Steve Matles | Modern Sailing

Steve Matles

Instructor

You’ve got to really love sailing when you launch your first boat in the “mud puddles” of Oklahoma reservoirs. It was a 19-foot Flying Scot, a daysailer that followed him from Tulsa, to Galveston, and finally to Lake Tahoe where he turned it in for a 28-foot Lancer. Steve currently owns Moon Dance, a Bavaria 42 Cruiser in the Berkeley Platinum Fleet.

At 10, Steve got the sailing bug as a summer camper on one of the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota. His log book shows passages which included Lake Superior the British Virgin Islands, Dry Tortugas, Galveston Bay and Scotland. More recently, he sailed Moon Dance down from Seattle, and Coho II up from the LA area.

In 1981 Steve moved to Reno where he began sailing Lake Tahoe. In 2016, while on assignment at a hospital in the Bay Area, Steve began teaching for Modern Sailing on weekends, though his home base remained in Reno.

Steve is an ASA instructor for Basic Keelboat, Costal, Bareboat, and Advanced Coastal Cruising classes, as well as Coastal Navigation. He holds a Coast Guard 50-ton license (with Sailing Endorsement) and is also a Royal Yachting Association Coastal Yachtmaster.

Steve recently retired as a Healthcare Safety Officer and Disaster Manager. “I might be slightly risk-adverse,” Steve tells his students as he emphasizes the need for safety in all aspects of sailing. He and his wife, Marty, have two grown children, in all in Reno. 

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  • Jessica Zittere, Member

    The Full Moon Sail with Skipper Bob Gutsgell was Ah-Mayzing!! The group dynamic was lovely and the views spectacular. I can't say enough good things about the experience. Thanks so much for the wonderful Club Sails, they are really great.

  • 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.

  • Danny Collins

    The office staff was very accommodating in meeting my availability.

  • Emma & George Stubbs, Sausalito

    We just took our ASA 106 at a school in Rhode Island as we prepare for 6 months of cruising in the Caribbean. The class was great, but more than anything it made us really appreciate the quality of teaching and rigor at Modern Sailing. Even though we were the newest to sailing, the group seemed to think that we had the best fundamentals. We felt very well prepared and we see why Modern Sailing has the reputation it does.

  • Andrew Goble, San Francisco

    It has been wonderful sailing with MSC over the years. Please extend my thanks to the owners, management, and staff for unrequited professionalism and high standards in a charter fleet. I have sailed with several in my years and none nearly hold a candle to the quality of business and staff at Modern Sailing.

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Modern Sailing School & Club

Sausalito Location
2310 Marinship Way, Sausalito
(415) 331-8250
(800) 995-1668

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