Larry Jacobson began sailing at age 13 in a Styrofoam-hull dinghy on Alamitos Bay, in Long Beach, CA. He found the boat in a dumpster and started his first boat repair project the next day. He taught himself to sail and was instantly hooked on his new passion. At age 16, he bought Hobie Cat 14 #21 and began sailing with the greats such as Hobie Alter and Geoff Prindle. He quickly rose to the top in the racing circuit, winning his share of regattas and a California State Championship. Through high school he crewed in the off-shore big boats in Southern California.
One day he sailed his 14-footer from Long Beach to Catalina Island, 26 miles across open ocean. He remembers his landfall because that was when he announced to himself he was going to sail around the world.
Racing continued into college at the University of California, Irvine in Flying Juniors, Lasers, and Solings. After two years of helping the team to second place in the nation, he left the team to focus on his studies, which led him to graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. The day after graduation he boarded a 68-ft ketch bound for Tahiti skippered by, “Captain Bligh’s mentor.” After landfall in Tahiti, he signed on as a crew aboard a 36-footer headed across the Pacific. Upon reaching Tonga, he jumped ship to “Avoid having to sleep with both eyes open in case the crazy captain switched to his evil personality.”
Sailboats were traded for kayaks and river rafts for the next two years while living in Queenstown, New Zealand. And then, life happened. Jacobson started a long rising career in the travel industry, and at his peak, became CEO of a highly respected incentive travel company. Upon selling the company, he bought a Stevens 50’, and left his entire life behind to make his dream of sailing around the world come true, which he had kept alive for 30 years.
As captain of JULIA, his first rule was to never ever yell at his crew and he kept to his word. After six years, 40 countries, and 40,000 miles, in 2007 he triumphantly sailed back beneath the Golden Gate.
When asked what drove him to keep sailing west after facing so many fears and challenges from weather, pirates, the tsunami, and numerous breakdowns, he replied, “Passion is what drives us. If you want to make something happen, you have to really want it.”
Jacobson is currently very busy with his coaching practice. As a life-planning coach specializing in retirement, he helps clients make their own dreams come true. Most of his clients are high-level executives wanting to know how they can live the life they dreamed of in retirement. He also coaches entrepreneurs on building their business, and is a sought-after motivational speaker.
A California native, circumnavigator and adventurer, Larry Jacobson is an avid sailor with over 50,000 blue water miles under his keel. Author of the six-time award-winning memoir of his six-year circumnavigation in the book, The Boy Behind the Gate, his latest work is the children’s version of that journey, Let’s Go! He also recently published Navigating Entrepreneurship, in which he shares his own practical experience, and is the creator of the online video program, Sail Into Retirement™. Larry lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, holds his USCG Master Mariner’s 100-ton license, and welcomes new friends and inquiries at: www.larryjacobson.com
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