Born for the Race

The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race began the year I was born and somehow, it feels like fate.

The Clipper Race and I share a milestone: 1996.

The year I took my first breath is the same year the first Clipper crews pushed off into the unknown, powered by grit, curiosity, and the belief that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

I didn’t grow up dreaming of ocean crossings. But looking back, it’s hard not to see the parallels. We were both quietly building toward something bigger — slowly, steadily, and with a whole lot of heart.

Now, nearly three decades later, I’m stepping into a journey that feels like it’s been waiting for me all along. I’m officially a crew member on Leg 7: Americas Coast-to-Coast of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race.

This is the longest and one of the most diverse legs of the entire circumnavigation. We’ll leave the West Coast of North America, sail thousands of miles down to the Panama Canal, a feat of engineering that reshaped world trade and still anchors the global supply chain today, and then ride warm trade winds up the East Coast. It’s a vast, unpredictable stretch of ocean — beautiful one day, humbling the next.

It’s a leg that rewards persistence more than speed.
Perfect for a Snailor.

Slow & Steady, in Life and at Sea

“Slow and steady wins the race” isn’t about pace to me, it’s about intention. It’s about choosing to navigate life with curiosity, care, and a willingness to grow into the challenges ahead.

A lot of that began with my Uncle Tim, the person who first taught me how to sail. My earliest memories on the water are with him — days where the wind was light, the water was calm, and he’d remind me over and over that “slow is smooth, and smooth is fast”. He said it with the kind of patient certainty only seasoned sailors have, the kind that sinks in long before you understand it.

Back then, it was just a phrase we tossed around while trimming sails or working through a tack. But over time it evolved into something much bigger for me. My mantra, my mindset, and eventually my identity as The Snail Sailor. Slow and smooth became slow and steady, and slow and steady became how I approach nearly everything: work, growth, sailing, goals, and now this next big leap across the Americas.

Sailing Leg 7 will mean long, hot days, light winds that test your patience, tactical decisions that matter in the tiniest degrees, and the quiet confidence to keep going when progress feels invisible. That’s the philosophy Tim gave me: steady effort, thoughtful action, forward motion, no matter how small. And it’s exactly what will carry me through this journey.

Owning the Journey

One of the things I love most about my professional world and the sailing world is the idea of an ownership mindset. On a Clipper yacht, everyone is responsible for something: a line, a sail, a watch, a task that keeps the whole crew moving. Your contribution matters. Your attitude matters. Your growth matters.

It mirrors the way I try to approach both leadership and life:

• Show up.
• Be your authentic self.
• Do your part well.
• Leave things better than you found them.
• Be bold enough to try, humble enough to learn, and steady enough to keep going.

Leg 7 is full of unknowns. That’s exactly why I want to do it. Because sometimes the most meaningful growth comes when you stand at the edge of something that scares you a little and you choose to say yes anyway.

Full-Circle in the Best Way

So here I am: a 1996 baby sailing a 1996 legacy.
A slow-and-steady Snailor stepping into a challenge that demands exactly that.
A woman ready to take on thousands of miles of coastline, and open water, not for ease or glory, but because something in her knows this is where she’s meant to be.

Leg 7 won’t take me across an ocean, but it will take me through thousands of miles of challenge and beauty from the Pacific Coast, through the Panama Canal, and up the Atlantic seaboard. It’s a coastline-to-coastline adventure that feels like it was meant to find me.

This journey is personal, transformative, and a little bit poetic.
And I’d love for you to follow along as it unfolds — every mile, every lesson, every slow-and-steady step forward.

The Clipper Race and I grew up in parallel.
Now, nearly three decades later, our paths finally meet.
And this time, I get to bring you with me.