KENNEBUNKPORT — Charlotte Kinkade grew up spending many happy hours on the water, sailing first from the age of 6 with her mom and then with her fellow students every afternoon after school. These days, she dreams at least once a day about taking a break from the work world and spending all day sailing across the ocean blue.
While the 27-year-old Kennebunkport native doesn’t get to go sailing all the time, she’s grateful she found a job on the water at a Kennebunkport marina and gets to sail several times a week.
“Sailing’s my thing,” she said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “If I could do it everyday, I would.
With all that sailing time under her belt — it’s led the strong, independent woman to a recent sailing world championship.
Kinkade and five teammates cruised to first place for the all-women teams, winning the Jagger Women’s Trophy. The team, sponsored by Sea Bags, a Maine-based company that makes tote bags from recycled sails, earned 39th place overall out of 63 teams competing in the 2017 J/24 World Championship in Mississauga, Canada — the J/24 is a particular class of sailboats.
The J/24 championship consisted of 10 races over five days of racing, spanning from Sept. 15-23. Kinkade said it was a lot of work to be on a 24-foot boat, with six women, for two hours at a stretch — the average length of a race — usually two or three times a day.
The team has come a long way from when it formed about three years ago and came in dead last in their first race.
“We’ve been improving ever since,” Kinkade said.
Kinkade said she and another team member who she started sailing together about six years ago on a coed team came up with the idea for an all-women’s team.
“We wanted to encourage young women to sail,” she said.
“It’s pretty groovy to sail with six girls,” Kinkade said. “It’s a cool dynamic. There can be tense moments but we also have fun.”
For Kinkade, sailing takes up so much of her time that she compares it to a part-time job, though one she thoroughly enjoys.
She said she likes the physical aspect as sailing takes a lot of physical stamina.
“We do most of the maintenance,” she said. “You hop in a bikini and dive into the icy cold water.”
But, she said, sailing is a whole body experience.
“I think it’s a sport that’s not only physical, it’s also mental,” Kinkade said.
“You’re looking at sails, looking at the breeze,” she said. “You get to make tactical decisions, whether we should go left or go right.”
Another benefit of sailing is that she gets to travel the world. Kinkade said she’ll soon be competing in a race with a different team in Italy.
In addition, through sailing the world, “you get to see beauty,” she said.
Although she enjoys viewing the vistas afar, she loves the views in her home state.
“Sailing in Maine (you view) the beautiful rocky coastlines,” said Kinkade. “I don’t think there’s a better way to experience Maine than from the water.”
— Associate Editor Dina Mendros can be reached at 282-1535, ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.
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