Randy Hecht got the call while racing at the International Knarr Championship, in Copenhagen, Denmark. The good news? His boat had made the 2,600-mile journey from San Francisco to Toronto in time for the 2025 J/105 North Americans. The bad news? The boatyard in Toronto accidentally broke the mast. With barely two weeks to spare before the start of the championship, his two-week Danish regatta swiftly became fraught with faraway logistics.
“I was confronted with both finding a replacement mast—you cannot just go to a store to buy an immediate replacement—and also finding a skilled rigger to get a replacement mast ready for the boat,” Hecht says. “I was close to throwing in the towel and towing the boat and the broken mast home.”
Hecht, however, was on a mission to win his third J/105 North American title with his talent-stacked crew that included Russ Silvestri (tactician and main), Maggie Bacon (pit), Ethan Doyle (trimmer and strategist), David Janinis (mast), and Steve Marsh (bow). In 2022, racing the boat for the first time, Team Niuhi won the J/105 North American title in San Francisco, and did so again in Rye, New York, in 2023. The team did not race the 2024 edition but Hecht was always committed to Toronto for the opportunity to race against Terry McLaughlin, a four-time North American J/105 champion, Canadian Olympic silver medalist and America’s Cup skipper for Canada.
“This was an opportunity to test ourselves against arguably the best J/105 sailor and team ever,” Hecht says. “We also wanted to sail against a completely different fleet of 105s than what we had faced in San Francisco and Rye.”
Team Niuhi got a lucky break; it was able to borrow a good mast from a local youth sailing charity and found a local rigger to fit it to their boat. Niuhi then went on to win its third J/105 North American title in slam-dunk fashion, finishing with a net score of 25 points after 12 races, including six race wins.
In a regatta post-mortem, McLaughlin, a fierce competitor who has been sailing Mandate with his J/105 partner Rob Wilmer for 13 years, shares his observations: “They are fast and I guess they have been fast for years,” he says. “They also have a very good crew; they seem able to get mediocre starts and come out of those better than anyone else.”
Hecht, who resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, got into the class because he wanted to gain more experience starting a keelboat in bigger fleets. He was also looking for a boat to sail in the Rolex Big Boat Series, and he liked the idea of competing in the 2022 J/105 North Americans, which were being held on the Bay. Hecht had never sailed a J/105 before, but he liked it.
“The feeling of crossing the finish line in first, just nipping a group of other boats, the teamwork needed to adapt to a rapidly changing situation, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, and whether disaster strikes or disaster is avoided, I’ve found it all in the 105,” he says.
Hecht is the kind of guy who owns the room; he’s a commanding presence with his athletic and towering physique at 6 feet 5 inches. He’s intense and tough, having finessed his sailing skills in his early 20s racing Tempests, including the 1972 Olympic Trials. He’s also a 20-year leukemia survivor so his fight or flight instincts may be stronger than those of most others. Hecht also campaigns a 30-foot Knarr and an 18-foot Mercury, which are both competitive fleets with excellent sailors. All of his boats are aptly named Niuhi—Hawaiian for “large man-eating shark” as aptly illustrated on his J/105 mainsail and spinnaker.
Over the years he and Silvestri have put together a crew of sailors to sail the three boats which are all part of Team Niuhi. “We have a process that we use to select crew,” Hecht explains. “First, someone on the crew has to recommend you for the job needed, and everyone on the team understands what we are looking for. We want crew that are responsible, committed for the long term, team-oriented, skilled at their job, likeable, passionate about racing and improving, and have the ability to perform under pressure. Our objective is to win big regattas as a team and that’s how we attract top talent.”
Doyle, Niuhi’s trimmer and strategist, has sailed with Hecht for eight years and thrives on the competitive environment and team philosophy that Hecht embraces. “We went to Toronto with one objective: to win,” Doyle says. “That all-or-none attitude creates an emotionally high-stakes vibe and it is immensely satisfying to be part of a team that gels and thrives under that competitive pressure. Randy is a leader that has an intense focus on success. That level of competitive intensity is not for everyone but leading by example, he’s done an amazing job of putting together a team that embraces that philosophy.”
While Team Niuhi’s success on the racecourse is seemingly a guarantee while Hecht is behind the wheel with his tight crew, he’s a fan of making sure the balance of work versus fun is in check, whether it is a beer can race at home or one on the road, and part of that is having a mix of younger but very skilled sailors on the boat.
“I love the mix of young and older people and how well that can work on a racing sailboat,” he says. “One of our young sailors started a process of playing music as we leave the dock and now we play music all the way to the racecourse—we found that we would all relax and laugh pre-race when listening to music.”
Since his debut in the J/105 fleet, Hecht has been proactive in helping other teams improve, fully aware that keeping a fleet strong does benefit everyone in it. “We try to be an open book on how we make our boat go fast,” Hecht says. “I will take the time to talk to anyone about J/105 speed questions and I will also invite skippers to sail with us for Friday night beer can racing. Without a doubt, it is also helpful to have a local sailmaker who can spend a lot of time with the fleet and act in a teaching role.”
Hecht also takes immense pleasure in the widespread nature of the J/105 class, which he notes has many fleets in wonderful places, with benefits that include a broader group of sailing friends, learning a new racetrack, and experiencing other competitive fleets. He’s a fan of getting on the road once in a while to mix things up, acknowledging that while the coordination around trailering a bigger boat to a new location can be taxing. But the rewards, he says, are worth the bumps.
“We always rent a house for the entire crew which has become a terrific bonding experience for all of us,” he says, “from making meals together, playing pingpong or spending time in the pool discussing how to improve on the racecourse the next day.”
The J/105 North Americans will be in Seattle next year and Hecht is hopeful that there will be a strong contingent from his Bay Area fleet. And speaking from experience, his recommendation to owners and skippers looking for an economic solution to destination racing with a bigger boat is to charter one that is not being used in the local fleet. “The cost and effort,” he says, “is usually less than taking one’s own boat and it comes with fewer challenges.”
