About Us

Sacred Heart University has a competitive sailing team that competes in the Intercollegiate Sailing Association which is the national governing body for competitive sailing in college in the United States. What is unique about intercollegiate sailing is there is one conference for both club level, like Sacred Heart University, and varsity teams where all sailors have access to the top tier of competition. As such, the team is both open to, and caters to, experienced sailors looking to hone their craft in pursuit of leading the fleet, and those who have never sailed before, and want to learn in a fun environment while having the option to partake in elite competition.

Less than 8% of four-year colleges and universities in the US have competitive sailing teams. This equates to about 200 programs with approximately 40 of those in the New England Conference. Sacred Heart University enjoys an excellent reputation in the regional public and collegiate sailing community which bestows prestige and presents measurable recruiting opportunities.

Practices are Tuesday-Friday 4-6:30 with a minimum of 2 days per week required to be considered an active member of the team. The team competes on weekends  across New England during both the Fall semester(August-November), and Spring semester (March-May), as a member of NEISA. The program currently sails 18 z420 sailboats and 2 FJ sailboats, for which brand-new NorthSail Blue-Ribbon sails, covers, and cradles were acquired, and installed for the fall 2020 season.

Additionally the program has 5 powerboats ranging from a 13’ Boston Whaler to a 39’ trawler used for Race Committee, a 27’ custom design Keelboat that is raced by sailors year-round, classroom building, several storage sheds, wet and dry storage for 30 boats, and several coaches, one of whom is a paid, nationally ranked, professional sailor. The majority of the operational and capital support is provided by a private foundation and volunteer hours from coaches, former coaches and alumni. Volunteer hours can exceed 1000 per year.

The Sacred Heart University Sailing Team was founded in 2011 by the student leaders and Coach Dave White. Fairfield University joined the program as an equal partner with Sacred Heart sharing resources and expenses. In the 2012, the program director, Dave White, founded Sail Black Rock as an umbrella organization to direct the college teams and generate another avenue of revenue through Sail Black Rock Foundation. The daily operations of the team are run by the students, via a peer elected “Executive Board” that provides leadership to the team, which consists of a Commodore, Vice Commodore, Rear Commodore, and Team Captain. 

Interested in joining? Contact Assistant Coach Jon Huzil, at Jhuzil@optonline.net today.