Chris Childers is now Director of the Treasure Island Sailing Center, in San Francisco Bay.

TISC creates opportunities for people to learn and grow through sailing by providing facilities, sailing instruction, and access to the water for people of all socio-economic backgrounds, abilities, and skill levels, from novices to Bay Area Olympians. Since leaving US Sailing and the Siebel Sailors Program, Chris is back with the Treasure Island Sailing Center as Executive Director.  His experiences at local yacht clubs, for-profit keelboat schools, charter boats and, most recently, working specifically in positive youth development with US Sailing, have all informed a fresh outlook on his work at TISC.  Instead of fitting kids into programs, TISC is making its programs work better for kids.  From adding some fresh courses, to implementing a values-based-education model onto its programs, to helping TISC distill its special value to our community, TISC is looking at a bright future.

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March 26, 2024

Aug 10, 2021

Chris Childers talks about the Golden Gate Yacht Club Siebel Sailors program for middle school students in San Francisco.

Aug 3, 2021

Chris Childers talks with Karen Lile about the US Sailing Adaptive Sailing Instructors Course at South Beach Yacht Club.

Oct 1, 2019

For Chris Childers, sailing is a moving meditation, a refuge from an overstimulating world. Its low-impact but athletic, its academically stimulating but can done with cool beverage in hand, and it’s just about the fairest playing field of any competitive endeavor Chris has ever found.

Chris’s dad bought a boat the day after he was born, and he was told he was sailing a week or so after that. He learned on his own at age 8 in a Sunfish on the Barnegat Bay in coastal New Jersey. He’d wave goodbye in the morning and be out all day, meet up with the neighborhood kids on their own little boats, bomb around the bay in our little boat gang, and be back for dinner (hopefully). He says “It was such an amazing way to be a kid, back when kids were allowed to do such things”.

Chris started teaching sailing when he was 16 at a local sailing summer camp and the rest is history. “I’ve taught in coastal New Jersey, Lake Champlain in Vermont, Penobscot Bay in Downeast Maine, the southwest coast of Florida and now here in San Francisco. “

Chris has sailed the Panama Canal, the Newport-Bermuda Race, got 2nd in the Disabled National Championships in 2014, 4th in the Blind Sailing World Championships (as a sighted guide), and Herb Meyer Cup (BAADS Club Champs) wins in 2017 and 2019, and many, many more DFLs!

He has also taught sailing all over the San Francisco Bay and is beyond excited to be stepping up to the plate here as the Siebel Sailors Program Coach at US Sailing on Treasure island.

Siebel Sailors Program will Support Innovation and Provide Resources to Community Sailing in Five Major Markets Around the USA

BRISTOL, R.I. (April 22, 2019) – US Sailing is set to launch the Siebel Sailors Program, a landmark community sailing program made possible by a ground-breaking donation from the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation, led by successful tech industry businessman, sailor, and philanthropist, Tom Siebel. The Program’s purpose is to increase opportunity and diversity in the sport of sailing by providing resources and support to youth sailors at public access sailing centers across the country.

The Siebel Sailors Program will support an important US Sailing objective of providing increased access to sailing for youth, regardless of socio-economic background. US Sailing, through the Siebel Sailors Program, will provide fleets of sail boats, equipment, and expert coaching at community sailing centers initially in five regions across the country. The Program will significantly enhance community sailing center programming, advanced skill development, and competitive opportunities for young sailors.

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Sail Sport Talk with Karen Lile is aired inside the Rick Tittle Show every Tuesday morning Pacific Daylight Time at 9:37 sometimes beginning earlier with additional interviews. Rebroadcast happens at 15:37pm PDT and a Podcast is added on iHeart radio. Tune in to Sail Sport Talk with Karen Lile on 10 different platforms during live experience.