Sailing Story: Donna Acquaro

Donna wouldn’t recommend how she learned to sail to any of the students she teaches now.

“I learned how to sail by myself,” she laughed. “I put the sails up within a couple weeks of buying [a sailboat in Connecticut] and just figured it out on my own. I bought some books and just tried to do it semi-cautiously.”

Donna was only 18 years old and now looking back, she realizes just how dangerous it was putting the sails up on her 19 foot O’Day in the unpredictable East Coast waters without any training. 

However, at the time, Donna found the experience peaceful— especially compared to the powerboating she grew up doing. 

“I loved sailing because it’s quiet. I don’t like noisy things,” she said. “There is an incredible feeling of freedom because you are just using nature to power you.” 

It wasn’t until many years later that Donna received her formal sailing training in the British Virgin Islands. From there, her sailing journey really took off.

“We started on small boats and then got bigger and bigger and bigger until we were on a catamaran,” she said. 

Once she mastered sailing even on large catamarans, her interest in teaching others how to sail grew. At the Annapolis Sailboat Show, she spoke to a woman who owned her own charter company. 

“If you do all these things on this list, I will hire you as a charter captain,” she remembered the woman telling her. Donna was in the midst of raising her children so it took her 10 years to complete the list— but she did it! 

“I went back to her, she was good to her word, and she hired me.” Donna said. 

Now, Donna teaches others how to sail with expert ASA instruction, so they don’t learn the hard way like she did. Donna has taught private courses to boat owners in Greece, Mexico, and all the way down the Caribbean island chain to Grenada.

“When somebody gets on board it’s like Christmas day with a little kid— their eyes get so big,” Donna said. “I find it very enjoyable to teach people.”

Donna is beginning the next chapter of her sailing story teaching ASA students in the Virgin Islands with Go Sail. For Donna, this next step in her sailing journey can be explained with the same message she tells her sailing students at the end of their first ASA sailing course:

“You gotta keep learning, this is not the end— this is just the beginning,” she said.