bonds.

"Our family doesn’t have things like cable TV or brand new shiny cars," Elizabeth said. "It's like you center everything in your life around sailing, rather than making room for it in your life."

Kate added, "It’s written in our baby books, like, 'Oh, Kate went sailing when she was two weeks old.' For us, it’s always been second nature. I remember being weirded out by kids in kindergarten who didn’t know what sailing is."

Kate said she became passionate about sailing because of her family's influence.

"Before I did foredeck, it was my uncle who did it," she said. "I learned basically everything I know from my uncle. Yeah I took sailing lessons but every time I'm on foredeck I remember being that little kid who really wanted to be standing up there on the front of the boat like him. I ended up being that."

Both sisters plan to sail for the rest of their lives, and they hope to bring sailing to more youth to preserve the future of sailing.

Kate works at the Milwaukee Community Sailing Center, where she often teaches sailing lessons to underprivileged kids and offers boat rides to disabled people and others who wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to sail.

"It's something anyone can do and you can't get tired of it," Kate said. "Once I figure out the best way to put up that sail, now I gotta do it faster, or now I gotta do it soaking wet and falling off."

"This is making me so excited to sail again," Elizabeth said. "I can't wait to go work on my boat."