60 SECOND INTERVEW
with
SCOT TEMPESTA
NOYC.ORG – I recently had a chance to sit down and talk…I mean listen with Scot Tempesta of sailinganarchy.com. for those of you who don’t know Scot, he has a huge internet based following and is quickly becoming the “Virtual Commodore” of the world wide web. He is the “Matt Drudge” of America’s Cup scoop and reader appointed “PHRF Rating Czar” of the United States of America. Here’s how it went:
NOYC.org: At what age did you start sailing, how did you get involved in this sport and what type of work have you done in the sailboat industry?
ANARCHIST: I started sailing when I was about 10 or so in Oxnard California. As we were fond of saying, since no one really knows where Oxnard is, you can find Oxnard in the dictionary between nerds and puke. My family had a Mercury 18, and then we bought a Yankee Dolphin 24 that came with a Sabot. Since I got a bit seasick, my Dad taught me how to sail the Sabot by myself, but that, like everything else with me as a kid, it was a disaster in the beginning. My first solo sail in the Sabot was a nightmare because I reached out the harbor, then when I came back, the wind shifted and I couldn’t figure out how to go upwind, which is where our slip was. I drifted around and finally sculled to a dock and walked back to my parent’s boat. When my Dad saw me, boy was he pissed! “What do you mean you couldn’t sail it back?” He yelled. He marched me up, we hopped in the TransAm (1967, gold 400. Very cool car, but not so cool at that moment) we drove to where I left the Sabot, we hopped in the boat, and he showed me what to do. Once I got it, it was Katie bar the freakin door! I had the bug and good.
I came to San Diego to attend San Diego State, and also got into the big boat scene. I was selling sails part time for Gary Swenson’s loft and Sobstad noticed that I was doing a pretty decent job, so they made me a great offer and just like that I was the big boat salesman at Mark Reynold’s loft! Wow, I really felt that I had made the big time. At the time, 1984 or so, Sobstad was really the up and coming loft and I was the up and coming guy in San Diego. I had a great 10 year run there – sold a lot of sails, really and truly kicked the crap out of North in their own back yard and won a ton of races in virtually every type of boat you could imagine. It was an unbelievably great time – I was making good money, hookin up w/ lot’s of girls, selling some of the greatest sails ever built, and just kicking ass on the racecourse. And partying like a motherfreaker. A great time to be young, white and yachting.
NOYC.org: Is their any one person that comes to mind that helped mentor you along the way to make you a better sailor?
ANARCHIST: Without a doubt it was Gary Swenson. This guy is in my estimation, one of the greatest natural sailors in the world, easily on par with the likes of Conner, Melges and Kostecki. Back when we were young, Gary won the Laser Districts in Ventura against people like Mark Reynolds and other great small boat sailors of the time with 5 bullets! There were about 4 of us who all sort of grew up sailing in Oxnard. Again, a great time, no real structure – certainly nothing like the kids have today in their sailing programs – but we learned and taught ourselves how to get better. Plus our parents all had Cal 29’s and Ranger 26’s and 29’s and we were skippering them when we were like 16 years old. That kind of experience really enabled me to be a very good skipper in my own right down the road.
NOYC.org: Your obviously an established sailor, what do you consider to be your biggest racing accomplishment?
ANARCHIST: It’s difficult to say because most of what I did as a sailor was tied to supporting the Sobstad sails that I had sold. I suppose I’m most proud of putting together and skippering winning efforts in almost every project that I was involved in. From MORC boats to IOR boats to big IMS and PHRF boats, I was the key ingredient to these boats winning. I literally have spent almost my entire racing life in San Diego for the last 15 years, and I have established myself as one of the best big boat sailors here. To me, that has been very satisfying. From an individual skippering perspective, probably winning the Lipton Cup for SDYC or winning the Schock 35 Nationals were the biggest accomplishments.
NOYC.org: Do you belong to a yacht club?
ANARCHIST: I’m a member of San Diego Yacht Club, and have been since 1984.
NOYC.org: Would you accept a honorary membership at New Orleans Yacht Club?
ANARCHIST: Yes, I’d be honored to be honored by NOYC!
NOYC.org: When, how & why did you start SailingAnarchy?
ANARCHIST: I started it about 9 months ago with my original partner who has proven to be a complete @#$%bag and is now no longer a part of the site. Why I started it was because I was seeing way too much bull@#$% going on in this sport – cheating, manipulating, softball journalism, a lack of honesty, no alternative voice, etc. I was and still am really pissed off that much of the b.s. was coming from the so-called leaders of the sport. I just felt it was time for somebody to stand up and yell “Bull@#$*.” I believe I have achieved that. The other thing we wanted to do was to provide good interviews, some useful information on occasion, and I was really thinking that a forum, if presented right, could really take off, and ours clearly has.
NOYC.org: How much time do you spend working on the site?
ANARCHIST: It varies, but probably ten to twenty hours a week. Sometimes more. It really is a labor of love.
NOYC.org: How many hits a week does your site get?
ANARCHIST: This month we are on pace to, amazingly enough, get 500,000 hits. To me that is just freakin incredible. We’re obviously on to something here. We’ll see how long it takes someone to rip us off!
NOYC.org: It’s no doubt that you have the best web site sailing “forum” in the country as far as intelligent posters, but just lately, it is starting to slide to some very immature jerks, what can we do about these 13 year olds?
ANARCHIST: One reason why the forum is so good is because we don’t have any rules, or at least damn few. Sailing World’s is so lame in part because Burnham is always busting people for things like swearing. Jesus, what are we, ten year olds? Nobody wants to go to a forum where some thought cop is lurking near by. At least I don’t, and that’s why I established ours the way I did. But when you do open it up like we have, you’ll also get some nonsense flying about and we do have a bit of that right now. I don’t worry about it too much – stuff like that tends to simply die out. What is funny is that my ex-partner posts all the time at the SW forum. In fact Burnham referred to him as their number one poster! It’s pitiful and it also makes me happy.
NOYC.org: Is their any way that you can make a buck off of this web site?
ANARCHIST: That’s the ultimate challenge, isn’t it? The internet audience is not yet ready for subscription-based sites, in my opinion – although clearly the days of getting free stuff – good stuff – on the internet are coming to an end. That would leave advertising then as the only other viable way to make money. Now here’s the rub: since we are controversial, advertisers are reluctant to join us, although we’re close on a couple. Larry Leonard, for example, who is the founder of Quantum Sails, wants to advertise with us, but some of his partners do not. But you know, Howard Stern doesn’t have any problem attracting advertisers, so I think we can do it. Of course advertising, and in particular, on-line advertising is way off given the current economical times, so it is an uphill battle, but I truly believe that we will land advertisers. We’re just getting too much attention and the quality of most of our stuff is very good for advertisers with half a brain not to see that. Besides, we’re cheap! We’ve not tried too hard to land advertisers at this point because we’ve wanted to make the product good first. Again, I think we’ve done that.
NOYC.org: If you can’t get advertisers, do you think you’ll get tired of it and let the site go to the dot.com.bomb grave yard?
ANARCHIST: As long as people like our site and as long as I think there is still something to say, I’ll keep going. But yes, if at some point it is clear that we can’t make enough money to at least cover expenses, I’ll most likely pull the plug.
NOYC.org: I figured that since you aren’t pulling down any dough from this gig that you were just a rich trust fund kid that had plenty of time on his hands. What do you do for a living to pay the bills?
ANARCHIST: I work in radio. I produce and co-host a daily business show and I produce the evening drive-time show for the number one rated station in San Diego, KOGO. Plus my wife owns a successful business, so we and our two young boys are doing fine. We have a wonderful home in Carlsbad, a boat at the club, and a web site where I am hated – what could be better?
NOYC.org: Who does Dennis Connor hate more… you…Ben Lexcen..or..Osama Bin Laden?
ANARCHIST: You know, that freak has never said one word to me in the 15 years or so that I’ve raced against him. I’d say it’s me.
NOYC.org: It seems that people of color dominate just about every professional sport other than ice hockey and yacht racing, do you see them making any in-roads in these sports any time soon?
ANARCHIST: Negative. It’s a rich, white man’s sport. It’s kind of like golf or tennis. Outside of Tiger or the Williams sisters, you don’t see a lot of anything other than privileged white people participating. It’s not right, but many things involving race are not right.
NOYC.org: Is PHRF sailboat racing the best sport that you can think of for out of shape rich white folk?
ANARCHIST: Actually, no. Golf is better for these wankers. Keep ‘em off the water.
NOYC.org: If you were going to buy a set of racing sails(unlimited budget) for your Ranger 29 what brand would you buy and why?
ANARCHIST: Well, first of all I wouldn’t buy racing sails for my Ranger 29! I did buy a nice Dacron main and 150% roller furling genoa, and those came from Ullman Ventura. For cruising sails, they are as nice as anything I’ve seen – great shape, perfect construction – just really nice sails. I am a big fan of the Quantum product. You won’t find people more dedicated to their craft than Larry Leonard and his staff. Obviously the North 3DL stuff is very trick, but I don’t completely buy into the hype. Really, I’d buy Quantum.
NOYC.org: Who do you think the top five skippers in this country are?
ANARCHIST: I think John Kostecki is the best, hands down. He’s won in every type of boat in every type of venue. And now look what he’s doing in the Volvo. Truly at the top of his game and at the top of the heap. Mark Reynolds would have to be in this group because of how he has so dominated the Star class over the last few years. Just remarkably consistent and focused. He’s like the Terminator – he can’t be stopped. Ken Read seems to be a guy who can marshall good efforts out of his various projects, although truthfully, he always seems to be on the best boat, the last AC excepted. And although he doesn’t really sail for a living, Bruce Nelson is about as good as you could hope to find. He’s smart, intense and has great ability. He can beat anybody. I think Paul Cayard would have to round out this group. He’s got good leadership, good skills and good experience.
NOYC.org: Who will win the next America’s Cup and why?
ANARCHIST: Prada will win this time. Why? Two words: Doug Peterson. He’s been the dominant designer in the AC since 1992. They were weak with DeAngelis and Grael last time, and I believe they’ve addressed that problem. The boat will be wicked fast, the preparation and crew will be near flawless. They won’t stumble like last time.
NOYC.org: What’s your dream boat?
ANARCHIST: From a racing perspective, there are so many incredible machines out there, it’s hard to say. For pure size and technology the big Wally’s are certainly impresive. The big R/P missiles like Morning Glory are just bitchin, the new Andrews TP 52’s here on the left coast are incredible, and the Thompson 35 looks like something that I would truly like to own – wicked fast, great size and affordable, relatively speaking
NOYC.org: How do we get more rich guys out of PHRF and into offshore one-design classes (ie OD-35, Farr 40, Mumm 30, J105 etc.)?
ANARCHIST: Keep the costs down for these new classes. Few want to spend a lot of money to get their butt kicked in a class that has just exposed how bad of a sailor they are. But really, x amount of people will never do it because they like the freedom to have a boat that is different, and there is nothing wrong with that. And the other problem is that x amount also don’t want to face the hard truth that one-design brings – they like a built in bulls%*# factor that handicap racing brings. It muddies the waters and some people like that.
NOYC.org: Can you commit to sailing 2002 Challenge cup for NOYC.
ANARCHIST: Sure, A good friend of mine in Atlanta owns a 2001 J-24 that I would like to enter in D class. This boat smokes, it’s at least 15-18 seconds per mile faster than the older J-24’s. {EDITOR: To this day, Scot has never raced in a NOYC regatta.}.
NOYC.org: Thanks for making time for noyc.org, any closing comments?
ANARCHIST: Thanks for noticing us, let alone wanting to interview us. Sailing Anarchy is going to continue to be a place that people hopefully will continue to hang out at and come for their daily dose of truth….or bullcrap…depends on the day! See y’all.
