Ken Read

Justin Chisholm (01:03) Ken Read, thanks for joining me on the Yacht Racing podcast today. There's so much exciting stuff going on in the sailboat racing world right now. I wanted to get your take on it. You have a pretty good view across the whole of the racing world in terms of sailing. Can we begin with the success of the IMOCA class? I guess in particular, the last Vendée Globe, which I was captivated by the match race at the front of that fleet. Were you watching as well? Ken Read (01:37) God, yeah. Those are the races that are so exciting that you're sad that it's over, right? It's, just so well done. And so just the boats are so immaculately prepared and it gives you a real appreciation for how hard it is to get ready to do a race like that. Not just safely, but fast. And these teams who are doing that are really, really good, really solid teams. And I think the skippers would be the first to tell you that it's not a skipper, it's a team. And that's what people probably don't realize. Behind the scenes, behind the curtains in those programs are so many people there to actually make it all happen. Fantastic. Justin Chisholm (02:21) Now I read in one of the press releases that Dalin and his team had spent about four years – basically since the last Vendée Globe – preparing that boat. Did North have any involvement in that whole thing? I'm sure you were involved in lots of the IMOCAs. How does that all work? Ken Read (02:38) Well, we've done sails for boats through many of our facilities in Europe, but it's safe to say that our for French group, it's really a priority of theirs. The 100 footers, the Amokas, all the insanity that is sailing in France, it's kind of a central hub is North Sails France. The young, talented group that's in North Sails, France is something that we as a company are wildly proud of. But I think all these teams have to, they kind of choose their path. And, you know, all these boats now have such a hydro component and such an aero component. It's the teams who don't treat them as separate entities, but as, but actually treat them as one who are the most successful. And that is led by the America's Cup. With IMOCAs, anything that's kind of skimming, flying, even going fast these days, the aero and hydro components have to be meshed together as one. And that's what the best IMOCA teams do. And that's certainly what Charlie has done best. They're way ahead of the game when it comes to how much emphasis they put on this aero side of things. That's why we have so many young designers and engineers that want to go to France because they just see this as crazy, wonderful opportunity for their creative minds. And that's the DNA that we need constantly transplanted into North Sails. It sounds nostalgic, but that's why Lowell North started this thing. This is a science-based company, and it's always going to be, and the IMOCA fleet just falls right into that category. Justin Chisholm (04:40) How different is the design process now on boats like the IMOCA, and I guess the Ultims too, to when you were designing sails for Volvo programs for Puma Ocean Racing? Ken Read (04:55) The complication, or the technical detail that flows back and forth is just that much more. The tools, we call them the tools, right? The tools are not hammers and screwdrivers. The tools are smart people sitting behind computer screens with bespoke, software packages that are very specific when it comes to tiny details about the boats. Listen, when I was doing the Volvo, we would go through the same thing with the designers, with our first Volvo with the Botin office and our second Volvo with the Juan K office. And in many ways, I enjoy that as much as the sailing, maybe even more than the sailing, it’s the tiny details that make the difference. I've said a million times that the race is won long before the starting gun goes. And that's the detail that goes into it. And that's where North Sails and Southern Spars and Future Fibres become an integral part of the entire design package that a designer is now relying on. A lot of these designers use our VPP now, for example. So if you don't complete the circle, with this brain trust of smart people – which includes, by the way, how the skipper wants to sail the boat, that's also a very big part of this – then you're just going to be left behind. It's not going to work. So you have to finish that circle when it comes to the design loop. Justin Chisholm (06:38) Does this new way of working give you more certainty in a design? You say that the race is often decided at the design process, but I always got the feeling with the Volvo that we never really knew until the race started who was gonna be fast and who was gonna be slow. Ken Read (06:57) Well then there's the ability to actually pick a shift and get on the right side of a weather system. There's still plenty of human element involved. But, you know, I'm guessing that most of the best of the IMOCA skippers in any of these high performance classes now have a pretty good idea who's going to be strong before the race starts. The last VOR I did, nobody had an idea that Groupama was going to be such a fast reaching boat at the beginning of the race – or that they were going to be so weak in light air. Nobody had an idea. And part of that was because they brought a lot of the design out of the Juan K office and took a lot of the design stuff in-house. So, you know, there wasn't access except for the Groupama group. So there's still plenty of that. There's still plenty of tricks and secrecy and gut feel and things like that, but there better be a scientific base to the whole package or you're probably going to get left behind. Justin Chisholm (08:10) The IMOCA class generally has been a raging success, hasn't it? Even away from the Vendée Globe, which attracts this enormous entry. All of the IMOCA Globe Series events are really well attended. What do you think is the key to that success? Ken Read (08:28) Well, in France, listen, it is a different game over there from a sponsorship standpoint, just around how young people grow up to be professional sailors. People in the United States, for example, aspire to be baseball, football, basketball players. In France, sailing would make the list, right, if you were a young kid growing up. That's just a different mindset. That's a different ball game altogether, where they're starting to think about this at a really young age. And that's what creates this crazy culture where you have so many French specific sponsors that then are willing and able to jump in at really reasonably cheap rates. When you think about it in terms of the big sponsorship world, although nothing's cheap, but these races are kind of cheap, because there's one crew member and there's really one race course and you kind of start and you finish, right? You can always spend more money when it comes to a sailboat racing program, as everybody listening to this podcast knows. But in the big picture, if you compared it to our Volvo programs where we stopped what 12 times around the world and we figured out each one of those stops you could easily spend three quarters of a million bucks just at one stopover just with the infrastructure alone. Compared to that the IMOCA class is kind of a cheap racing. So you combine sponsorship dollars, young enthusiasm to be a great offshore sailor, along with just the pure spectacle of the thing and the fact that these boats are cutting edge. It's a pretty solid combination of creating something that's good, if not great. Justin Chisholm (10:30) Is there a danger that the French-centric nature of all this will limit the class ultimately or do you think there's just enough growth within France and they'll always be crazy about it? Ken Read (10:42) I knew you were going to ask that for some reason. And I think a number of people, including the French over the years, have always been really concerned that the very French nature of this class is a problem. And I think it's also very safe to say that has been completely thrown out the window. It is as healthy a class as there is in the world. There are plenty of other people from outside the country who are trying to join the party. But the French centric side of things is not holding it back, clearly. And, you know, if it becomes more international, does it necessarily become better? I don't know. I don't think anybody knows the answer, but at this stage, who cares? Because the thing is that the event is kicking ass. The boats are kicking ass. The classes kicking ass. And, you know, don't change much, because you might start making change for the sake of making change. I think they've done a really nice job of evolving with boats and teams and how the boats are sailed while still maintaining that DNA of the crazy offshore experience. God bless them. It's when companies or events start really going in and trying to change DNA is when you get yourself in trouble because you're kind of swinging for the fence and hoping like hell you hit a home run sometimes. Justin Chisholm (12:17) We've seen plenty of other European countries, the Germans, the Brits, joining in with this whole thing, especially in the Vendee. What about the States? Why does it just never seem to take off in the States? The class only visits there when it's doing a transatlantic race. Ken Read (12:37) Good question. I think Grand Prix in many ways has really fallen off in the States. We're trying to, through the New York Yacht Club and through other events, we're trying very hard to kind of start bringing Grand Prix back into the game. Paul Cayard and a guy named Bill Ruh are working really hard to try to change young culture when it comes to Olympic classes, right now. They've had their struggles in the past couple of years, but I give them a lot of credit for trying something different and pushing ahead with getting young people to just start thinking about the highest end of sailboat racing at a young age. We don't do that as much here. When I was a kid, “when I was a boy” as my father always used to say, we did way more because there was, the offshore, the maxi class, the Olympic classes. All of that was really being dominated by Americans when I was young. So you just wake up in the morning and it's like, I want to be like them. How am I going to get there? There isn't that impetus right now for young people to look at fellow Americans aspire. What Charlie Dalin did in the around the world race is obviously great. Has it created a revolution or even an evolution of young people wanting to go offshore? I don't see it so far, but we got to keep trying. People like us have to keep giving back and keep trying to get a little bit more energy going when it comes to that kind of stuff. The Puma program was phenomenal around here. I think we had 10,000 people that might have actually gone day sailing on that boat during the race. It just didn't seem to stick though. You know, I don't see a lot of young Americans waking up in the morning thinking ‘I want to go do the solo twin race in a 33-footer offshore’. It's still the same people. When I go do a double handed race, it’s the same people who have been doing it for the last seven years and they're all my age – with maybe one or two exceptions. Somehow we got to keep pushing. We got to keep giving back as people who have had such a great run in this sport. And maybe we find that maybe we find that juice again. Justin Chisholm (15:21) Ken, let's talk about possibly some of the biggest news. Ferrari arriving in sailing with the Hypersail project Giovanni Soldini is leading that project. A little birdie tells me that Norths were pretty closely involved in all of that. We don't know too much about it other than some glitzy Ferrari style marketing we've seen on the launch. What can you tell us about it? Ken Read (15:47) Um, pure insanity? I mean wow. This is IMOCAs on steroids, right? This is where America's Cup meets the hundred foot trimarans. It also leads back to the very first question you asked about, about the integration of aero and hydro. The Ferrari group came to us early, early days. I go way back with Guillaume Verdier and it started with a conversation he and I had where he said I can tell you a little bit about this. What are our next steps? Then I hooked up the right people and kind of got the ball rolling. This is a pure aero hydro circle that is in place between their group. You have got this kind of skunkworks Ferrari group along with some of the best and brightest minds in the marine industry group – like Verdier and his group of crazies, (which I say very affectionately, by the way). And then it's the North group made up of Southern and North. Then you throw in Soldini and the whole sailing side of things. So it's being run exactly how a modern race boat program is to be run. Exactly. Now, does that guarantee success? Of course it doesn't. Because remember, to revert back to an earlier conversation, when you're dealing with tools – and again, tools are software – when you're dealing with the software and all of a sudden you're designing something ahead of the software, then you’ve got to catch up, right? So it's not just creating a package. It's creating the tools to create a package, which throws an interesting wrench into the works, so to speak. There's some wonderful aspirations for this program. But I think they're smart enough to kind of make sure they walk before they run and I'm kind of proud of the fact that they're taking their time on this, because this could be special. From a North Technology Group standpoint, it's a wonderful project to be a part of. And we get to stretch it out. We've done deals with our clothing line. So we're going to have a Ferrari clothing line that's going to be integrated, a performance line, a clothing line, and then of course all the sails, rigs, rigging package that goes along with it. This is a dream for North Technology Group to be a part of and it's just a good lot of fun. It gets us to utilize a lot of our best and brightest. Justin Chisholm (18:50) Is there the opportunity do you think with all of this resource for something really groundbreaking to come out of it in terms of, I don't know, materials or technology or? Ken Read (19:02) So, they keep me in the loop. If I get a pause to the answer when I ask something, that means they don’t want to tell me because they think I have a big mouth or something. In today's day and age of sailboat racing I don't even know what groundbreaking means anymore, because it seems to be happening every other week. This sport is changing so fast. I did a talk in New York a few months ago where I said you can make a very good case that there is no other sport on the planet that is changing as rapidly as the sport of sailing is. Nothing. When you think of sports that, that are constantly pushing the barriers, right? So you think of Formula 1. You look at a 2000 Formula 1 car and a 2025 formula one car, and unless you're a pretty avid fan, they look darn close to the same. And you go down the list of what innovation in sport means. A soccer ball is a soccer ball, right? A baseball is a baseball. A bat's a bat. How much have these sports really changed? Then you look at a 2000 America's Cup boat that I sailed and a 2025 America's Cup boat. It's a different sport. Ferrari is just another example of pushing the edge and showing that sailing isn't, it's not our fathers, it's not even our cousins, certainly not our grandfather's sport anymore. It is a different animal altogether. And these young kids are learning to fly early because guess what? All these boats are gonna be flying sooner or later. Justin Chisholm (21:08) Let's talk about the Moths. I was going to come on to that anyway. A pretty spectacular event. The weather didn't really play ball for them completely, which was a pity, because if there's a class that's built for classic Guarda conditions, it's certainly the Moth. Who really impressed you out of all that? Enzo Ballinger, the overall winner, he kind of came from nowhere. Ken Read (21:34) So I've been very good friends and colleagues with Bruno Dubois for a number of years. And one thing that Bruno has proven when he left his day to day of running North Sails France and became kind of a project manager and obviously did a couple around the world races – including one where he chose Charles Caudrelier as the skipper of that project. And kind of everybody said, you know, kind of who the heck is this kid? Right out of the blocks Bruno knows how to choose talent. And he told me about this new kid Ballanger when we were in Barcelona this past Fall for the America's Cup. He said you just watch this. This kid is special. And you look at the who's who of competitors in this Moth Worlds. I don't care what the conditions are, but if you're winning that regatta, you're doing something special. And Bruno was right. He thinks this kid is special. So it'll be really fun to watch the next few years of this kid's career because, you know, these fearless, young, talented, I don't even know if they're called sailors anymore. Frankly, they're called something, but, you know, it's a long way from my Sunfish back in the day, I can tell you that. Bruno knows how to pick them and he's proven that he was right about this kid as well. Justin Chisholm (23:05) Yeah, and the thing that always amazes me about this class is the speed of the development. I wouldn't even claim to know anything about where they're up to with the foils. It's not my world. But from what people tell me that every year there’s a massive step change in the technology. Are you guys at North involved in driving that stuff, or is that being driven by the sailors? How does it work? Ken Read (23:31) It goes a bit hand in hand. When 3DL jumped into the moth world, it changed the game. Then they did the deck sweepers and that changed the game. Now it’s the batten fittings, and they're using taping layouts that have so much more control over the Cunningham, and their ability to make the sail deep, their ability to make the sail flat. The Moth is really a trickle down from the Cup boats, because you need all the power in the world to get out of the water sometimes and all of a sudden you need no power, right? You need to have some sort of system that adapts to radical changes in apparent wind. So that's been really fun and really fun for our One Design team to kind of stay in the loop of this hyper technology. But I give the Moth class credit. There have been a couple breakthroughs in the Moth where somebody has just shown up and started killing people. And they've always had the ability to say, oops, hey, wait, we're not going to do that. Like this is madness. This is a step too far. But they don't do that. They, they purposely say, Hey, guess what? This is what you signed up for folks. It's going to cost more money, but this is what you signed up for. So they've been very consistent and I give the class a lot of credit for staying consistent I mean, imagine the day, I think it was like 2004 or something that, when the flying boat showed up. Nobody said we need to ban a boat from flying. They said, hell yeah, bring it on. Let's go faster and higher. So I give the Moth class a lot of credit, actually. Justin Chisholm (25:16) That's a good point. If you read the magazines and look at the websites, it would be easy to think sailing's all about foiling. But then I look out in Mallorca over the bay on a weekend and there's very few people foiling other than a couple of wing foilers. There's nobody foiling on boats here. Everybody's racing traditional conventional boats. How do you see the the balance between those two worlds? Ken Read (25:48) Well, certainly our world, you know, our commercial world, is still boats in the water versus boats out of the water. But let's go 10 years into the future. Where are you going to be then? We're going to see more small, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12-foot dinghies that are going to be able to go both ways, which means they're going to be able to foil and they're going to be able to sit in the water. I just think that when the group of sailors today get to the point where they're becoming a part of the commercial marketplace, they're not going to want to go back in the water. So does that mean cruising boats are going to be foiling? I don't. I doubt it, but I've been pretty wrong about other stuff in the past. But don't think for a second that they're not going to want to go fast. It's changing. It is changing and very, very rapidly. So yeah, I don't know. Stay tuned. Yet to be seen. Justin Chisholm (27:06) Foiling's even had a massive effect on ocean racing. We've just been talking about the Ferrari hyper sail. We've got the IMOCAs foiling around the world. We've got the Ultims kind of getting there foiling. They've transformed the whole game in terms of being able to deal with weather systems a lot better. You guys used to get outrun by weather systems and the big fear was dropping off the back of a front and being left behind by the fleet in the Volvo. Now these guys can ride right the way across the Indian Ocean on one weather front. That's all amazing stuff, but it also means that they're sailing the boats from inside now. And I wanted to get your view on what you think, how that has changed. Is it for the better or the worse? And are we stuck with this now going forward? Ken Read (27:59) Well, I have a feeling we're stuck with it. Let's talk about the violence. Listen, even in the Volvo boats, there were times where the violence of the water – it's not really the wind that gets you – we always used to talk about it’s the waves and it's the water. The violence of the water. I remember three specific times where you get hit in the chest with a wave and you're holding on to the wheel and you're not smart enough to let go and all of sudden you're laying in the back of the boat with half a wheel in your hand. So the violence of the water is what's got people inside from a safety standpoint. Justin, I wish I could say that people got to get back outside again, but I don't see it happening. The faster you go, the safer, you have to make it safe because we're pushing some boundaries here that are pretty crazy. And there's stuff in the ocean. First of all, there's waves that people kind of forget about from time to time and there's big waves and there's also that it feels like there's more debris in the ocean than ever before. Let's talk about the original Whitbread. They went around the world with one keel and one rudder right in a row. So essentially it's a knife edge going through the ocean, right? And still hitting stuff. Now it's like a comb going through, right? You have multiple boards, have keels and multiple rudders. So you're going through the ocean with a comb. And you think about it that way and you're exponentially increasing the odds of actually hitting something. So maybe there isn't more stuff in the ocean. We're just creating a wider platform in order to smack something on the way through. Keeping people safe is of the up-mode importance, especially as these boundaries continue to get pushed. So I don't see, as boats get faster and faster, I don't see people coming outside. Justin Chisholm (30:11) Do you think we've seen the last of boats like Comanche that you've skippered for a long time? Ken Read (30:17) Well, it depends on what the racing rule is. There's a really healthy Maxi class right now, of which I've been so fortunate to be involved with a brand new owner on a boat called V. It used to be called Tango, and we're in our second year of just having so much fun and around the buoys racing and now much more kind of navigational up and down the coast racing. We went to the Caribbean last year as a group and the group is talking together as a group and it's IRC based. And so it really depends on the handicap. As long as you keep the handicap, consistent, then I think boats are going to grow to that handicap rule. Regattas like San Tropez, the North Sound Regatta down in the BVI's, all of these are windward-lewered and navigational kind of around islands and rocks and stuff like that racing, that I don't think a foil at this stage can rate to the IRC rule. So the handicap rule itself is going to govern, it's going to put boundaries around what those types of boats are. So because of that, a boat like Comanche can absolutely still come into play and I think there's talk of a few new hundred footers that might come out and play soon. Are they going to be innovative compared to the current generation? Absolutely. But are we going to see them with foils and popping out of the water? I don't think so because I don't think the IRC rule wants to see that and that will be the governing factor at the end of the day. Justin Chisholm (32:03) And also that the owners, it's a different game, isn't it? Once you start trying to foil offshore for the owners, it just changes everything. Ken Read (32:12) For Jim Clark and Comanche, that was his sports team. His wife, Christie, did several offshore races with us, including a Sydney Hobart. But for Jim that was his sports team. That was like owning the Boston Celtics for him. Let's go break as many records as possible – that was the goal of the boat from day one. And sure enough, the boat was and still is pretty darn successful when it comes to that stuff. Other owners, like the owner of V, for example, there's been five minutes total where he hasn't been driving the boat. He did this because he wants to jump in and like I said a million times, he wants to play tennis against Bjorn Borg. You know, he wants to jump in at the highest level of professional sailing, but he wants to participate. He wants to hit back the forehand and God bless him. So as those, those two groups, as they become wider apart, professional sports teams and owner driver teams, they're becoming much more structured as one or the other. There's very few kind of crossovers in the middle now. And I think that's good for the sport. That's great for the sport. I love it that he wants to drive the whole time. God bless, we need more people like that and we’ve got to make sure they have fun, and we've got to make sure they learn, and we got to make sure that they're coming back for more. Because if we start losing these people, then we're in trouble. But right now I think it's a pretty good format and it's a pretty good structure, and some of this racing is really starting to thrive. Justin Chisholm (33:56) You mentioned Jim Clark and his idea of having a sports team that was a sailing team. He was kind of ahead of his time. SailGP is trying to promote that whole idea now with franchises for the teams. What are your thoughts on SailGP? Ken Read (34:11) You know, I haven't had a whole lot to do with it. It's kind of a different side of our sport from, from ours. North Technology Group revolves around a group of companies with very commercial aspirations, right? Our ownership, our management. We are here for a reason: to run a good solid business and to entertain as wide a broad audience as we possibly can in the sport of sailing, from kiting and foiling and even apparel, all the way to the biggest highest tech boats in the world. So SailGP has its own kind of commercial aspirations. They've kind of gone off and done their own thing. They have their own aero program. They have their own hydro program, and really the North Technology Group hasn't had a lot to do with that. So we'll continue, selling sails and rigs and rigging to people who use our stuff a lot. That said, I think Future Fibres does quite a bit of work with them. Doyle does quite a bit of work with them on the little jibs that they put on the boat. But for the most part, we haven't had a whole lot to do with them other than being a fan from time to time and watching these things go rip around the race course. Justin Chisholm (35:50) Let's talk about the America's Cup. I don't want to get us embroiled in the shenanigans that are going on right now. From your point of view as the president of North, you were heavily involved in the America's Cup last time. Did anything come out of that from a technology point of view around sale design or materials that's going to change things for everybody? Ken Read (36:16) Gosh, yes, every day it already is. Some of it's subtle, some of it bigger picture. But the bottom line is that when sails came back into the America's cup, that became a huge shot in the arm for North Sails. Because if you think about it, we loan out all of our best and brightest to these America's Cup programs and all they do is get better and brighter. The tools get better. The people get better. The creativity gets far broader. And yes, it has affected everything from cruising sails, to one design sails. Every sail we make in some form or fashion has a trickle down of America's Cup. Now, is there in the future a really big jump ahead? Listen, we always have an R&D team that's working on stuff like that. Is it months away, years away? It's always really hard to say, but we will always have a kind of aspirational group working on the side on different things. And the America's cup really is an impetus to keep these people thinking ahead. Our best and brightest, and especially our young guys, like we talked about the young engineers and designers in France, half of those people are going to work for America's Cup programs now. So we hope this thing gets sorted out very quickly and kind of gets back on track and back on schedule because it's good for, I think it's good for the sport. It's still, no matter how you look at it, the America's Cup is the biggest brand in sailing. No taxi driver in New York City is going to know anything about sailing other than the America's Cup. And, you know, this is part of the America's Cup, right? The insanity, the off the water insanity is almost more entertaining sometimes than the on the water insanity. So let's hope this gets sorted out pretty quick so we can get back on schedule and get these boats and sailors and teams out sailing again. Justin Chisholm (38:29) The Cup is spectacular and these boats are just incredible. But do you feel that once people have got the head around the speed and the concept of foiling boats in a match race, it's lost a little bit because all you can now see is a helmet – bouncing around if they're cyclists. It's a little bit like the question I asked you about the foiling and sailors being inside. Does it lose something? Is there a way of making it more interesting from a human point of view? Ken Read (39:05) It's a good question and I wish I had an answer. The bottom line is obvious. Obviously the answer to your question is yes, it's a bit of a shame that we don't see the faces and the personalities and that we're not a little more part of that. Right. And it sounds like the next iteration of America's Cup boats, if team New Zealand has their way, it'll even be less. Because I don't think there's grinders there, we are talking about more push button controls. So is that a shame? Yeah, of course it is. You have to balance every time somebody says this America's Cup, this is boring, blah, blah, blah, go back and watch a 12 Metre race where it was 20 minutes to the port lay line here in Newport. Now, are they the most beautiful, majestic boats maybe ever made? Yeah, of course they are. If I go out and see a 12 Metre – they’re sailing off of Newport every single day, my hometown – you can't help but just go, damn, that is a good looking boat. That's sailing, that's elegant sailing in its own right. You, me, and about seven other people think the same way, right? So has this America's Cup brought in a broader audience? It has to have. It has to have. But is it a shame that it feels like it's a made for TV now, you know, versus the sailing and the, and the sailors. Yeah, maybe, but let's just see where it goes. This is the America's Cup. You never know where it's going. In no time we could be sailing 12 Metres again. Who the hell knows, right? So let's just let this play out. Some people they're trying to reel in the America's Cup like it has to fall in a certain blueprint. That's the beauty of the America's Cup. There is no blueprint. It is made for the insane. And God bless it. So I think it's gonna be really interesting to see where this thing shakes out. It's a shame on one hand, but on the other hand, you'd shake your head and say, kind of sounds like the America's Cup to me. Justin Chisholm (41:31) A good point. We will have to wait and see. Kenny, I just wanted to close with congratulations on your forthcoming induction to the National Sailing Hall of Fame in the US. I know the ceremony is not until September, but that must be quite special. Ken Read (41:50) Very, very, very special, emotional, especially for my dad, who's 91, who's still with us. My mom, who was my brother Brad and my biggest fan for sure. But yeah, it's super special. It was unexpected and I'm very proud, but I can't wait to thank all the people that helped me get here. My dreams were never this big to even consider something like this. I'm a day to day guy. What's the next regatta? What's the next race? And all of a sudden for a group like this to come back and say, hey, we'd like to congratulate you on your body of work. That means a lot and I do not take it lightly and I'm very, very proud. Justin Chisholm (42:47) I and a lot of people think you have the best job in sailing. Do you feel that way as well? Ken Read (42:53) Of course I do. Every day I go home and I might have had a kind of a bad day doing whatever I'm doing and my wife looks at me and just shakes her head like, would you shut up? You have the best job in the world. So I agree. We love our brand here. We love what we do at work every day and I still get to get on the water on some of the coolest boats in the world and meet some of the coolest people in the world. That's still the fun part. So yeah, I do not dispute your comment. Don't, don't break out a violin for me in the near future. I promise you that. Justin Chisholm (43:35) Well, Ken, thanks so much for spending time with me today. It's been a fascinating chat. knew it would be. And I'm sure that the Yacht Racing Life podcast listeners will enjoy it. Thanks so much. Ken Read (43:45) Thanks for doing this, Justin. It's good knowledge for everybody who loves sailing. Thank you.