Sailing Story: Charny Schwartz

Sailing Story: Charny Schwartz

Growing up Charny Schwartz would spend each summer with his aunt and uncle in the Chicago area.

“The first few years it was just playing on the beach,” he said. However, as he got older, his uncle roped him into his own weekend hobby— sailboat racing! At 12 years old, Charny joined his uncle for his first sailboat race.

For the first race, Charny described the experience as “more of a sit and watch and stay out of the way kind of thing.” Yet, it wasn’t long before Charny became a regular sailboat racer himself and even sailed in the most challenging of conditions. 

“The Great Lakes have their own weather system and people don’t realize they can have just as nasty squalls as the ocean,” he said. “It built my confidence because if you are going through a moderate or heavy storm it is frightening but afterwards you realize you made it through.”

As an adult, Charny left his sailboat racing days in the past and even now he says, “I have zero interest in racing anymore.”

That doesn’t mean Charny’s passion for sailing more broadly has dissipated though. Recently, Charny and his wife Melissa have been dreaming of buying a cruising sailboat. 

“We are hoping to buy [a sailboat] down in Florida because we aren’t looking to do any big passages. Probably for the first few years we would just be doing coastal cruising,” he said. 

However, there were two main obstacles the couple wanted to overcome before they pulled the trigger and bought a sailboat. For one, Charny and his wife were at odds on whether to buy a monohull or catamaran sailboat. Secondly, they weren’t quite sure how well Melissa would fare on a sailboat for longer trips. She had always suffered from motion sickness, whether on a boat or in a car or traveling on any other moving vessel!

“The lifestyle grew on her but we wanted to be able to get her out in a real world environment to see how it would go,” Charny explained. 

So they booked a weeklong liveaboard sailing vacation with Go Sail aboard a catamaran. They hoped to hone in on their sailing skills, see if Melissa could handle the motion sickness, and settle their monohull vs catamaran debate once and for all! The trip ended up meeting all three of their main goals. 

“I hadn’t sailed in a long time and it was my first time sailing on a catamaran,” Charny said. “The trip solidified that we wanted a catamaran so that was a great selling point [of the trip].” 

And as for Melissa’s seasickness? 

“She had a couple of very, very short instances of feeling sick but never really came down with seasickness,” Charny said. “She surprised herself with the motion sickness that she was able to be more active than she was anticipating.”

Charny said the trip itself only increased both of their passions for sailing. They gained confidence and knowledge in the ASA courses but they also were surprised at how quickly the team dynamics came together with the other sailors onboard.

“It was a great crew. It quickly turned into a team and almost a family environment,” Charny said. 

Charny said the only disappointment of their Virgin Islands sailing trip was that while Melissa didn’t get seasickness on the trip itself, she did get disembarkment syndrome for a week after they wrapped up their vacation. The only solution to that issue? They’ll just have to buy a sailboat and live on it forever!