Related Articles

Images

A Sailor, A Captain And A Coach

Robinson & Cole analyst finds lifetime of adventure on the seas

By DOUGLAS S. MALAN

Todd Berman of Robinson & Cole once led the life of a mercenary at sea.

But he was no pirate and was not fighting wars. He was a professional sailor hired by wealthy boat owners to skipper their vessels in races all over the world.

“When you’re a professional sailor, you live out of a duffel bag and travel from event to event,” Berman said. “It’s not much of a lifestyle for a family man.”

That’s why Berman, who is 47, hasn’t raced professionally in nearly 20 years, but the sailing skills he has acquired from a lifetime on the water remain in demand.

Now Berman is a highly sought after professional sailing coach. He is one of 12 instructors contracted through North Sails, a world-renowned sailmaker that offers training to people serious about learning how to sail.

This week, he’s taking vacation time to travel to the British Virgin Islands for several days of teaching. Earlier this month, he spent time in Croatia, too. The student is the same—a Russian real estate mogul who is determined to become a competent sailor.

“I’ve won and lost enough,” said Berman, who is a senior environmental analyst at Robinson & Cole. “My satisfaction comes from coaching.”

He usually teaches about a dozen sessions a year, some of them weekend seminars in the United States. But that doesn’t mean racing is out of Berman’s blood. Many of his teaching sessions occur on-board while students are racing their boats. Plus, Berman is on the board of governors of the Duck Island Yacht Club in Westbrook, which runs a local racing league from May to October.

“I still do a tremendous amount of sailboat racing,” Berman said. “It’s mainly local, non-professional racing with a close group of guys at Duck Island.”

Those are sprint races that usually run 90 minutes on Wednesday nights, and Berman’s team’s boat is known as the XLR8. Berman also raced this summer in the Chicago to Mackinac Boat Race, one of the longest fresh-water races in the world, which ends at Mackinac Island in Michigan.

Globetrotting

When he was in his 20s, Berman’s life was a whirlwind tour of the world. He worked for a sail company in Mystic and was known to be a skilled seaman. Boat owners paid him several hundred dollars per day to cut through the waters of Europe, Asia and the Caribbean in high-profile sailing events. He also raced sailboats throughout the U.S. In some races, the boats returned to the docks for the night, others required nights out at sea.

“That was always a huge benefit for me,” Berman said. “I didn’t get to see the world until I found sailboat racing.”

But the kicker, he noted, is that boat owners never earn money when their boat wins a race. “There is no purse,” he said. “It’s all about ego.”

Berman built a name for himself as part of the sailing team at Connecticut College in the early 1980s. That led to an invitation to try out for the national sailing team that competed in the 1988 Olympics, though the weight restrictions placed too much of a strain on Berman’s body. Instead, Berman was part of the team that won the 24-foot sailboat world championships in Japan in 1985.

Even after he settled in at Robinson & Cole in the early 1990s, he won North American championships in the 105-foot sailboat class in 1998 and 1999.

Berman also holds a U.S. Coast Guard Master Captain’s license for offshore waters for boats up to 100 tons, and he has worked as a sailboat deliveryman along the Atlantic Coast.

For Berman, one of the intriguing parts about sailing is the connection to his legal job. Berman uses his environmental management and policy background to assist clients and attorneys with environmental compliance and transactional issues as well as land use matters. Figuring out the complexities of navigating a sailboat with a crew is similar to solving environmental legal problems with a team of attorneys.

“We’re doing nothing but harnessing wind energy when we’re sailing,” he said. “It’s really wonderful from an environmental standpoint. The other component that I love is team-building. One of the top predictors of success is how the sailboat crew functions as a team.

“Winning sailboat races and providing good legal services require some of the same skills.”

And Berman said it’s easy to get involved in the boating activities without spending the thousands or millions of dollars some people fork out to own and race a boat. His group at the yacht club regularly invites people out during the racing season to help man the boat, even those with no sailing experience at all.

Berman gets a lot of enjoyment from sharing his knowledge of sailing, especially with eager students who want to learn how to sail.

“It’s just nice to give something back,” he said. “You’re helping people get better at something they’re really excited about doing.” •