Sail1Design Staff

I am Helena English, a sophomore at Severn School. I have two younger sisters and two dogs that I spend a lot of my time with. I have been sailing recreationally since the age of seven and in the fall of 2020 I began sailing competitively, building a greater love for the sport. I crew throughout every season of the year, and my favorite boats to sail are FJs for competitions and sonars for fun. I love passing my time when I am not sailing by reading, spending time with friends and family, and writing.

A lifelong sailor, Tom Sitzmann brings a broad range of sailing experience to Sail1Design. Along with extensive one-design and PHRF racing, he has coastal and blue water experience, cruising and racing along the coast of Maine, and now here in the Chesapeake Bay on the family J/120.
Also a lifelong educator, Tom has coached sailing and directed sailing programs from Maine to Annapolis, and was an assistant offshore & dinghy coach at the USNA, head intercollegiate coach at Bowdoin College, and more recently head coach at Severn School, where he guided the team to a National championship, the first and only Chesapeake Bay school ever to win the prestigious Mallory Trophy.

Tom’s offshore experience includes many distance races in New England, a transatlantic passage, a celestially-guided Marion-Bermuda Race, and most recently he brought his family to Bermuda aboard their J/120 Airwaves. Tom has a great deal of dinghy and PHRF racing experience, competing successfully in the Laser, J/24, and J/22, winning several regional and district championships in those classes, both in New England and the Mid-Atlantic. While in Maine Tom also won several PHRF regattas aboard his J/24 & J/33, and more recently in his J/120. Tom’s focus with Sail1Design is managing the Brokerage Marketplace, and Sail1Design’s Career Center & Job Board.

Tom started Sail1Design in 2007, seeking to supply the youth, high school, college, and one-design sailing communities with a grass-roots, community marketplace and job board. Almost seven years later, S1D has become sailings #1 career center and job board, it’s active marketplace now offers professional yacht brokerage along with by-owner classified ads. Additionally, Airwaves, an e-newsstand for sailors, was born and joined the Sail1Design team to provide sailing news and regatta results, and has four writers on staff. Sail1Design is the official job board for the Intercollegiate Sailing Association (ICSA), the Interscholastic Sailing Association (ISSA), and US Sailing.