Hot off her runner-up finish at this year's US Women's Match Racing Championship, Janel Zarkowsky (CFA ‘09 & MET ‘11) is a powerful force on the Match Racing Circuit. Growing up on sailing on the Chesapeake Bay, Zarkowsky started sailing at the young age of seven. She grew up as a remarkable sailor and fantastic cello performer. As she was looking at colleges, Zarkowsky picked Boston University for its remarkable academics, competitive sailing opportunities, and cello program. Noah Robitshek (ENG ‘25) caught up with Janel to talk about her sailing growing up, her time at Boston University, and her training towards the Women's Match Racing World Championship in Auckland this November.
The following commentary is a highlight of the interview and has been adapted for the ease of readability. Please enjoy!
Noah: Could you talk about how you got into sailing?
Janel: Yeah. I was born in Maryland and my father was in the Navy. We moved a few times while I was growing up, but I was always by the water. And, my parents had met sailing.
So being on the water in our spare time was a big part of our life. My dad did a lot of ocean racing, he had the competitive edge. I started sailing Optis out of Severn Sailing Association when I was about six, and started racing by the time I was eight or nine years old, and then sailed lasers on the Chesapeake Bay. I didn't travel too far away when I was in high school because I also did a lot of music performances. I kind of balanced those two leading up to going to BU.
Noah: Did you do both the performance and the sailing at the same time?
Janel: I kind of broke them up into season. So, in the summer I always sailed. Then into shoulder seasons, I would go play the cello for competitions or lessons, or camps in the winter. When I got to high school, there was a [sailing] team you could do in the shoulder season.
I tried to do both and it was really challenging to do both. I mainly sailed in the summer and did music the rest of the year. By the time I got to college, it was even harder to do both, and about halfway through my college career, I shifted a little bit away from a performance end goal and more towards sailing.
Noah: Were you more attracted to dinghy or offshore when you were a kid?
Janel: I did Optis and Lasers. That was like the biggest drive I did from 8 to 18. Then I did a few double-handed events when I was in high school in the Club 420s and FJs. So I did a handful of events double-handed when I was in high school, and then when I got to college, that's all we did. I didn't really like sitting next to somebody until that was like the thing you needed to do, in college, was work with the crew.
Noah: When you were looking at colleges, what attracted you to BU? Was college sailing a big part in where you were looking?
Janel: Yeah, it actually was! I really enjoyed sailing and I wanted to find schools that had music programs that had good cello mentors. Cello performance was my instrument of choice, so I was looking for schools that had a music program and sailing and someone from the cello world that was recognizable or I could work with. It ended up being four schools which were Northwestern, University of Southern California, Rice, and Boston University. My dad had gone to school in Massachusetts and I just really liked the feel of the city. I think the other ones were all separate campuses and I just really liked being able to walk through the city at BU.
Noah: And then when you got into college, was it a shock to you or was it an easy transition?
Janel: I think it was a shock where I was living on my own, I guess, with the roommates and the living and campus. But I found a home in the sailing team really fast, and I was really busy pretty quickly with practices and traveling on weekends. So I didn't feel lost for very long because I had the sailing team.
Noah: Jumping back to your freshman year, what was a highlight of sailing during your freshman year?
Janel: Oh my gosh. I don't even remember…So my freshman class was pretty small. I think there were only maybe six or seven of us that came in with experience. Then by the time we graduated, it was a pretty small class that stuck with it. I remember I met my best friend in my freshman fall, a sailor from Rhode Island, and we got paired together to be sailing at freshman events. Then we ended up living together for the next three years. So I met, you know, my best friend in college that first week at sailing. I would say that was memorable.
Noah: While you were on the sailing team, was there anyone that guided you or someone that you looked up to?
Janel: Well, my freshman year there was a senior, she was the senior driver. She sailed A division and I sailed B division when we traveled together. I looked up to her that first year and followed her lead. Her name was Chanz McManus, and she had her family's car that she would drive, and she would pick the whole team up and get everything organized for the food or the directions or where we were staying. She kinda took the lead. When I saw that my freshman year, I was like oh, that's what leaders of the team do. They make sure that everyone's ready for the weekend. They take the charge and make sure all the big pieces are set up and make sure everyone's included. So I looked up to her my freshman year, and then I tried to do that the rest of my time.
Noah: And how did you get into match racing? Did it start in college, or did you begin after college?
Janel: When I got to college, I asked the coach at the time, Brad Churchill, if I could sail the keelboat qualifier, because I was like “I think I can do it.” I've never had a chance to sail keelboats, but I'd like to try. He let me my junior and senior year, and at that point it was fleet racing; it wasn't match racing. We didn't qualify, but I got the chance and I got the bug. When I was graduating in 2009, there was a really big push in US Sailing with women's match racing in the Olympics for 2012. They had pulled a ton of women sailors that just graduated or were still in college to start doing match racing clinics. It made it really easy to just try it out, learn it, pair you up with teams, and get you set up on a circuit where there was a regatta every month. I was the right person at the right time, interested in the right thing, and wanted to try match racing. I got sucked into the Olympic development program. After I graduated in 2010, I was sailing with Becca Dellenbaugh. At the time, she was the driver and I was doing bow. So I got pulled into that and did all sorts of Match Racing from there. After they pulled women's match racing from the Olympics, like even before it happened, I think they pulled it and said it won't happen in Rio. I was a little heartbroken, but they created a Women's International Match Racing (WIM) series that existed for about eight years. I paired up with two other women who really wanted to keep racing, as well. I sailed with Stephanie Roble and Maggie Shea. They’re Olympians now off doing great things. So I did bow for them and we sailed on the WIM series for seven, eight years just matching and getting really good at matching. Then they decided to go off and do an Olympic campaign. There were only two people, which was fine. I decided to pivot from doing bow to start driving. So then I started driving about like five, six years ago, doing match racing myself.
Noah: Do you have any highlights from sailing with Steph and Maggie on the Women's International Match Racing (WIM) Series?
Janel: Oh yeah, the WIM series was awesome. We got to travel all around the world. I think the coolest, the place I really liked sailing the most, was Korea. It was just such an adventure to get to Busan. We sailed there I think three times. We did Worlds twice. We got third and we got second but we never won it. We really wanted to win it. We were at a very high level.
Like you would go to an event and they'd be like, “Oh, Stephanie's gonna be hard to beat. She's got Maggie and Janelle with her.” So we were always a contender to win, but we never won Worlds. But we did win the WIM series, which was a big undertaking. That means you did the best over the five, six events they had that year and there was a big prize. We won the WIM series once, we got third in the world in Denmark, and second in the world when the Worlds were in the US.
Noah: When Steph Roble and Maggie Shea transitioned to their Olympic campaign, what was your journey into driving a match racing team?
Janel: Wow. Yeah. I was nervous to get in the back of the boat because I hadn't done it. I had driven events. Like I always hopped back in a Laser and had chances to drive Snipes in Annapolis, but it was a commitment I felt, it's like a mental game. You're used to winning and now you're going to have to relearn everything from a position in the back of the boat. I started sailing with friends from college and I did the US Match Race Championship Series. The series was created six years ago and there were like six to eight events around the country. The winners of those events would be invited to the Prince of Wales, which is the US Open Match Race Champs. It was by invite before and they wanted to see new people, so they had qualifiers around the country. So I started sailing an Annapolis in J/22s with two of my friends. We didn't qualify the first, maybe two years, I think. We were like fourth and then we were second and then we finally won one. So it took me three years of driving the series and practicing, leading up to it to win a qualifier. And then I got to go to my first Prince of Wales as a driver in 2014. It was at Oakcliff Sailing Center in the SM40s, which is a big steering wheel, 40-foot boat. I was pretty intimidated to go to my first open championship in a boat that I really hadn't sailed before. We ended up doing much better than I expected. We ended up getting fourth, so we made it to the top four, and we lost in the semis and the petites. We were fourth the first time in that boat and there were some really good people ahead of us.
Noah: That's fantastic. And you've done a lot with the women's circuit too. Can you talk about your most recent appearance at the US Women's Match Racing Championship?
Janel: Yeah. I think it was two weekends ago. There hasn't been a series for the women's champ, it was just by invite. So I've done that for the last six years, like since I started driving. We just had one at Seawanhaka Yacht Club in Sonars and we got second, which was great.
I've gotten second I think four times now. I gotta break that Curse of the Bambino and try to win!
Noah: That second place qualified you for the Match Racing World Championship in November. What are the next steps before you head to Auckland later this fall?
Janel: Yeah. So right now we're confirming crew. It looks like I'm gonna have a combination of American and Kiwi crew. It's tough at the end of the year for Americans, right. We've used up our PTO, and in November I'm saying we need five days of PTO, and they're like, oh, I don't have five days. So I’m finding the people who are gonna be able to take enough time off. So I think I am going to have a girl that I've sailed with before when I was doing the WIM series: a Kiwi sailor, and she's living there and can get us in contact with another great crew. So I think we'll have two Kiwis and three Americans on the boat. I’m hoping to get some practice time in asymmetrical’s in Annapolis. I have some great contacts with J/80s and J/70s that I'll just drive and get used to the angles I need to come out in, what happens when I head up too much, or if I need to wing. Unfortunately there are no Elliot 7s in the states, as far as I know, there's Elliot six meters, but not Elliot seven meters. So, I hope to get down there prior to the event. There's the New Zealand Women's Match Racing Championship the weekend before. Hopefully there’s a spot available for me to either crew or skipper for that. I'm gonna try to get down there early to acclimate and see the boats and at least sail as a crew to get used to them.
Noah: Well, we wish you the best of luck in training and at the World Championships later in November. It was great talking to you!
Janel: It was great talking with you too!
Enjoyed this article and interested in talking with the team? Please reach out to our Alumni Director Noah at noahro@bu.edu!
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