Racing sailboats, selling sails

Mariner's avocation complements his job

Jud Smith of Marblehead has been competing in the top sailboat races all over the world for some 30 years. (World Sport Chicago)

A soaking wet road trip to Newport, R.I., with a possible tornado funneling above him, a day after he hopped off a plane from the Midwest.

This is about as close to home as Jud Smith gets these days.

"I am all over," he said.

In the past 30 years he has gone from city to city, country to country, chasing races.

Newport happened to be the next waypoint.

Sailing keeps him away from his home in Marblehead at least half the weekends from January to September.

The first four months of the year, you won't find him unless you're in Miami, where there's a race every two or three weeks.

There was a break, if you can call it that, until May when a lot of his competition headed north to New York for the Star Class Western Hemisphere World Championships in Seneca.

He hung out in New York until around June, when the competition moved to Chicago for the Etchells World Championship on Lake Michigan and later, the Chicago to Mackinac, which actually starts in Grand Rapids, Mich.

He loves it. At least he thinks he does.

"Maybe it's a little over the top," he said. "It's a little bit of a lifestyle and you have to like it, but it gets to be a grind. When you finish, you're like 'Oh my gosh. I've had enough.' Next thing you know you're ready to rally for the next event."

In a sailing career that has spanned 30 years, the 51-year-old Smith has become one of the world's elite. He is a regular among the top finishers at Etchells, finishing third this past month and winning the event in 2006, the same year he was named Yachtsman of the Year.

But as a designer for Doyle Sailmakers, he's also sort of a traveling salesman, a live mannequin for the sails he's crafting.

So he can never let the grind get to him.

"It's my job," he said. "I have to be at a high level. The product that we make is based on a high performance. So you have to be out there. If you get out of the loop or you stop going, then the product isn't necessarily at the forefront."

Robbie Doyle grew up next door to Smith's family, and got to sail with Jud and his father, David, a gold medalist in sailing at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.

A Harvard graduate with experience at the America's Cup, Doyle founded his own company in 1982, working with sailboats such as the ynglings (a cross between a dinghy and a keelboat), which will sail in competition at next month's Olympics in Beijing, and larger vessels like the Maltese Falcon yachts, which were featured on CBS's "60 Minutes" last year.

Smith took a job with Doyle a few years later, passing on Babson College and instead looking to sailing to as a way of life. Now he's head of Doyle's One Design department, making sails for a number of different classes, including the women's three-person keelboat yngling, which will sail in Beijing.

"We dominate the market," Smith said.

There aren't many sailors who double as sailmakers, and Doyle said Smith is uniquely talented.

"He's an extraordinary sail designer," Doyle said. "It's just something that you develop over the years."

As much as Doyle wants Smith to slow down, he admits that racing is what sharpens Smith's designing senses.

"I think he has a very quick eye for what makes a boat go fast," Doyle said. "Like a racecar driver can feel when a car is right, he can feel when a boat is right."

Doyle also knows that as long as Smith is competing, Doyle Sailmakers has constant visibility across the country.

"He's obviously talented," Doyle said. "He's in demand all over the world. He has people that want to sail with him."

It helps that this is an Olympic year from both a racing and a competitive standpoint.

"In an Olympic year we sell a lot of sails," Smith said. "In our company's fiscal year, I've sailed in three world championships and one North American championship."

Smith is one of the few senior sailors working the circuit. He'll see a few guys in their 40s at some races. There may be a few guys doing it in their 50s, he said, but not many.

"Maybe 20, 25," he said. "I don't even know if it's that high."

He knows it's becoming a younger man's game.

"I see more and more of the younger guys at the same events I'm going to," he said. "More and more I'm looking around going, 'Oh my God, I'm a veteran player.' "

His enthusiasm for the sport has rubbed off on his family. His wife, Cindy, has taken to sailing at least a little, and his two college-aged daughters, Darby and Lindsey, both teach sailing on the North Shore. But he said the grind is taking a toll on family time.

"I'm going to try and cut it back a bit," he said.

But the Miami races will start up in January. And he'll probably want to race the Western Hemispheres again. Plus, the Etchells Worlds are in Australia. "I'm definitely going to Australia," he said.

Julian Benbow can be reached at jbenbow@globe.com.