Instructors and Staff
The most important part of any sailing school is the staff. We feel very fortunate to have some of the finest instructors in Southeast Florida.
- Bill Miles, Instructor
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Captain Bill Miles learned to sail from his father, who taught Bill and a childhood friend in the late 1950s. He worked aboard yachts and sailboats for much of his young adult life. He became a Red Cross sailing instructor in 1968, the first step in a teaching career that would span the next forty years and beyond.
Bill has passed along his extensive experience to students at yacht clubs, church camps, and sailing schools. He’s also been a certified windsurfing instructor, and trained volunteers for the Virginia Beach Mental Health Department while working there as a crisis councilor. When he isn’t busy teaching, Bill is a serial entrepreneur — over the years, he’s successfully owned and operated several seasonal watersports businesses. He continues his volunteer mental health work today as a board member and trainer for the Outer Banks Hotline Crisis Intervention and Prevention Center.
Captain Miles is certified to teach ASA course levels 101-105, and all catamaran courses. He’s been teaching seasonally for Blue Water Sailing School since 1999. He now spends the winter in the Virgin Islands teaching for Blue Water and heads to Colorado in the summer for R&R.
- Bill Mount, Instructor
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Captain Bill Mount was born and raised in landlocked Oklahoma. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in history, and spent a year touring Europe by bicycle. He started sailing small boats on Oklahoma’s Lake Thunderbird in the mid-1980s.
In 1994, Bill moved to Florida and got his captain’s license. He drove a dive boat in the Florida Keys for a year, then taught sailing and navigation at the Chapman School of Seamanship. He’s been teaching at Blue Water Sailing School since 1995. Captain Bill received the American Sailing Association’s ASA Instructor of the Year in 2000 and 2005.
Besides sailing in local Floridian and Bahamian waters, Bill’s many ocean passages include: a transatlantic crossing; Grenada to Saint Thomas, USVI; from Gibraltar to the Canary Islands; from Sausalito, CA to Baja, Mexico; from Newport, RI to Fort Lauderdale, FL; and from Saint Thomas to Newport.
- Jaye Melanson, Instructor
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Captain Jaye Melanson’s boating experience began early, with several voyages from the pristine shores of her native Vermont to Cuba and the Bahamas. Her most recent sailing sabbatical was a challenging yet glorious eighteen-month, single-hand excursion. The journey took her down the Eastern Seaboard and throughout much of the Caribbean aboard her beloved Absolutely, a Tartan 37 cruising/racing yacht.
At the culmination of this adventure, Jaye found herself working in Florida. She has since turned her passion for sailing into a career by working as Director of a sailing school, a charter captain, charter agent, an ASA-certified instructor, delivery captain, Director of SailTime Miami, a dive boat captain and dive master.
“I’d have to say I’m happiest while teaching and sharing my love of sailing with our students. Blue Water Sailing School is the best thing that has happened to me, and you’ll say the same if you sail with us.”
Having cruised, dived, moored, fished and explored extensively throughout the East Coast and Caribbean, Captain Jaye is proud to offer her unique perspective and acumen to the yachting world. Her return to port is always filled with smiling faces and fantastic memories.
- Jennifer Wirth, Instructor
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Captain Jennifer Wirth grew up in Milwaukee, WI. Sailing dinghies on Lake Michigan taught her a love of the sport, and she’s been pursuing it ever since as both a career and a lifestyle. She began her sail-teaching career in college, where she made room in her heavy course load of physics classes to be an instructor for the student sailing club.
After earning her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Jennifer turned her attention to sailing full-time. Following a short stint working aboard a 60-foot ferroconcrete ketch, she downsized to something a little closer to the ocean and more to her taste — a 23-foot Herreschoff cutter. She spent the next six years sailing the Caribbean, living on self-caught seafood and fresh island fruit, enjoying the self-reliance and empowerment of “cruising simple.”
Captain Wirth earned her USCG 100 ton Master Captain’s License in 1995. She runs regular sailing charters out of Miami to the Keys and Bahamas aboard monohulls and catamarans, and fishing trips in the Keys. She’s been an active ASA sailing instructor since 1999, teaching courses up to the Advanced Coastal Cruising level (ASA 106). When she isn’t sailing or teaching, Jennifer indulges her passion for fishing.
- John "CJ" Scheuren, Instructor
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Captain John Scheuren (you can call him CJ) first learned to sail at an early age. Sea Snark sailboats were the standard fifth birthday present for him and his siblings, and Tampa Bay was his classroom. Over the next forty years he has traveled, taught, and delivered vessels of all sizes and shapes around the globe.
In addition to sailing, CJ also has an extensive aviation background. His hobbies include traveling in his Jeep, finding new adventures, keeping in touch with former students, and being the favorite uncle of his 17 nieces and nephews.
- Molly Winkelman, Instructor
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Coming soon!
- Rick Neilson, Instructor
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Captain Rick Neilson first learned to sail on Long Island sound, where his father began teaching him at the age of four. After more than 4,400 days at sea as an instructor, delivery captain, and recreational sailor his experience is deep and far-ranging. He makes a point of passing on those years of experience to the students of every sailing course he teaches.
Rick got started in teaching as a ski instructor and middle school teacher, but his love of the sea ultimately lead him to become a sailing instructor in 1989. Since then, he’s won the American Sailing Association’s Outstanding Teacher award three times. At Blue Water, he teaches courses from Basic Sailing through Advanced Coastal Cruising.
- Shel Miller, Instructor
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Captain Shel Miller grew up in Vermont on the shores of Lake Champlain, where he first learned to sail on small catamarans. Shel went on to crew several sailboats in local racing events whenever he wasn’t busy running his home construction company.
After fifteen years in chilly Vermont, Shel moved to the warm weather of the Florida peninsula in the late 1980s. In ’87 he got his first ASA certifications and a U.S. Coast Guard license to carry passengers. By 1989 he’d purchased a 46-foot yacht and started captaining charters to the Bahamas.
Captain Shel became an ASA-certified sailing instructor in 1993, and is a firm believer in learning by doing. “Words really don’t teach,” he says, “experience teaches. However, words can offer guidance and different viewpoints. My objective is to help students become more knowledgeable, proficient, and comfortable in the ways of the sea.”
- Ted Wheeler, Instructor
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Captain Ted Wheeler started sailing more than 30 years ago. A professionally trained classical musician and educator, Ted’s previous life included stints in the US Air Force, a Bachelors and Masters in Music, orchestra and choir conductor, and a career as a music educator.
Ted fell in love with sailing in his early 30s. He and his wife cruised the Bahamas, Florida Keys and both Florida coasts on his three- to four-month breaks from teaching. It wasn’t long before Ted started sailing professionally and working part-time as an instructor for the International School of Sailing in Fort Lauderdale. Being a professional educator as well as a professional sailor, Ted soon earned a promotion to Head of Instructional Programs. After ISS went out of business in 1989, Ted came to work for Blue Water Sailing School as Lead Instructor. He now sails and teaches full-time.
Ted is certified by the American Sailing Association to teach all levels of the ASA program, including being one of the few instructors in the US certified to teach ASA 108, Offshore Passagemaking. During his career Ted has made more than a dozen trips to or from the Caribbean, the US Gulf Coast, the Chesapeake and New York; three trips to Bermuda; one Transatlantic passage; and over 200 weeks to the Florida Keys and Bahamas.
Ted has been named ASA Instructor of the Year by the ASA — an award based on student surveys — four times in his career.
- Tom Hagood, Instructor
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Captain Tom Hagood began sailing at an early age, and knew that it was something he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He graduated from professional mariner training at the Chapman School of Seamanship in 1990 and hasn’t looked back.
Over the years, Tom has become a seasoned charter captain and sailing instructor. He’s crossed the Gulf Stream over two hundred times, visited most of the 700 islands in the Bahamas archipelago and and has helped countless new sailors learn the ropes. He is also an experienced boat owner and mechanic.
In his spare time Tom is a member of the United Stated Coast Guard Reserve and captains search and rescue boats from the USCG base in Port Everglades.
Captain Hagood is a certified instructor for ASA course levels 101–105, and has been teaching at BWSS since 2002. Capt. Tom was an ASA Instructor of the Year Winner in 2009.
When Tom isn’t sailing, you’re likely to find him riding his Harley or rooting for the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
- Tony Wall, Instructor
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While recovering from a soccer injury in the early 1980s, Captain Tony Wall discovered the pleasures of one-design racing and weekend sailing on Long Island Sound and off the coast of Newport, RI.
“By the mid 80s I was hugely exaggerating my big boat experience, so I could charter large Beneteau and Jeanneau yachts in the Caribbean,” admits Tony. “I soon learned the importance of good training and proper education to add to my pure sailing abilities.”
Now an ASA-certified advanced sailing instructor, Tony has amassed over fifty thousand miles in blue water. A Pacific crossing in 1992 and a transatlantic voyage in 2006 took Captain Tony to many exotic and historically interesting destinations, as well as teaching him the value of self-sufficiency and perseverance. He also has years of racing experience under his belt, and is a three time winner of the Newport–Bermuda race (twice as tactician).
When he’s not busy training a new generation of sailors, Tony is a yacht broker licensed and insured in the state of Florida.
- Wayne Falb, Instructor
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Captain Wayne Falb was born and raised on the south shore of Long Island, where his family owned a 32’ Chris Craft vintage 1936. It was there that he found his love of the sea.
Wayne graduated from the University of Vermont in 1971 with a BA in American history. He received his USCG license in 1983 while living in the Virgin Islands. In 1984 Wayne moved with his wife and two children to Florida, where he began teaching sailing and seamanship. In 1996 he became captain of a Little Harbor 62. He spent the next few summers in Maine and Nova Scotia, cruising the Carribean during the winter.
After an Atlantic crossing in 1999, Wayne cruised the Mediterranean Sea for two years. The family settled in Barcelona, where he delivered yachts from Turkey to Ireland and all points in between. The Falbs returned to Florida in 2006, and Wayne is once again teaching sailing and delivering yachts.
Captain Falb has logged almost 80,000 sea miles. Along with his passion for sailing, he enjoys reading, snow skiing, and scuba diving.
- Willy Baird, Instructor
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Born in Michigan, Captain Willy Baird grew up in a power boating family, with his parents being competitive water skiers. By age 9 he was driving their practice boat, a home built skiff with twin 75hp Johnsons.
Willy started sailing in his early twenties, crewing for a veteran of many Port Huron to Mackinaw races. Buying a Cape Dory Typhoon led him to
Besides sailing, Willy has had an interesting and varied career: worked on a cattle ranch, rodeoed professionally for 7 years, ironworker and for 22 years owner of a steel erecting and fabrication company.
Captain Willy is married with two children and two grandkids.
- David Pyle, Owner
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David Pyle was born and raised far from the sea, in northeast Ohio. He discovered yachting during a college sailing trip in the Bahamas. It was love at first sail, and a new direction in his life was set. After graduating with a degree in math, Dave moved to the San Francisco Bay area and started sailing recreationally.
He eventually got a job as a first mate for a charter company operating in Florida and the Bahamas. With the experience and sea time he gained working for the charter business, Dave attained a US Coast Guard captain’s license and went into business as a delivery and charter captain.
After five years of almost full-time sailing — four transatlantic crossings, numerous trips from the Caribbean to the US, and throughout Florida and the Bahamas — Dave swallowed the anchor and acquired a charter company. A few years, a business partner, and one marriage later, Dave and his wife Monica became the sole owners of Blue Water Sailing School.
Although now he usually sails a desk, Dave is a USCG Master (100 ton), and certified by the ASA to teach courses up to ASA 106: Advanced Coastal Cruising. Besides sailing, Dave enjoys long-distance cycling.