Our Board Of Directors

Kurt Sund

  • Kurt started sailing in Denmark at the age of 5. He sailed competitively in Denmark and the Baltic in 420s, 505s, and Trapez Dinghies. Kurt had the joy of learning and sailing the 505 with Paul Elvstrom, a Danish Olympic Gold Medal holder. He also participated in building and sailing a 40-foot Viking sailship in his hometown of Frederikssund, Denmark.

    In a 26-foot wooden Folk Boat that he assisted in building over 2 years Kurt sailed the Atlantic from Denmark to Bergen Norway and back. He has sailed in the Bay since 2011, first in a MacGregor 26 and now in a 34.3 Beneteau sailboat. He got his ASA 101, 103, and 104 last year. He has taken many people out in the San Francisco Bay on his boats and loves the work we do at SEA.

Jose Luis Bethencourt

  • Jose is an enthusiastic parent of 2 SEA sail campers and a member of the MYC.

    A native of Argentina, Jose became fascinated with the water when he moved to the Bay Area. He sailed with crews and then got his 6-Pack license.

    Seeing how much Jose loved being on the water, a friend suggested that he become a crew member on a bay ferry. Jose quickly moved from the deck up into the wheelhouse and is now a ferryboat captain going from Alameda to San Francisco and Vallejo. He knows San Francisco and San Pablo Bays like his backhand.

    Jose can fix broken outboards and replace zincs on old boats. He is also our chief keelboat instructor. His easy-going manner makes him a favorite with our new sailors.

Kif Scheuer

  • Kif Scheuer started sailing at SEA in 2022. After completing beginning sailing, he signed on as a volunteer adult sailing assistant and then began helping out with Open Sails. After “getting his feet wet” with dinghies, he got interested in more advanced sailing skills and experiences. He completed SEA’s keelboat class in late 2022, and then in 2023 completed the ASA 101, 103, 104 sequence in Baja Mexico along with another SEA board member – Kurt Sund. Since then he’s been on 2 bareboat charters and is a partner in a 32’ 1973 Ericson over in Berkeley Marina. As he got more involved with sailing activities, he continued to increase engagement and support for SEA. Most recently he has taken on administrative support roles especially with the website. After much arm twisting he finally joined the SEA board in April of 2024.

Michael Szymanski

  • Michael Szymanski learned to sail on Lake Michigan in his youth as a member of the Milwaukee Community Sailing Center.

    He spent college summers as a lifeguard, sailing and windsurfing instructor for  YMCA camps.

    Michael founded the Southeastern Wisconsin Board Sailing Association with some fellow wind surfers.

    After moving to San Francisco in 1989 for graduate school at UC Davis, where he earned a PhD studying killer whales, he began sailing the Bay and Delta with his friends including some former members of the Puerto Rican Olympic sailing team.

    Michael has worked in ocean conservation as a full time research scientist publishing in acoustics and marine mammal science, specializing in Orca hearing and vocalizations. He has worked as a docent for the Oceanic Society, leading whale watching trips to the Farallon Islands on numerous vessels.

    Michael has owned and sailed a Luger 23 out of Loch Lomond. He discovered SEA in 2020 after seeing campers joyfully plating on the dock and sailing around. He soon got his son Avery involved and together they have happily become a regular fixture of the SEA community.

Bryn Hughes

  • Bryn has been living in Marin for 10 years now along with his wife and boy/girl twins. In 2021 he signed up for the only Adult Beginner class that year (only one due to COVID) and had a great time, so much so that in summer 2022 he took the Adult Intermediate keelboat class and both of his children took one of the two-week summer camps hosted at Marin Yacht Club (MYC).

    Since then Bryn has continued to sail from both Loch Lomond (with SEA) and MYC (where he’s also a member). As he continues to “learn to sail by sailing” (a repeated quote from Jane) he has started to join the group sails around the bay with his son, become a training assistant for the adult beginner programs, been supporting the ongoing boat maintenance and recently joined the SEA Board of Directors. In addition his son is on the path to become a Junior Counselor for the kids camps.

Doug Moler

  • Doug learned to sail at the Cal Sailing Club in 1974. He raced Lightnings in SF Bay, and then cruised with a friend from the Lightning fleet for 4 months in Central America and the Caribbean where he caught the cruising bug.

    Later he taught Red Cross Sailing at the Renton Sailing Club in Washington and obtained a 50 ton inshore Captain's License and ASA Keelboat instructor certificate. His extensive sailing experience includes thousands of ocean miles and cruises around Vancouver Island, Haida Gwai, from Seattle to Prince Rupert, B.C., Panama to Santa Cruz, CA, raced from Hawaii to the Philippines. With Shanna lived aboard and cruised for 17 years from San Francisco through Central America, the Panama Canal, the Caribbean, US East coast, across the Atlantic and cruised the Mediterranean, returning across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and back to Maine.

    Education : BA Music, UC Berkeley 1974, BS Electrical Engineering, University of Utah 1986

Gus Gossett

  • Gus learned to sail at SEA when he was 10 years old and has returned every summer since. After becoming a junior counselor, he quickly worked his way up to head counselor at SEA’s summer camps.

    Since that first summer, Gus has fallen in love with sailing. He now races competitively for his high school team and competes in regattas up and down the California coast. Beyond FJs, he’s sailed Lasers, C420s, J-22s, Fevas, Teras, 29ers, and Etchells. Recently, he’s begun racing big boats and hopes to compete in the Rolex Big Boat Series at St. Francis Yacht Club, where he’s a junior member.

    Gus is also the inventor of the ProPlug™, a modern alternative to the tennis ball bailer used on most CFJs and C420s. His innovation has been featured in Latitude 38, Scuttlebutt Sailing News, and Boat & Yacht.

    Outside sailing, Gus enjoys biking, building websites, and developing his electric dirt bike prototype, The Nacho. He’s driven by a constant flow of ideas and a passion for creating things that matter.

Joe Rouse

  • A native of the Bay Area, Joe grew up on the water in California, Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines—experiences that shaped his lifelong passion for sharing water sports with others. His earliest memories include watching his mother maintain their Chris Craft cabin cruiser in a Sausalito boatyard and his father's navigational lessons learned the hard way in San Pablo Bay.

    As a US Sailing Certified Instructor since 1993, Joe has taught courses ranging from Dinghy 1 to Intermediate Keelboat. He has been a dedicated SEA volunteer for over three decades, serving in various roles including most recently President. His extensive water adventures have taken him sailing, snorkeling, paddling, and body-surfing across the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Florida, Fiji, Mexico, Hawaii, South Africa, Australia, and the Philippines.

    An accomplished sailor, swimmer, paddler, and rower, Joe is also a US Navy veteran.

Rick Merlau

  • Rick's sailing adventure started early, on his grandfather's ice boat on the frozen shores of Lake Ontario, and continued with various small sail and power boats. 

    After moving to the windy SF Bay Area in 2018, he dove into windsurfing and dinghy sailing, and discovering he loves to teach sailing, which brought him to SEA as an instructor.

    Rick has acquired WIPA (Windsurfing Instructors and Programs Association) level 1 beginner instructor, and US Sailing Association level 1 small boat instructor, related certificates, and hundreds of hours of sailing instruction experience. 

    When Rick is not sailing, he waits for the wind by doing Architecture and hiking.

Robert Koch

  • Robert grew up in Germany, and spent his summers as a kid sailing in Cape Cod when visiting family. 

    As part of mandatory military service, he enlisted in the German Navy after high school and was deployed as a sonar operator on a minesweeper in the Baltic Sea.

    After moving to the Bay Area in 2004 to work in Tech, he got his US Sailing Basic Keelboat and Basic Cruising certifications in Berkeley. 

    Parenthood put a pause on sailing for the last decade, but with kids now old enough to show interest in sailing and the ocean, 

    He's jumped back into sailing with SEA and has been volunteering with the Fleet Maintenance team.