Donald J. Matthews

Donald J. Matthews, a remarkable man of integrity, generosity, and unwavering faith, died peacefully on June 5th, at the age of 89, in Thousand Oaks, CA.

Don was born in 1933, the son of Captain John N. Matthews and Dorothy Webb Matthews, and brother to John, Robert, Richard, Jane, and Lucille. He grew up on Centre Island, Oyster Bay, NY where he developed his passion for sailing at Seawanhaka Yacht Club.

He graduated from Georgetown Prep in 1951 and the University of Notre Dame in 1955 with a bachelor’s degree in business where he also captained the sailing team. In 1956, Don married Cynthia Hackney and together they raised four children in Rye, NY.

Don was an accomplished sailor who co-skippered two America’s Cup yachts – Vim, the family-owned 12 Metre, which narrowly lost out in races to select the New York Yacht Club’s defender in 1958, and Weatherly, which won the America’s Cup in 1962. He was one of the longest standing members of the New York Yacht Club having joined in 1956…

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A second-place finish, four hours and 40 minutes on corrected time in the 2022 Chicago Mac double-handed section, didn’t sit well with Ted Lockwood and Justin Ackler. Winter preparations put them on the right path.

“We took care of the critical components with electronics,” said Justin Ackler. “We ran different routes and paid attention to how the software works and predicting wind routing.” Lockwood, who completed his first Mac in 1970, recalled Ned Lockwood’s words: “My Dad would say, ‘Teddy, it’s not the first two or three things, it’s the 95 things you do prior to going out and preparing the boat that makes you win.”

Moving ahead of their four-boat section was the difference as their J88, McQueen, set the pace pulling into Mackinac Harbor at 2:39:44 Monday, July 25, 2023. Their elapsed time was 2:03:39:44 just ahead of Exile 2:03:45:36. The corrected time was 2:03:36:56. Exile, sailed by Andy Graff and Scott Eisenhardt, was 2:04:02:22. 10-16 miles an hour southeast winds, propelled McQueen towards the shoreline near the Wisconsin border. Around 5 p.m., winds and waves shifted from the northwest.

From midnight to 5 a.m., it blew 20 knots. “We put our kite up,” said Lockwood, a resident of Traverse City, MI. “You couldn’t see the waves in the dark, but we were surfing three-six-foot waves and burying the bow doing 11-13 knots…”

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I first met Sebastian and Samantha in St. Augustine, Florida, at a meet and greet for cruisers. We had to be the youngest people at the function and certainly the only ones sporting dreadlocks. We were riff-raff sailors on production boats. We were also semi-broke and looking for work. They were smarter than I in that category and had arrived with a plan to network with the owners of larger cruising yachts.

I went for the free beer, snacks, and to meet Seb and Sammi—as I now know them six years later. On three separate occasions, from North Carolina to Florida, mutual friends informed us we all had to meet. And I’m so glad we did.

Their unique southern accents were distinctive in the historic Floridian tavern. Sebastian is a mix of Louisianan and Columbian-American, and Sam’s Tennessee-meets-Carolinas.

A networking plan for the boring cruiser’s function wasn’t the only way the pair was ahead of me in the logistics department. They were quick to pick up seasonal work outside the marine industry, and they also lofted brand new sails for their Cal 29, Dancin’ Lions, which was already a pretty tricked out liveaboard.

Sebastian was becoming something of an expert when it came to canvas, masterminding Dancin’ Lion’s sails, dodger, bimini, and more, but Samantha was the right hand in much, if not all, of the process.

Not long after our meet-up (and a short-term gig where the couple dressed as elves for holiday tourists), Sebastian was working full-time at a local canvas shop while Samantha continued with odd jobs.

Later they headed north to the Chesapeake Bay and a 20-ton Tayana 37 with room for Sebastian’s industrial sewing machine. He also put me on to a job on a tall ship nearby, a 100-foot schooner docked on one side of the deep, exposed York River in Virginia. On the other side was a protected creek and yacht basin where Samantha worked restoring their new boat, which they renamed Rhythm, and where Sebastian got a job in the boatyard.

I sailed back and forth between the yacht basin where they worked and the ship where I worked. At the end of the season, we went our separate ways again.

In 2020, Sebastian started his own canvas-making business, Black Dog Sail Loft, from the salon table of their 37-foot boat, measuring, fabricating, and installing on yachts of all kinds with the utmost attention to detail.

From there, the pair returned to the North Carolina-South Carolina border, where they first met through their mutual love of dogs. Oh yeah, they each have their own pup aboard, a tiny poodle named Gypsy, and Shadow—the namesake of what is now Sebastian’s very own bricks-and-mortar, full-service sailmaking loft.

Black Dog Sail Loft officially opened in 2022 in Calabash, North Carolina, less than a mile from the Little River Inlet and Intracostal Waterway. Home to traditional seafaring and now charter fishing, the town is a natural fit for Sebastian the sailmaker…

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When he competed in the first Golden Globe Race in 1968-69, French sailor Bernard Moitessier achieved legend status not for winning, but rather for precisely the opposite—opting instead to keep on sailing, “because I am happy at sea, and perhaps to save my soul.”

It’s a sentiment that Kirsten Neuschäfer understands—“Moitessier just kept going and became more esoteric. I liked that aspect,” she said. Some may have wondered whether the adventurous South African would consider the same, but in the end, her history was made in another way, by becoming the first woman to win a solo round-the-world race when she crossed the 2022-23 Golden Globe Race (GGR) finish line in Les Sables-d’Olonne, France, on April 28. After 30,290 nautical miles and 235 days—a course record—she and her 36-foot Cape George cutter, Minnehaha, won without needing the 35-hour time allowance she earned by rescuing fellow sailor Tapio Lehtinen when his boat sank south of Cape of Good Hope.

As she edged her way to the finish line in excruciatingly light air, Neuschäfer—who didn’t even know she’d won until she was within hours of the finish—laughed and talked with the sailing luminaries, journalists, race officials, and well-wishers who’d come out to greet her. “I want to walk on solid ground,” she said in her calm and commanding voice when I asked her what she wanted to do when she touched land for the first time in nearly eight months…

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