It was, by any measure, an audacious move.
Flynn, who originally discovered sailing in his 30s on Switzerland’s Lake Geneva, had enjoyed time on a modest Yingling keelboat— Olympic class, yes, but a world away from the turbocharged power of Paradox. After moving away from the lake, sailing took a backseat to life and family. It wasn’t until his early 50s that he made the decision to re-enter the sailing world—and when he did, he didn’t mess around.
“I always knew I’d come back to sailing,” Flynn explains. “I’d had the idea of buying a cruising catamaran, maybe something like an Outremer. I sailed on several likely candidates. But then a friend said, ‘You need to meet this guy.’ That guy was Clint Clemens, a trimaran fanatic from Newport RI – and he changed everything.”
Clemens introduced Flynn to the thrill of trimaran sailing by taking him out on his own 50-foot trimaran in Newport. That experience proved pivotal.
“It was just magic,” Flynn recalls. “I’d never seen anything move so fast and yet feel so comfortable, so friendly to sail. I was completely hooked.”
