After reviewing multiple candidates, Penn Sailing is happy to announce that Billy Martin will be the team’s newest head coach.

Last spring, the team hired Johnny Norfleet, formerly an assistant coach at Hobart William Smith Colleges and had great success with him as the head coach. All the sailors felt that they learned a lot from Johnny, who brought a unique style of coaching to the mix. However, Johnny was offered the opportunity to pursue his professional ambition of studying for an MBA at Fordham University, which he accepted. He is now the head coach there, replacing Reed Johnson who needed more time to run his business on Long Beach Island. (ed. note: Pearl Street Market, it’s awesome)

After meeting with Billy over the summer, we knew he was the perfect fit for our program, and hopefully the long-term coaching solution we’ve been looking for.  Billy had an extremely successful college sailing career at Boston University, where he graduated in 2010. He competed in multiple national championships as a starting skipper in both singlehanded and doublehanded boats, and was awarded the NEISA Sportsmanship Award, one of college sailing’s highest honors. Billy has spent the last few years working and coaching in Boston, but is now moving back to the Philadelphia area. This represents a homecoming for Billy since he is originally from the area, having learned to sail at the Riverton Yacht Club.

“We’re extremely excited to have Billy on board.” remarked senior captain Jack Swikart, “Because he sailed on and worked with a club team at BU in the past, we know that he will be able to quickly learn the ins and outs of our team and help us find new success on the water.”