Travis Carlisle

Hometown: Madison, Connecticut, United States of America

Since I was born, I’ve been in and around boats. Both my mom’s side and my dad’s side have been involved in the sailing community. At 14 my dad put me into a summer camp in Essex, Connecticut that had a racing team. I had been involved in sports all my life: soccer, football, baseball, lacrosse, and even squash.  So I figured I would have more fun if I was competing instead of just sitting in a boat all summer. After the summer was over I was hooked. I started doing clinics and even joined the sailing team at my high school. I didn’t make the team my freshman year so I all summer I practiced and went to as many regattas as possible to get myself prepared for the high school season. This was tough because I also had to do my football workouts as well seeing as I was on the football team. I ended up making the team my sophomore year and was a starter after the first day of practice. I started from that day and continued all the way through graduation. My biggest sailing accomplishment in high school was our qualification for team race qualifiers.  Although we never got to go because it was in Rhode Island and we couldn’t raise the money and half the team did not want to go.

 After I got accepted to Old Dominion I didn’t know if I was going to make their sailing team as a walk on and was ecstatic to hear that they would take me on the team. I ended up being the heavy air crew for our A divsion boat my freshman year after working hard every day at practice to ensure I could stay on the team.  By the second semester of my freshman year, my skipper left school and I ended up not sailing in too many big regattas after that. I had to put my nose to the grindstone and work hard to get back to where I wanted to be. Over spring break I dislocated my shoulder and had to sit out three weeks of sailing rehabbing that. I came back towards the end of the season and got to skipper a regatta at ODU and finished second overall and first in my division. Sophomore year, Fall semester I didn’t finish a regatta less than 5th place. I ended up leaving school after the spring semester to go sailing to the Caribbean and then after that decided that I wanted to go back to competitive sailing because that’s what I really want to do.

I heard about Oakcliff through some of my friends at ODU and my dad told me about the sapling program.  I knew that Oakcliff was a very well put together sailing program and has some of the best coaches and sailors in the US there. I am very excited to have been selected to this program and will be one of the most dedicated students at the program. My end goal will is to be one of the best.