Erica Lush

Erica first opened her eyes to the lure of powerful oceans at age 8 when she read about a woman who competed in the OSTAR (a solo transatlantic race) in 1976.

Erica came from a strong dinghy sailing background, competing nationally in the club 420. She went on to skipper for Boston University's women's team. Erica graduated from BU with a degree in Linguistics and Arabic and went on to work for a cultural center in Boston, focusing on web design and advocating for Arab-American rights. At the same time she began sailing in the 12- Metre Class in Newport, eventually captaining the 12- Metre "Intrepid" throughout an extensive refit and then during 12 Metre Worlds. In 2019 she joined the famous Farr 58 "Maiden" on their World Tour, raising awareness for girls' education while also bringing women offshore to promote female sailors in the sport.  Erica has logged over 40,000 nm offshore over the last 6 years and has competed in several ocean races in the Caribbean circuit. Her favorite race was the Caribbean 600 where she was trimmer on board Maiden, placing 3rd out of  With her eyes now set on ocean racing, she hopes to combine her strong inshore racing background with her offshore experience to become a force in the ocean sailing world.

At Oakcliff she looks forward to honing her own skills, with an eye to competing in shorthanded events in the future. The Race Around sounds like a dream to her, but she hopes to start out with shorter races such as the Bermuda 1-2 or even the OSTAR. When she's not sailing or refitting boats she's honing her language skills in Arabic, Bengali or Spanish, and working on a documentary from a winter spent with a Leprosy village in India.