Wolfgang Hausen | Modern Sailing

Wolfgang Hausen

Instructor

Wolfgang immigrated to the US over 50 years ago, just married and with a brand-new degree in electrical engineering. He established himself in the hi-tech industry initially as a computer design engineer, and later, after completing an MBA, as manager and executive at various Silicon Valley companies.

Having always had a dream of sailing to far-away places, 35 years ago Wolfgang joined a sailing school on the Bay and proceeded to climb the ASA certification ladder. In 1991 he began chartering boats on the Bay, followed by sailing in Southern California, in many parts of the Caribbean as well as in Thailand. Wolfgang crewed on Alaska Eagle in 2001, a 64-foot offshore racer, from Hawaii to Tahiti.

After many years of chartering, he acquired his own boat in 2009, an offshore cruiser made by Tayana. Now owning a capable ocean-going boat Wolfgang participated in the Baja Ha-Ha, sailing from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas and the Sea of Cortez. He has also sailed the California Coast numerous times. In 2014 ,Wolfgang participated in the Pacific Cup, racing from San Francisco to Hawaii and placing second in his division. The 25-day sail back from Hawaii in heavy weather added to his overall experience of the ocean.

Wolfgang earned his USCG Captain's credentials in 2012 in preparation for becoming a sailing instructor. Having always enjoyed teaching (Wolfgang was one of Santa Clara University's executive professors at the School of Business), he earned his ASA instructor certifications in 2013. Wolfgang started teaching at MSC in 2015.

Wolfgang's goal is for his students to become capable sailors confidently sailing San Francisco Bay. He feels that being able to sail the Bay is a great stepping-stone to successfully sailing anywhere in the world.

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  • Trudy Flores

    Captain Jeff Cathers is really cool. I had such a great time on the Farallones Day Trip. It was actually my very best day of 2020. Thank you so much for coordinating the trip.

  • John Clark

    Every aspect of Modern Sailing - training, syllabus, course materials, quality of the boats, quality of the instructors, and the very friendly and helpful staff - exceeded my expectations. Modern Sailing has a first class sailing program in an environment with challenging winds and currents. I look forward to coming back to charter a boat and certainly plan to continue my sailing training.

  • John Kratochvil, Oregon

    I would like to compliment Stan Lander for his coaching, counseling and teaching Heavy Weather Offshore Sailing. Stan was very accommodating to all of the student's interests and shared his many years of insight on handling the boat in heavy seas. I would certainly recommend Stan and this course to sheltered waters sailors. My confidence in handling a boat of this size was certainly enhanced by the experience.

  • Mike, Santa Rosa, California

    All of the courses and my instructors (JT and Stan) were extremely professional and full of knowledge and experience. I found I was able to learn from their experiences beyond the scope of the courses, and look forward to future opportunities to do so. I would highly recommend Modern Sailing to anyone.

  • Salesforce (Ashley H.)

    Our team at Salesforce did the Corporate Regatta Team Buidling activity (August 2026). What a blast!! HIghly recommend for your next team activity. It's fun to be out on the water, but the skippers also did a great job of teaching us all the sailing basics. The race is set up well so that we all had a chance to try out different roles. We did it with 11 people across two boats but having more boats is also doable and would lead to even more competition.

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