Blazing a Trail and Securing a Legacy: Mary Brigden Shares Her Story

A fun open-water race winds up becoming a fight for survival. One moment Mary Brigden is navigating heavy weather off Fort Lauderdale. And in the next, she’s underwater in the dark, trapped beneath an overturned yacht with rigging pinning her down. Fortunately, her naval aviation training helps her overcome this catastrophe, and she is rescued with the rest of her crew.  

From there, we pull back to take a look at the larger journey: Mary enters the U.S. Naval Academy during only the second year that women were admitted and becomes Navy’s first women’s All-American in any sport. We talk about the culture of the time, how the sailing team became a place to compete and belong, and the skill set that separates great sailors from good ones. 

After graduation, Mary takes us through her preparation for the 1988 Olympics. She shares the unforgettable experiences that come with sailing all over the world.  

We close on legacy: honoring the women pioneers in Naval Academy athletics and Mary's commitment  to help make the Robert Crown Sailing Center a first class facility for future midshipmen. 

Subscribe to Navy Sports Central, share this with a Navy sports fan, and leave a review. What part of Mary’s story hit you the hardest?

Transcript

Intro: A Storm Turns Deadly

Karl 0:13

It's January 1983. You have recently completed flight school and will be joining your first squadron as a C-130 naval flight officer in a few months. In the meantime, you've been invited to join a sailing crew as a navigator for an open water race from Fort Lauderdale to Key West, Florida, which is a distance of about 200 miles. Your boat crew is racing a 50-foot yacht. It's well suited for open water races like this one. This looked like it was going to be a lot of fun. A nice boat, a great race, and a destination that Jimmy Buffett helped make famous. How cool was that? So, here you are on race day. The weather forecast is calling for stormy conditions and 35 to 40 mile an hour winds. But the fact was that the sustained winds were easily twice that strong. The race officials delayed the start with the hope that they would die down a little, but that didn't really happen. So they decided to give it a shot anyway. It was really rough going from the very beginning. The winds were so strong that your crew was forced to reduce the sail area significantly to try and maintain control of the boat. You were down to using just a fraction of your mainsail, and the jib you had up was the smallest in your inventory. That didn't make things any easier. So before you even got to Miami, you made the decision as a crew to turn around and head back to Fort Lauderdale. It just didn't make any sense to be racing into the night in these conditions. It's still daylight as you approach the harbor, but what you see next does not make you feel good at all. The conditions at the mouth of the harbor were extremely violent. There were huge waves crashing everywhere, and several boats had lost steerage and were founding on the rocks. It was not a pretty picture. Now, you, your skipper, and the rest of the crew are 100% focused on trying to bring this boat in safely. It was going to take all of you working together to make that happen. You are in the aft steering cabin with the skipper manning the backstays that were holding the mast up. Suddenly, an enormous wave rolls up and breaks right over the top of your boat. It caves in the aft cockpit where you are. The sheer force of the wave snaps the rudder post like a twig. With no ability to control the boat, it immediately goes broadside to the wave and flips upside down. Now you're underwater. And what's worse, you're hung up on something that's keeping you from getting to the surface. What was supposed to be a really fun sailing race has gone completely off the rails. And now you find yourself stuck underwater, beneath a boat that's no longer seaworthy, fighting for your life. From Navy Sports Central, I'm Karl Darden, and this is another special episode commemorating 50 years of excellence in women's athletics at the U.S. Naval Academy. Hi everyone, thank you so much for joining us. If you listened to our last episode, I shared the fact that our featured athlete would be with us today, so you know she survived this pretty harrowing experience. Let's go ahead and introduce her and then have her share how she managed to do that. Mary Brigden, welcome to Navy Sports Central. It is so terrific to have you with us today.

Mary 3:14

Well, it's a it's a real privilege, Karl. Thank you for including me and I appreciate your time.

The Rest of the Story

Karl 3:19

Oh, of course. No problem. Okay, let's go ahead and get back into it by not keeping our audience in suspense any longer. Um, I think it's fair to say that you were in a pretty tough situation when that boat flipped over. First of all, what went through your mind as you found yourself underwater, and then what happened after that?

Mary 3:35

So what I remember was just this violent boat ride of a you know, like roller coaster ride experience, and suddenly I'm underwater, it's dark, and I'm thinking, wow, I didn't expect my training to come in handy so quickly. That's right. I'm like, I gotta track the bubbles, I'm looking for the bubbles. I remember my dunker experience to track the bubbles, you know? And I'm like, okay, I see the bubbles, I'm staying calm, I know what I gotta do, and I'm trying to go towards the bubbles, but I couldn't free myself. I was completely trapped. Something on the boat had trapped me and I didn't know what. And I'm thinking very calmly. And uh the weirdest thought, Carl, of that experience was that I got angry. Like you know, if you do, you reflect on all these things when you suddenly realize your life may be in danger. And this this thought occurred to me that, like, gosh darn it, my roommate Carrie, who we had been roommates all four years, had tragically been killed in a mid-air collision in the training command. And she had died the previous summer, which of course was horrible. Just it's still horrible. I still feel deeply about that and and miss her. She was an amazing roommate and an amazing person. And uh, but this thought goes through my head to go, gosh darn it, Carrie and I fought to stick that out together for four years, and it's not even two years since graduation, and we're both done. It was the most weird cut thought that I could have ever had. But fortunately for everyone, at least for me, the uh the boat suddenly started on this roller coaster ride after being sort of tranquil and looking at bubbles, suddenly it became very violent again. And the boat righted itself. It turns out the mast had been stuck in the bottom and broken, and now it was over the side of the boat. And I was literally trapped in the rigging that was between that was you know, holding on to the mast, but no longer standing upright. And um, and then there was no more comb because I the boat was doing a lot of seesaw maneuver, and I truly thought it was gonna cut my head off. You know, it was like these cables were going across. And there was another sailor that was standing in the cockpit that grabbed my ankles and just started pulling, and he pulled me free of the wreckage, and it was it was just so such a relief. And we had lost like eight of our crew members over the side, and he's busily throwing life jackets over the side. Why we weren't wearing our life jackets back then only points to how stupid people were back then. Like he can't even imagine not wearing my life jacket in that, but we didn't. And uh anyway, so he's throwing this over, and I was like, Can you just wait a second? How about you and I put one on first before you throw them all away? Let's get one on. And and uh so I but you know what? I couldn't. I my arm had been broken. I didn't know what was wrong with my arm, but I couldn't move it. It didn't want to be moved, so I just sort of zipped it inside my jacket and put the life jacket around me. And um anyway, long story short, we eventually got rescued by a Coast Guard cutter, which towed us in because uh we had no ability to steer and no mast and no nothing. And uh they, you know, after some time were able to tow us in, and other boats were able to recover the people that were lost over the side. I did have to go to the hospital and get surgery on a broken arm, but it was uh yeah, that was a pretty pivotal moment for sale for me. Jeez.

The Relationship Between Culture and Competitive Drive

Karl 7:02

Okay, let's let's go ahead and move on. But before we jump into your life after graduation, I did want to touch on a couple of questions uh that go back to when you were at the academy. And um obviously you being the class of 81, you started when women were just it was the second year women uh were being admitted. Okay, so and if I recall from our previous conversation, there was right around 90 or so that were were accepted in that year in 77.

Mary 7:29

Yeah, I I think we yeah, 90 were accepted. I'm not sure we actually had 90 on I Day, you know, somewhere between 80 and 90. I think we graduated with about 60 on the right, right.

Karl 7:40

Yeah. So obviously, you know, two years in still a very new experience for many in the brigade. And and if we're being honest, you know, there are some in there that just weren't adjusting to that well. Um and my question is to what degree did the culture at the academy at that time play a role in your competitive drive? Or or did it at all? I'm not, I'm I'm just kind of curious.

Mary 8:02

Yeah, I think um, I mean, a couple things mattered a lot in that experience. One, I I did have a great roommate who was third generation Naval Academy. So having her as my roommate gave me a lot of context that I absolutely did not have. And I was completely lost. On the other hand, being lost and naive is sometimes good, you know. Like I I really didn't understand what all the fuss was about, you know, and and I, you know, was like, okay, but we're gonna get over this, right? Because you seem really invested in this problem, you know, or your perception that it's a problem. And um, so so I I you know I I didn't take it too heavily, I would say. I I think it became and it was actually kind of fun. And certainly coming from a large family gave me the confidence that, you know, I wasn't afraid of anybody. I knew I could take care of myself and would weather whatever, and I'm just gonna keep my head down and keep chucking along, you know. And the other thing that really helped is our firstsies, and I think this was true of the class of 78. They had watched all of you know what had happened in that first year, and they were really committed to going, hey, we're just gonna treat them like plebes, and and it's gonna be a good year, you know, they're gonna be fine, we're gonna be fine, let's just do our jobs. And and it was a very pretty business-like approach for a lot of it, you know, it didn't persist the whole time, but from an introductory standpoint, you know, I think that helped tremendously. Um I I do think that there became kind of a cultural accepted bias there that sort of took hold and took years, maybe decades, to get past. Yeah. Um but you know, Carl, what what what struck me immediately about the Naval Academy, what motivated me to stay, my memories that I carry are about some of the outstanding people that you get exposed to. And and you were in that time frame, meeting real life prisoners of war and hearing their stories and uh, you know, understanding their sacrifice, you know, it just makes your problems seem trivial. And I had never been exposed to anything like this. I'd never been around people of service. I just wasn't an ordinary Midwestern girl, you know, coming from a small Midwestern all-girls high school. I mean, I drew on my faith. I'd gone to Catholic schools. I think that that helped me, you know. I felt like some of the academy felt very spiritual to me in that calling and in that, you know, that desire to be the best you could be. And for sure, I was all about I wanted to be the best I could be. And so I tried to focus on that. I felt a lot of freedom being a part of the sailing team. The sailing team was a little off to its side. For the sailing team, they were excited that women were there. They knew that having women on their team meant they could win more national championships because if the women did well, the team overall did well. So there was a lot of um, a lot of good things in the setup for me that I think helped me a lot.

Karl 11:17

Nice, nice, yeah. Um, yeah, and I I can attest to the fact that who trains you as a class plays a huge role because you guys trained our class, you know, plebe summer. So I and that that was a uh, you know, it was a learning experience for me, but it was definitely one that I didn't have any negative feelings about. Yeah, I'm not sure every class can say that necessarily.

Mary 11:40

Yeah, I know it's true. It's true. I I've heard that too, and I've actually, you know, reconnected with some of the folks from 78, and they absolutely say that. They're like, are you kidding the class of 75 was super impactful to us? Yeah, you know, the class of 78 is super, you know, and I, you know, I'm I guess I'm lucky.

What Makes A Winning Sailor

Karl 11:59

Yeah. So uh, you know, one more quick question as it relates to sailing in particular, uh, and uh you alluded to this a little bit when we we last spoke. I mean, obviously, two-time all American. The skill sets that you have, what which ones did you think really separated you from everybody else out there? Uh and it was it something that would be considered teachable or intangible or something that's intangible that you can actually work on?

Mary 12:29

Yeah. Um, well, situational awareness is huge in a in a sailboat race. And if you think about it, you think about the angles and how it changes that the wind changes, if the wind changes five degrees, that's a big shift. Like the whole game has changed, the whole strategy has got to shift, you know. And a five-degree wind shift happens all day, every day, you know. That's like normal. And um, and so I think, you know, that that is definitely a strength that I have. Um, do you remember if you wanted to go aviation, you had to take this test called AQT F A R. And do you remember taking that test? Did you take it, Carl?

Karl 13:08

I did take it. I don't know what my score was, but I do remember taking it.

Mary 13:12

Uh yeah, they just I think they just tell you pass fail, as I recall. It was either you pass it or you failed it. And people really stressed out about it. And I remember taking it going, I don't quite get when the test starts. Like this is just so obvious, you know? And and I think it was really looking at that situational awareness because absolutely when I was flying, you know, flying felt extremely natural to me. And being able to fly maneuvers and information. And of course, this all happened in the training command. We didn't do that in our mission. You know, C month 30s don't do that kind of flying.

Speaker 1 13:44

Right, right.

Mary 13:46

Um, but you know, in the training command, you absolutely did that, and I loved it. And it felt very similar in in some ways, and um, so I do think that that is a skill that any really good sailor has to have or they will struggle. Um, and then I also, you know, I do like to study the rules make a difference. It is a bit of a game of chess, and so being able to anticipate and plan for the rules and how you're gonna leverage those. And but for sure, I think my strength is um I'm just so competitive. I just want to win. You look in almost all sports, they'll tell you the people that are just so intense about their goal and what they want to do. By God, they're gonna find a way. I'm kind of in that camp. Right.

Karl 14:36

Um okay, so when uh you're you're in flight school and you were basically it took basically what two years to get through that, like 18 to uh it was about 18 months for me.

Mary 14:48

Right. That was that was a little bit faster than some at that point. The average was probably closer to two.

Karl 14:53

Right, right. And um I know you alluded to, you know, we talked about the story on the intro there, and that was that was after flight school. When were you able to get back into sailing on a little bit of more of a regular basis after you cleared uh flight school?

World Championships Around The Globe

Mary 15:07

Yeah, not at all. I had a windsurfer that actually got as my graduation present. Windsurfing was kind of new back then. None of us had knew how to do it, and I taught myself how to do it in Pensacola, and I thought it was the perfect thing to have in Pensacola. And um, and so when I was stationed at Pax River, I pulled out my windsurfer. I would, you know, sail around on the Chesapeake Bay with that, but that was literally just for fun. It wasn't really sailing. What happened was in 1980, the end of 85, like no, I think it was about November 85, the Olympic Committee made the decision to open up uh a sailing event to women. Up until then, the only way you could go to the Olympics was first of all, only one team goes per event, and women could compete against the men to win that event, and that would be how a woman could potentially go. Well, it had only happened once, and she wasn't gonna win a medal. So finally, the Olympic movies said, look, this is crazy. You have to have a women's event so they have a fair chance to win a medal. And when they opened that up in '85, I got super excited. And um, I had friends that I knew were gonna try for it, and uh, the first Olympics would be in, they were in Seoul, Korea in '88. Right. And I petitioned to the Navy Sports Office in DC. And I gave them my background, my history, and said, you know, I think I'd have a real shot at this, but I would need to have more freedom to train and practice. And they approved it. And so that what that meant was that they gave me orders. My I was due to rotate in the spring of 86. So I got orders right on time, and I got transferred to the Naval Academy as the leadership instructor. And um, and in my orders, that Navy sports endorsement was provided so that my leadership chain that, you know, they would give me time off to go to a world championship or, you know, to go to a training camp or so forth. And and more than that, the Navy would give me no cost order. So I didn't have to be on leave. They didn't pay for it, but I was earning a paycheck as a lieutenant in the Navy, you know, and so I was way ahead of a lot of people in that category. And um, and so that's what I did for the next three years. I I trained for the Olympics, I um went all over the world sailing. It was amazing. And uh in 1988, the Navy selected me as the Navy Athlete of the Year, which was pretty awesome. And I got to go to a cool little big celebration in DC that was quite memorable. Met Dr. J and Michael Jordan. And yeah, it was really fun, you know. And uh yeah, that was cool. That was great.

Karl 17:47

Yeah, yeah. So let's talk about some of those races you competed in as you prepared for the Olympics. Um, are there any in particular that stand out in your mind?

Mary 17:54

You know, everyone, sometimes they blur, but everyone was unique and so important. The first one I did was um the U.S. women's championship in Seattle. I don't think I'd even moved out of Pax Rover yet, you know. And I'm I'm just hopping in the boat, pretty cold. I'm hopping in with somebody I didn't even know, you know, but she was a crew, she had sailed that boat before, so I wasn't having to teach her how to sail this boat. She was experienced at it. And we finished third, and that was amazing. And it was like, whoa, we're here. And and so we got to go to Vancouver for the world championship then, which was the same time as the World's Fair that was in Vancouver. And there we got eighth, which we were pretty disappointed in, but in hindsight, it was still really good given our level of preparation and the time that we'd had together. And then in the fall, you know, I just doubled down, I put a training plan together with my crew, and we, you know, made a schedule for the next two years about what regattas we were going to go to. I mean, Carl, we sailed in so one that was kind of cool, we sailed the world championship in Israel in Haifa. And one of the things that was cool about that regatta is they're like, okay, there's two courses, Course Alpha and Course Bravo. And it's very important that you look at the notice board before you go out to race because the other course we will be actively bombing. We're at war right now. Like, okay, let's not miss that notice again. Let's make sure we're going to that right. Yeah, that's it. That was crazy. But, you know, in Germany, in Japan, in Greece, and you know, as much as I'm sorry that I didn't get the chance to go to go to the Olympics and to be the one that that won a gold medal, as as our US colleagues did, the team that did win our Olympics won the gold medal, which was amazing. Uh, the journey of competing at that level and traveling the world was just such a gift. And I always have felt that way. And I do think it's why my son is doing it now, because it's just it's such a great experience. The friendships that you make across the globe, and it's a dream come true, you know, and you get so good. You you train so hard, and you get so much better at such a different level than you've ever been at. And uh it's pretty cool.

Navy Life Outside of Sailing

Karl 20:12

That is neat. That is very, very cool. Um, okay, so you you got winged in 83, which means your commitment was up in 88. Um, how long did you end up staying on active duty?

Mary 20:23

Yeah, so after the Olympics was over, I had a little less than a year left in my orders. And um, and so I was due for another duty station. I was obligated to go to another duty station. Um, I hadn't yet finished off my flight obligation. And there were a few different possibilities. Ultimately, I ended up going to the Naval Air Pacific, Air PAC in San Diego, which is how I came to be in San Diego. And um, I worked a very interesting job called the Flying Hour Program Manager. And this job builds out the models that allocates the money for all the flight hours for all the squadrons.

Speaker 1 21:05

Oh, wow.

Mary 21:05

As well as all the accompanying maintenance dollars and parts dollars to the stations and the aircraft carriers that are supporting those aircraft. And so you really get this big picture of the deployment schedule, the opera, the op tempo, the training level, you know, when accidents were happening, you were adjusting this because you had to make sure that you know the air crews were safe. And um I even had to like create these exhibits that got presented to Congress when the ultimate budget got put together. So it was it was about $1.5 billion that I was managing at that point. And I was working with computers. I'd gotten my um master's actually while I was stationed at the academy. They had this night school program uh from GW, which was super cool. And I got I had gotten it in information systems, and this was right when computers were coming out, like we were all looking Learning how to work a PC and what is an apple, what is a mouse, you know? That was that was my life back then. And I had this job where I was like the queen of Lotus 1, 2, 3, you know, and I was down, and I was downloading, you know, data. I had a I had a mainframe dedicated to my what I was doing. And there would all these messages would come in daily from all the squadrons on this is how many flight hours, this is how many gallons of fuel, this is how much we paid. And and I was manipulating and managing that and learning so much about data and making and you know, I so I stayed on active duty until um until the end of that tour. So I was almost 11 years on active duty before I got out.

Speaker 1 22:45

Okay.

Mary 22:46

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that was a fantastic job. You know what else happened in that job, Carl? Is that the very first port of call by the Russian Navy happened. And we hosted it.

Speaker 1 22:58

Oh, no kidding.

Mary 22:59

I mean, you talk about having a weird experience and surreal to be standing at 32nd Naval Station in your service dress whites, saluting three Russian ships that are coming off with the blue angels flying overhead and just an array of pomp and circumstance like you've never seen. I got to meet the sec uh the chairman of the joint chiefs, Colin Powell, and his wife, and the Secretary of Defense. And I mean, it was it was amazing to have the opportunity to be there in that moment in history. Man. Totally lucky. No rhyme or reason why that happened to me, but it was a cool experience.

unknown 23:40

Right.

Karl 23:41

Oh man. So, okay, so you're 11 years in, they decided to go ahead and make the move to um the civilian world. Kind of map out the uh the the path from there in terms of where you went professionally and then where what kind of position sailing had in your life at that point.

Mary 23:59

Yeah, so when I moved to San Diego, I'd been dating a guy who had owned a sail loft in Annapolis, like a sales for sailboat loft. And he was a sailmaker, and he followed me to San Diego. We got married. So now I'm married to a sailmaker. Sailmakers don't make a lot of money, Carl. Let me just say that. They do it because they love it and they do love it, and they they are amazing what they learn about design and you know, yeah, but engineering. But um, but when I got out, it was, you know, I knew I needed to get a job. I worked for a government contractor, but that foundation of the computers is really what set my course and trajectory into that sort of work. Um, not too long after that, Oracle actually recruited me because I was doing so much with Oracle for Navy contracts uh in maintenance systems. And, you know, that just sort of set me off in a whole new direction with uh with technology, which was a huge gift. So I just rode that way from 91 to today with technology. I spent almost 10 years at Oracle, nine years at Oracle. And then started doing startups and then got bought by other big companies, and just yeah, I mean, it was a real privilege to be a part of that world such an early time. You know, now every now I just all the young people are doing this. And I'm like, yeah, I got to do this a long time ago. It's pretty cool.

Karl 25:24

Yeah, yeah. And of course, being in San Diego, I mean, that's just like prime sailing territory there.

Mary 25:30

Oh, yeah, yeah. So I I was doing some sailing. My husband was doing a lot of sailing. And in fact, the fact that he was a sailmaker actually impacted my sailing kind of negatively because you know, we started to have children, and it's like, okay, we can't both be off sailing.

Karl 25:45

That's right, yeah.

Raising a Sailing Family

Mary 25:46

Someone's got to be home. But I I didn't mind because I really loved being a mother, you know. I really loved being home with my babies and roaming them and having them turn into little sailors. And um, so I have done competitive sailing as a wife and mother, but not at that same level. And and the world was a little different then. There were less opportunities for women. I did, I did actually get a tryout for the women's America's Cup, if you remember that. There was an America's Cup that was sailed with a women's crew, and I got to train with them for a couple of weeks, but ultimately I didn't get the pick for that, which was certainly disappointing for me personally, but in the big picture, it was just fine. Um, but uh yeah, yeah.

Karl 26:35

So you mentioned your children. Um, at what point did you kind of start exposing them to sailing and did all of them take to it? I mean, you mentioned a son who's really into it, uh, but did all of them take to it, or did some say, you know what, this is it's kind of like with my daughter when she tried skiing for the first time. She says, Yeah, I'm glad I tried it, but it's not for me.

Mary 26:54

Yeah, yeah, it's good, it's a great question. I have two sons. They're about 18 months apart, they're pretty close together. Um, sailing's really our lifestyle sport. Sort of like tennis, you know, we belong to a yacht club, we socialize with other sailors. Even when I was in the Navy and I would go to new ports of call, you know how you'd go to the Oak Club and just sort of see who you know, you would always seem to run into somebody at the O Club that you knew, no matter where the heck you were in the world. Well, I would often go to a yacht club wherever that city was, too, and the same would be true. I would see people if I wasn't didn't know them directly. We knew of each other somehow. And um, so it truly was a lifestyle sport to me, much the way the navy is part of your life. And and also San Diego being such a navy town, those worlds are very conflated. At the yacht club, it's it's very supportive of the military. We have tons of naval officers in there in in the yacht club, and um, and so that world was really tight. And for our kids, it's just a natural thing. They they start by sailing with us sometimes in regottas and races, and then other times, you know, they don't actually sail their own boats till they're about six or seven, but they were in the junior program, their friends were in the junior program, it was their life. There they definitely didn't always love it. And in fact, it was important to Chris and I that they love it. And this is where parents often don't know how to handle that. And um, but the instructors were amazing, they would like tell us to get lost so that our kids didn't feel the paper the parental pressure, which totally took us aback. What do you mean you're telling us to get lost? We know how to tell you, and and then, uh, but then they were like, hey, Nevin or Patrick, you know, you don't have to go sit, just hang on the deck with us. They were very wise that if they created community and a sense of belonging, that the kids would eventually all start sailing and having fun and not be afraid of it. Because generally they're afraid of it, you know, it's scary, uh, especially if it's windy. And so it totally worked. I mean, that's that friendship, that community is what got them all into it. And they raced, and and San Diego being such an amazing place for sailing and such an amazing climate, they all raced in high school on high school sailing teams that um they won the high school nationals multiple times. Nice. So they were they were way ahead of the level that I was by the time they went to college. They had traveled in in some cases world championships, you know. That I took Nevin, I took one of my sons to um to Japan for a world championship that he finished third in. And my other son, Patrick, went to a world championship in Poland. They really had some amazing experiences, even as young people. And um both went both got recruited for sailing. Nevin sailed for Georgetown on their sailing team and won national championships there. And Patrick sailed went to the Naval Academy and was an all-American at the Naval Academy sailing there. So yeah, so I'm pretty blessed.

Karl 29:52

What year did he graduate?

Mary 29:53

He graduated 17.

Karl 29:55

Okay. Yeah. All right. So fairly recently.

Mary 29:58

Yeah.

Karl 29:58

Um, yeah, so it sounds like, well, maybe uh certainly because of Patrick, but even before that, I was wondering what how close were you able to maintain that connection to the Navy sailing program? And the reason I'm asking is because I wanted you to compare the level of support, um, and it could be monetary or take some other form as well over the years. How does that support for Navy sailing compare uh then to now?

Mary 30:22

Well, when we were there, Carl, um, the sail training program was not such a big thing. You remember, like, you know, now, you know, the midshipmen literally, you know, go to sea on sailboats and race competitively, and they may never have sailed before. You know, it's part of their their naval education. Um, so that really came started to become a bigger thing when I was back there as an instructor in the late 80s, early 90s, and it's only gotten bigger over time. So, so that's different for sure. You know, there's a lot more myths getting heavily into that. At our time, it was more like a more select group was able to race some of the boats that have been donated to the Naval Academy, and they would plan events. And I did get to sail some of those. Um, so honestly, the support's pretty amazing. So I'll give you an example. I met the Commodore of the New York Yacht Club who had himself had won the America's Cup. This is Bus Mossbecker, very famous sailor. He won the America's Cup back in gosh, in the early 60s. I don't know if it was 60 or 63. Um, 60, I think. Anyway, meeting somebody from the New York Yacht Club who's there to support the Naval Academy sailing program, and that's what he was there to give support, was amazing. And and a lot of people don't realize this. Some of the premier sailing organizations like the New York Yacht Club feel a great, and and the and the San Diego Yacht Club feel a great affinity to the Naval Service. And they they make special trophies for it. They they have military appreciation events, and it's a it's a big part of it. They're they're very overlapping, you know. It's also true in the British Navy as well, and in um two big sailing countries. And and the town of Annapolis was super supportive. I I knew and met a lot of top and Annapolitan sailors and sailors from the Annapolis Yacht Club and other clubs, and they were extremely supportive, both then and now, I would say, of the midshipmen.

Sailing's New Look - Sail GP

Karl 32:29

Okay, this looks like a pretty good spot to take a breather. Uh, we'll be right back to continue our conversation with Mary Brigden, so please stick around. I'm Carl Darden, and you're listening to Navy Sports Central. I did want to uh mention one more thing before we get into this next segment. Um, if you're enjoying this series commemorating 50 years of excellence in women's athletics at the Naval Academy, be sure to follow Navy Sports Central wherever you get your podcast. Now let's go ahead and get back to it. So, Mary, I wanted to uh get into a discussion on what we're seeing in the present day where sailing is concerned. And I'm thinking back to a conversation we had on the phone when you're talking to me about what what do they call that? Was it GLP or is it Sail GP. Sale GP. Uh yes, and coincidentally, the very next day they had a race on TV and I was watching it, and I'm going, holy it's crazy, isn't it?

Mary 33:32

It's totally crazy. It's like modeled after the Formula One. And um, and the races are so quick, Carl. And the reason for that is because they they require a lot of helicopter coverage to get all that coverage, and the helicopters have limited fuel capacity. So for them to successfully cover a race, they need to like do it and then take a break, go back. It's kind of interesting.

Karl 34:00

Yeah. So for our listeners, I was wondering if you could just like briefly describe a typical race. I mean, the the course is like you to your point, it's not very long uh because they got to start and finish quickly. But they use, you know, talk about you know the types of sailboats that they use and what you're likely to see in a race like that. Um, do they do they wear body armor like they did in the America's Cup these days? They do.

Mary 34:24

They do. I mean, the America's Cup is a lot is this was this was sort of taking a derivative from some of the innovations that have happened with the America's Cup and turning it into a more routine, like repeatable race model where they could do this. And and much like Formula One, countries and companies buy a buy a boat, you know, buy a can uh a syndicate, and uh and the and the the the races move from location to location around the world. There's a like a ship container for each one that you know they load up the ship, it goes to the next place. Um and they are racing at speeds in excess of 90 kilometers an hour, so whatever it's all in kilometers, so I'm not that fast on my transitions, but I mean it's scary. Yeah, they could kill each other if and they and they had a crash um just last month, and it was just like uh a steering failure, I think. I'm not really sure what caused it, but they were racing at speeds like that and and cut and you know, because they lost steerage, they they literally T-boned another boat, and the both boats were just blown up. And one guy had to get airlifted off, but the rest of the crew was okay, which was super fortunate. Um, but yeah, they're wearing helmets, they're wearing protective gear, they have emergency gear should they go in the water, you know, to keep them, you know, if they're knocked out, to keep them, get them air. Um they've got knives to cut themselves free, much like my boat. I mean, yeah, bad things could happen fast in that scenario, but it's super exciting and very interesting. And you know how you can see like the boundaries and the, you know, uh in the wind on the water and everything. So that technology is the same or similar. It's a it's a more advanced technology than the technology that you see when you're watching a football game and you can see the first down line. You know, you see, okay, this is where I need to get to. And of course, you can't see that if you're at the game, but you can see it on the television. So, same concept applies. That technology was developed by a sailor. His name is Stan Honey. So he he did the the touchdown line, he did the hockey track chaser, you know, and all of that. That's technology that he built. And now they're finally using it in the sailing world, which is super cool.

Karl 36:46

Yeah. And and the boats that they those were those were uh catamarans that they were sailing, or are there different types of boats they can sail?

Mary 36:53

Yeah, no, no, it's the it's one type of boat, and it's you know, dual foils with yes, with a cat a catamaran, they're foiling. They you know, you can see them, you know, they need to be on their foils to be competitive. If they're what it's in the water, they're not going anywhere. And it's only I think it's only five people, maybe six. It's very few people, and they're flying across these boats at high speeds, which, yeah, that's very exciting to watch that happen, isn't it? When they're like turning and the people are like, whoa, you know.

Sailing's Overall Impact, Personally

Karl 37:24

Wow. All right. So um just a couple more questions here, Mary, uh to kind of wrap things up. But uh when we had our last conversation, you talked about how central sailing has been to your life. Okay, how a lot of decisions you made, you know, sailing played a role in it for sure. So I was wondering if you could expand on that a little bit. What did it bring out in you that made you so passionate about it and that you carried it forward to your kids and you know, you're still involved to a degree even now?

Mary 37:54

Yeah, I think it's like any athlete, you know, the feeling that you could master it, that you could be the best at it is so enticing. Especially when you're a young person, you're like, really? I could really, I could really just keep trying harder and get better and be better than anybody. Like that would be amazing. And, you know, so for sure that was the beginning. And then as I grew older in the sport, it really, it really was the lifestyle that I liked. I liked the other sailors that I met. You know, that that opportunity to travel the world. I love to travel, you know. I I love that about being in the Navy, you know, I love the you know, being able to meet different people and and usually and you know what's kind of cool, Carl? There's there's the racing sailors that, you know, are like me, that they're all like, let's just go analyze every aspect of this race and what we could do different and how we could be better and what we need to do next. And I love that, totally into that. But then there's also the lifestyle side of it, like, let's just go cruising, let's just go take our boat and sail to Catalina and be on the beach and be in the sun. I mean, gosh, how lucky am I? How lucky is any sailor that, you know, and now that my husband and I are not working full time, we're making plans to go further, do more things like that. And hopefully the kids will join us, but you know, maybe not. They're busy. We'll see. There were sacrifices for sure. You don't get to have everything, none of us do. But for me, the trade-offs were always so easy to go this way. I just know I'm not gonna be disappointed. So if I can't have these other things, that's okay, you know. I'm keeping on this path.

Karl 39:38

Right, right. So, one last question for you, Mary. When when I think about the last, you know, 50 years of in uh women's athletics, I kind of break it up by decade almost, right? And and I look at those first 10 years of graduates. So let's talk like 1980 to 1989. Uh, I I kind of put all the women athletes in that in that 10-year uh period and and classify them as basically pioneers because they were responsible for getting women's athletics at Navy on a positive trajectory and a really strong trajectory that clearly is evident to this day. I mean, I can I can name half a dozen teams, including the sailing teams, that are just doing uh wonderfully and and and are really the the jewel of you know the Patriot League in terms of uh conference play. Whether it's basketball, swimming and diving, lacrosse, soccer, rowing, or track and field. And I could go on. Anyway, when you think about that, I I I just wanted to know uh as we celebrate this huge milestone at 50 years, how do you see your legacy? How do you see your role in all of this?

Mary 40:47

Well, that's such a great question because I'm in the midst of that, you know, thinking through that, Carl. And um one thing that I figured out kind of from the Alumni Association, like when we won those first national championships, I mean, we obviously were focused on winning, but we didn't think much beyond that. And I and about 10 years ago, the a lot someone from the Alumni Association sent me a note saying, we just want to recognize and congratulate you and your team because you won the first national championship won by women at the Naval Academy. And and I called up my teammates and they're like, really? Like, we never knew that. We never even thought about it, you know, like it never occurred to us. And so I thought about that and I thought, you know what? Let me look up all the national championship teams that Navy sailing has had. And there's six of them, most of them in the 80s, uh, actually, um, but also some in the 90s and one in early 2000. And I said, okay, I want to recognize those teams. And I didn't know a lot of the women that sailed on the later teams. And so we're pulling together and organizing a table at the gala at the 50 years to recognize and celebrate those women and go, you should all be celebrated. Like this is awesome. And I did it, I did an outreach to um the Naval Academy dinghy sailors, the NADs, we've always called ourselves. And I did an outreach to the classic navs, I call they call them, which is the older generation, us old fuddy duddies, and said, Hey, you know, are you guys interested in helping to support this celebration? And man, their hands went up. Like we are in. Either we're gonna be there or we can't be there, but we will contribute to underwriting that that that gala table and go get them. Let's let's celebrate this. So I think that is gonna be fun. I don't, it's never we never even thought to do it before, you know. And um, so I'm excited to celebrate with uh women nads over the years that I haven't even met yet. Some of them I knew for sure, but some I didn't. And um, so that's one thing. The next thing, though, that's quite happening and important is that we have to replace the Robert Crown Sailing Center. And if you go back in our story, that building, that physical building and that facility just blew me away when I was a high school senior and made me rethink my entire life of plan of what I was doing, and was truly an icon in early days of college sailing. It was the first college to have such a professional venue, such a well-thought-out venue. And now most of the top colleges have a pretty cool, you know, in many cases, surpassing what we have at Navy now, you know, which is natural. And we have to redo that building with uh water levels going up with global warming and as part of that whole seawall reconstruction. And so I look ahead and say, I want to help be part of replacing that building, you know, I want to be helping to. Raise the money and to make sure women have a place in that building right from the beginning. They were they've always had a place there. But you know, yeah, this is part of you. You know, you have a future here. So that's that's what's been occupying my mind. Like we haven't started raising money for that building yet, but I definitely want to be a part of helping make that happen.

Karl 44:23

Yeah, yeah. All right. And um, I think that's a good place to wrap up this conversation. Mary, I gotta tell you, obviously, we two months ago we didn't know each other, but I've had so much fun, you know, doing these last two episodes with you.

Mary 44:37

Oh, you're so kind. You're so kind, Karl. You're amazing. I I can't believe the selflessness that you are bringing to this table. It's it's impressive. So thank you for that.

Karl 44:49

Well, just it's just all part of being a sports junkie, I guess. But uh listen, it's been my privilege working with you on this, and uh, I will be after in Annapolis next month as well. So uh again, thank you for being with us on Navy Sports Central, and um, I'll see you in April.

Mary 45:05

Thank you, Karl.

Karl 45:06

All right, take care. Okay, that was Mary Brigden from the class of 81. She was Navy's first all-American women athlete in any sport at the Academy, clearly one of the many trailblazers in women's athletics as they began to make their presence felt during those early years. This has been our fourth in a series of episodes marking 50 years of excellence in women's athletics at the U.S. Naval Academy. Please join us next month as we showcase another great Navy Athletics Hall of Famer. By the way, if you like what you've heard on this show, please be sure to follow Navy Sports Central wherever you get your podcast. And by all means, feel free to share it with every Navy sports fan you know. The music for this episode was provided by Nathaniel Wolkstein from Fiverr as well as Audio Jungle. These are two terrific sources for finding music for just about any kind of project while supporting those who create it. And finally, the content and opinions shared on Navy Sports Central are my own and in no way represent the views of the Naval Academy or Navy Athletics. Talk to you soon, everybody, and until next time, this is Karl Darden. Go Navy Beat Army.