Steve Matles | Modern Sailing

Steve Matles

Instructor

Steve began sailing as a summer camper at age ten. At 15 he had a 19-foot Flying Scot sailboat on the reservoirs of Oklahoma. In 1981 he moved to Reno, NV and began his teaching career at Lake Tahoe, then working for Modern Sailing while on a job assignment in San Rafael. Steve holds a US Coast Guard 100 Ton license with Sailing endorsement.  As an ASA instructor, he is qualified to teach almost all courses up to ASA 106, Advanced Coastal Cruising. Additionally, Steve holds a Royal Yachting Association Yachtmaster-Offshore certificate. His log has passages on Lake Superior, Gulf of Mexico, California Coast, Caribbean, Scotland and England. He recently crossed the English Channel.   Steve is a retired Healthcare Safety Officer and Disaster Manager. “I might be slightly risk-adverse,” he tells his students as he emphasizes the need for safety in all aspects of sailing. However, “I want to create a safe-space for students to allow them to make mistakes so they can learn first-hand. Direct experience is a great teacher.” 

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  • John Kipping

    The meeting room was quite adequate and the location most convenient, but the course outline and instruction were outstanding. Modern Sailing is fortunate to have such a well organized instructor in Mr. Stan Lander who teaches very well from a rich professional background. Mr. Lander was generous with his time and patiently in helping students who needed more attention or time in understanding various aspects of the curriculum.

  • Angel Emilio Miranda

    The best sailing school in the Bay Area!

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Lucas Hendren

    Got my ASA 101 here, very professional and well run class.

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