Paul Cayard is one of the USA’s most successful sailors. He started his sailing career winning in an El Toro dinghy at the age of eight. Many years later he remarked, “As an eight-year-old, sailing just bit me. I really liked it. As a kid you’re always doing what your parents tell you to do. However, when I was on my El Toro, I was the captain of my ship. I oversaw my own destiny. It was an environment that allowed me to express myself at a young age.”
Paul soon progressed to Lasers and 505s where he gained the notice of top San Francisco sailor Tom Blackaller, who invited Cayard to crew for him on his Star Class Olympic keelboat and became an influential mentor. He went on to compete at the highest level of sailing, including: the America’s Cup, Whitbread and Volvo round-the-world races and Olympic Games. He has won nine world championships, twice participated in the Olympic Games and seven times in the America’s Cup.
Cayard also excelled in offshore racing and notably won the 1997/8 Whitbread round-the-world race aboard EF Language. Cayard and his mostly “inshore” crew also won the prestigious Roaring Forties Trophy. Cayard also became a compelling race narrator via the newly discovered internet. His reports engaged the public in real time, bringing his followers aboard the boat. His most gripping reports came from the Southern Ocean and the rounding of Cape race Horn. Equally notable, and one of the main reasons for this victory, was Cayard’s work pioneering the Code Zero gennaker. Paul was named 1998 Rolex Yachtsman of the Year.
Paul Cayard rounded Cape Horn again in the 2002 Volvo Ocean Race aboard AmerSports 1. In 2005, he was named Skipper of The Black Pearl, an entry in the 2005-2006 Volvo Ocean Race sponsored by The Walt Disney Company. Cayard placed second in the race while rounding Cape Horn for the third time in February of 2006. He rounded Cape Horn one more time aboard the cruising yacht Rosehearty in 2019 enroute to explore Antarctica.
This past year has probably been Paul’s most successful. Thirty-seven years after first winning the Star World Championship in 1988, still racing in what is probably the most competitive keelboat class in the world, at the age of 66, he won the 2025 Star World Championship in Split, Croatia over a fleet of 102 teams. For this achievement, he was named 2025 Rolex Yachtsman of the Year for a second time. Cayard then dominated the 2026 Bacardi Cup, in March, a title he had been chasing for 46 years! Cayard capped off this streak by winning the equally competitive Etchells World Championship, over a fleet of 77 competitors, in San Diego.
Through 40 years of competing at the highest levels, across all disciplines of Sailing, Paul considers his offshore racing experiences to be the most life enriching. Today Paul shares a Star and offshore racing with his son Danny, who works as an engineer but is quite an accomplished sailor in his own right.
Career highlights
4-time Cape Horner
1997/8 Whitbread Round the World Race EF Language -1st. Role: skipper
2001/2 Volvo Ocean Race – Amersports 1 – Leg 5- Role watch captain
2005/6 Volvo Ocean Race Pirates of the Caribbean 2nd. Role: skipper
Rosehearty – 56 Metre Perini – Expedition of Antarctica via Cape Horn
