Paul Exner

Master Sailor and sailing coach —

I love to guide sailors on their journey to sail anywhere.

Paul Exner

True confidence and self-reliance are central components of a sailor’s mindset — however, fostering these qualities takes decades of practice without a great coach.

Life-experiences and personal talents contribute to the way we sail — these factors are part of every decision a sailor makes. When we make a concerted effort to grow as a sailor, it’s not the skills we learn by themselves that help us grow, but how we’re guided to apply the fundamentals of sailing that develops our better sense of good decisions.

for sailing are the guiding-focus of our work together — I coach you to gain proficiency for the raw fundamentals of sailing, the same fundamentals practiced by all sailors.

Sailing is quite easy to learn, but to develop confidence in practicing this technical art takes decades.

I believe that every sailor practices their art somewhere on the spectrum of competency between beginner and expert.

Since 1975 I’ve helped thousands of sailors improve themselves along the spectral wavelength of sailing competency, from complete novice to round-the-world race winner.

By respecting your talents and work ethic, I’ll help you advance beyond what you imagined possible intellectually and physically in the sport of sailing.

Sailing is a deep art — it’s something no sailor can fully appreciate…

“We can become Master Sailors but we’ll never ‘master’ sailing.” Paul Exner

Paul Exner leads sail-training expeditions in the Hawaiian Islands aboard his SV Solstice, and coaches sailors virtually, or aboard their boat, helping them go anywhere by sail.

It’s debatable… but, in addition to being the most senior sailing instructor today actively teaching applied-sailing (full time), I’ve developed the most innovative and effective sail-training curricula available today, and I’ve been doing this since 1986.

But, I won’t productize and franchise my program like every other sailing school today. Instead, I’ve steadily improved my approach to coaching and center my work around the individual student’s development. The student becomes the beneficiary of my efforts, and that’s what education should be about — not the oligopoly structure of the sailing industry today.

I began developing my sailing education programs, and testing various coaching-paradigms when I studied at the University of Wisconsin - Madison in the late 1980’s. What I learned was how to create my own sail-training programs based on what I thought was interesting, not what students wanted which was mostly a certificate so they could go forth and sail badly. My sessions becamepopular not because they were “sexy,” students wanted to learn from me because they began to realize there was actually a lot to learn. My instruction colleagues never had the same passion I had for teaching sailing so they didn’t bother learning from me; instead, my students became better instructors than my old colleagues.

Rather than “package” my courses and proliferate their outline for profit, I’ve worked hard to improve myself as a coach, and know that small groups of students or one-on-one coaching is the best paradigm for helping a sailor improve and acheive their goals — basically, I do what I do because it’s the best way.

Paul Exner combines his sixth-sense for seamanship with his acumen for coaching — tapping decades of yachting experience to create actionable plans for boat owners; he shares his analytic experience about all-things oceanographic and teaches how to use “seamanship” as a managerial art in practice.

“Seamanship scenarios are learning opportunities” says Exner: “Each event we negotiate at sea is approached with fresh eyes and absorbed experientially so the learned-material is gleaned from the front-line, as we live it!” This hands-on learning approach is always reinforced by Paul’s expert-level debrief.