San Juan Sailing & Yachting History

San Juan Sailing

It was a gamble, really. When San Juan Sailing was founded by Roger and Marlene Van Dyken in 1982 they were warned that making your hobby your vocation would ruin a perfectly good hobby. Roger had always loved sailing, even before he had ever set foot aboard a sailboat. He checked out a sailing book from the library, got confused by all that strange terminology and frustrated, procrastinated.

But in the summer of 1975, he gave his staff part of the day off and they went sailing together—first time. The wind whispered along at about 2 knots and he was hooked!

Roger and Marlene bought a sailboat, chartered it out to help pay the expenses, and found they were making money by accident. So in 1982 they started SJS with two sailboats—theirs and a friend's. They chartered them out, taught school on them and sold boats.

They learned a lot over the years, through good times and some really tough ones, quickly discovering the vicarious joy when guests had a great time as well as the pain and frustration when guests experienced difficulties. They saw a number of their colleagues/competitors fail, and tried to learn from their experiences, as well as their own failures.

Their passion to provide a great charter experience never left and they brought that same perspective to the school (Marlene and Roger are both professionally trained teachers). Many San Juan Sailing charter guests and a good number of our boat owners first learned to sail here. Roger and Marlene were charter members of the American Sailing Association, and served on its Standards Committee and its Executive Board.

They built a staff that shared their passion for providing an excellent charter experience, boat owners who make the investment in boats, equipment, and preventive maintenance; and instructors who love to teach as much as they love to sail. If our clients are having a great time, with boats as flawless (ask for our Preventive Maintenance Schedule) as possible (ok, they ARE boats), our whole world smiles. And if any one of them has a problem, we all take it personally.

Best of all, we seem to attract amazing charter guests who strive to bring their boat back in better condition than that in which they received her…if that's possible.

San Juan Yachting

Nearly two decades after founding San Juan Sailing, Joe Coons, a friend known locally as “Mr Powerboat", approached Roger. "I've been chartering out my own and a number of friends' boats", he began. “But I'm getting too old for this. And you are one of only two companies that I trust to handle my and my friends' boats in charter. Can we talk?"

So they did. In 1999 Joe and his friends' boats became the foundation of San Juan Yachting. And we discovered that not only were powerboats fundamentally different to manage and maintain than sailboats, but the personalities and expectations of powerboaters and sailors often differed as well. They tend to study differently, react differently and just approach life differently. So we've adjusted accordingly. Our Owners Notes, training programs, checkouts…all are uniquely powerboat oriented. Our Powerboat School adopted a style and a schedule ideally suited to powerboaters. We became charter members of the national Recreational Power Boat Association and helped develop the curriculum.

Ownership Transition

In 2018 Roger and Marlene sold San Juan Sailing & Yachting to 3 members of the SJS&Y family. Danelle Carnahan, their niece, had done a bit of boat cleaning in high school and then began working in the office in 1996. She learned and grew her skills over the years, developed a love of cruising the islands of the Salish Sea, and eventually not only realized that she had found “her place” at San Juan Sailing & Yachting, but that she wanted to help tend its future. Mike Huston had owned a sailboat in the fleet since the late 90’s and had become a sailing instructor shortly after that. He designed and wrote our current booking software program in 2008 and gained a deep understanding of SJS&Y’s operations in the process…something that sparked his interest in eventually becoming an ownership partner. Lothar Taylor also became part of the SJS&Y family as an instructor and boat owner, having purchased a motoryacht to become part of the power fleet in 2013. Two years later he expanded his role to become a yacht broker for San Juan Sailing & Yachting. One of the strengths of the new ownership team is the depth of experience in the three cornerstones of SJS&Y—charter, instruction & brokerage—brought by the various members. Also the support and cheerleading provided by Roger and Marlene as founders!

Oh…and the hobby? Still a hobby for all of us. Among our greatest joys? Sailing in our islands, grins on our faces, sighting another one of our boats doing exactly what we are…marveling at the beauty of this amazing cruising ground we’ve been given.

Special Opportunities

Courses & Stateroom Bookings Spring & Summer Guided Flotillas Fall Guided Flotillas
Stateroom Bookings 10-Day Sunshine Coast 7-Day Independence Celebration 7-Day San Juans & Saanich
2-Day Sailing Courses 10-Day Barkley Sound 7-Day San Juan Islands 14-Day Desolation Sound
Women-Only LNC 7-Day Cruising the Gulf Islands   10-Day End of Season Hoorah