Olympic Sailor John Dane III: Fulfilling Life-Long Dreams (VIDEO)
John Dane III grew up on the water. As a lifelong sailor, a civil engineer and founder of the nation’s largest mega-yacht builder, Trinity Yachts, Dane had pretty much accomplished it all. Well, not quite. The last piece of the puzzle was to sail in the Olympics. After multiple attempts to qualify over the last 40 years, 58-year-old Dane’s dream was finally realized when he earned his spot to compete in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Watch Dane discuss his experience below:
As a civil engineer, Dane enjoys the continuous changes in boat design.
“I like the process of taking what a client wants his boat to do, the mission of the boat, how he wants to use it and come up with an engineered solution. Whether he wants a certain draft, a certain speed, a certain sea keeping … we take his wishes and dreams and design a boat to solve the questions they ask.”
Another one of Dane’s passions is sailing. Introduced to the sport by his father when he was just 10 years old, Dane won the opportunity to be part of the 2008 US Olympic Sailing Team in Beijing, China. As the oldest American Olympian to compete in the last 50 years, Dane appreciated every moment of it.
“You can’t imagine walking into that bird cage and hearing “USA” chanted. It was pretty exciting. I was kind of ground-breaking,” Dane said.
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Category: Career, Entrepreneurship, Videos
