UNDERWAY18january/february 2017cruisingworld.comL
ife is all about cruising
into second chances
for Capt. Michael Long.
Without a second chance of
his own, this 20-something
who once journeyed through
Florida’s juvenile justice sys-
tem wouldn’t have landed in
Sarasota’s New College as a
public policy/economics major
in need of cheap housing.
In 2010, Long swapped his
Jeep for a 30-foot sailboat
and became an anchored live-
aboard without a clue about
sailing. The self-taught sailor,
with friends as crew, eventually
realized the positive impact
sailing was having on his life.
This sparked the idea for a pro-
gram that would utilize the
life-changing potential of sail-
ing to navigate off-course kids
into entirely new worlds. The
foundation of SailFuture was
laid. Today it’s a well-respected
youth intervention program for
society’s highest-risk teens.
The success of the initial
pairing of college kids with
at-risk high-schoolers aboard
420s and FJs inspired Long
and co-founders Mark Hunter
and Hunter Thompson to
gain needed agencies’ per-
mission to test three-day
liveaboard cruises. This win-
ning formula resulted in
charter school certification,
with three months cruising
alternating with shore time
in SailFuture group homes.
Youth referred by the Florida
Department of Children and
Families are guided by teachers,
mental-health counselors and
captains. Community service
projects, like teaching police-
men to sail, are performed in
each port of call.
Via connections with
the U.S. Merchant Marine
Academy’s boat donation
program, SailFuture then
became the owner of a 65-foot
McGregor fixer-upper. The
staff aptly named the vesselDefy the Odds. Their challenge:
getting it from Turkey, where
it was docked, to Florida. To
raise money, Long, Hunter and
Thompson launched Vacations
with Purpose, a donation-based
international charter business,
through which they invited
donors to come for weeklong
sailing adventures in the Med.
They raised enough money to
make the vessel seaworthy and
cover expenses for the delivery
home. The boat sailed from
Turkey to the Canary Islands in
the summer of 2015. A group of
eight youth sailed throughout
the Canary Islands and
Morocco, completing service
projects in Casablanca and
Rabat. The kids flew home,
and the captain and staff made
the transatlantic journey in
December.
A SailFuture grad recently
told a crowd at a Sarasota Yacht
Club fundraiser that he was in
charge of washing the crew’s
logo T-shirts in buckets on the
bow of Defy the Odds. When
they docked in Casablanca
sporting clean shirts, he felt
enormous pride, as locals knew
the guys were part of a team. At
that moment he realized how
much the team meant to him
— they were his new family.
The Moroccan people
affected him, too. Back in his
childhood neighborhood, drug
dealers had taught him that
money meant power, but he
realized a wad of cash doesn’t
bring you the heart-warming
happiness he witnessed among
the poverty-ridden people of
Casablanca.
Another transformed grad-
uate posted on Facebook: “I
woke up this morning missing
the boat. How can something
that isn’t human evoke so many
emotions?”
For information about
SailFuture and Vacations with
Purpose, visit sailfuture.org.
— Janis R. FrawleySAILING INTO
SECOND CHANCES
Austin (top), a SailFuture alum, returns to the helm of Defy
the Odds during an annual reunion sail in Florida. Defy the
Odds (center) is a 65-foot McGregor fixer-upper that was
donated to the organization. The SailFuture crew (above)
poses for a photo in the Canary Islands before sailing to
Agadir, Morocco. COURTESY OF SAILFUTURECRW0217_underway.indd 18 11/22/16 1:40 PM