Introducing UK Sailmakers new podcast series, Lessons Learned, created to help sailors around the world up their games. For over a decade, our website’s How To section has provided instructional videos, photos, and documents on a broad array of sailing topics. With “Lessons Learned,” we’re taking our instructional chops to a higher level.
In Episode 32 of UK Sailmakers’ Lessons Learned, host Buttons Padin chats with Matt Gallagher, Rear Commodore of the Storm Trysail Club and chairman of the Intercollegiate Offshore Regatta (IOR) series, about the IOR’s role in developing future offshore keelboat sailors. STC is made up of approximately 1,100 offshore sailing enthusiasts, and one of the Club’s missions is to help young sailors transition from dinghies to offshore keelboats.
To accomplish this, for the past 25 years STC and Larchmont Yacht Club have co-hosted the Intercollegiate Offshore Regatta on Long Island Sound over Columbus Day Weekend. This year’s event, October 10-11, will host teams from 45 colleges and universities. The recently completed Great Lakes IOR (September 26-27) has been sailed since 2015, co-hosted by Chicago Yacht Club and Columbia Yacht Club with 18 teams. New this year is the Pacific Northwest IOR at Seattle Corinthian Yacht Club, November 14-15, with registrations still open.
Matt traces how the series started on Western Long Island Sound and how it has grown, and explains how the Storm Trysail Club and the independent Storm Trysail Foundation fund the IOR so students sail at no cost, made possible by generous boat owners and onboard owner’s reps focused on safety. He also gets into demand outpacing available boats, a new team selection process, the Callisto Cup series trophy, growing female participation, and plans to expand into more regions. Matt credits UK Sailmakers and a core group of volunteers for helping make the IOR what it is today.
Like and subscribe to the UK Sailmakers Spotify channel to be notified when more great content from our channel is uploaded. The Lessons Learned Podcast is also available for streaming on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music.
Thumbnail photo ⓒ Storm Trysail Club | Steve Cloutier.
10 Sept 2026
Lessons Learned with Apparent Winds
In Episode 31 of UK Sailmakers' Lessons Learned, host Buttons Padin catches up with Tripp Brower, executive director of Apparent Winds, aboard the 75 foot aluminum ketch Resilience in Mo'orea, French Polynesia, just in from Fakarava in the Tuamotus.Tripp explains how Apparent Winds grew from a planned two year circumnavigation into a 10 year expedition focused on collecting and sharing stories of community led environmental and cultural preservation, and on making "affordable science" possible by offering researchers low cost access to a capable sailing platform and accessible tools like a 6,000 meter drop camera. He traces the route from Maine to Grenada, across the Caribbean to Panama, out through French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga to New Zealand, and back north this season through the Marquesas and the Tuamotus, with relationship building as the foundation for the work.Tripp covers the partnership behind the 12.5 million square kilometre Moananui Sanctuary, a NOAA research charter in American Samoa this October focused on coral, and introduces the crew. He also gets into how the ketch rig is handled shorthanded, his passage making advice ("don't sink" and "leave the dock"), and what is next: a refit in Whangarei, New Zealand, and a separate Chile to Antarctica expedition.Like and subscribe to the UK Sailmakers Spotify channel to be notified when more great content from our channel is uploaded. The Lessons Learned Podcast is also available for streaming on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music.
28 Aug 2026
Lessons Learned at the 2026 Pacific Cup
In Episode 30 of UK Sailmakers’ Lessons Learned, host Buttons Padin talks with Brendan Huffman, co-owner of the UK Sailmakers Los Angeles loft, fresh off winning ORR 4, the Gosling's Rum Division, and the perpetual Carl Schumacher Award in the 2026 Pacific Cup aboard his refit Express 37, Dorado. He took the lead in the last 100 miles of an 11.5 day race.
Brendan walks through a stop-and-start two and a half year restoration, including major deck and rig updates, a cracked diesel tank that contaminated the bilge and water tank weeks before the start, and last-minute equipment changes.
He details his offshore sail plan using UK's X-Drive® laminates, why he left the J1 at home, and how a spinnaker net helped prevent headstay wraps while sailing deep in rolly trade wind conditions. He also explains why he chose a five-person crew, how they managed systems and navigation, and what's next for the boat.
Like and subscribe to the UK Sailmakers Spotify channel to be notified when more great content from our channel is uploaded. The Lessons Learned Podcast is also available for streaming on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music.
Who has been a guest on Lessons Learned
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Sharon Green
Butch Ulmer
Rodney Pimentel
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
963,657
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
3 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 43 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
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