Dan Givens | Modern Sailing

Dan Givens

Instructor

Dan’s first experience sailing was on a Lido 14 with his grandfather in Oregon. On those lazy summer days, he developed a love for sailing, but never really thought about it as a full-time hobby, let alone a career.

Fast-forward to 2013, when a co-worker asked Dan to crew on a 36' X-Yacht for springtime beer-can races. Through weekly practice sessions and race events, Dan was hooked. He enrolled in classes at OCSC Sailing and worked his way through Basic Keelboat, Basic Cruising, Bareboat Cruising, and Coastal Passage-Making. Along the way, he honed his skills on various boats and charters on the San Francisco Bay. 

In 2015, Dan resigned from his career in corporate finance to pursue a life of sailing, volunteering, and traveling. By 2017, he had lived and volunteered in Chile and Thailand, he had completed his first ocean crossing between New Zealand to Fiji, and he landed a part-time job back at OCSC as a Sailing Instructor. 

With the closure of OCSC, Dan had a brief stint teaching at another sailing school in the area before returning to the Berkeley Marina to help start up and teach at Modern's Berkeley location. In early 2023, he added to his instructor credentials by becoming an American Sailing Association certified instructor. Dan is also a Cruising Powerboat Instructor with the US Powerboating affiliate of US Sailing.

Dan holds a USCG 50-ton Master License and has sailed over 10,000 ocean miles, including 7 ocean crossings in the South Pacific. He is also the owner of a J/24 in our Berkeley sportboat fleet named Midnight Run. 

You can read about his sailing, volunteering, and traveling adventures at www.dannyboytravels.com. You can also view his sailing and travel videos on his Youtube channel.  

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  • Alisa Driscoll, Dual Site Member

    Here are some snaps of Our Saturday, August 20, 2022 Modern Sailing Expedition with Captain Robert Bivin, who was outstanding. Please convey photos and thanks to him. He is an outstanding individual, leader and sailing instructor. His knowledge and experience made us all feel safe and our Farallones Day Trip educational and just amazing. 

  • Steve Hood, Basic Coastal Cruising

    I would definitely recommend Modern Sailing to anyone who is interested in learning to sail the right way.

  • Emma & George Stubbs, Sausalito

    We just took our ASA 106 at a school in Rhode Island as we prepare for 6 months of cruising in the Caribbean. The class was great, but more than anything it made us really appreciate the quality of teaching and rigor at Modern Sailing. Even though we were the newest to sailing, the group seemed to think that we had the best fundamentals. We felt very well prepared and we see why Modern Sailing has the reputation it does.

  • John Kipping

    The meeting room was quite adequate and the location most convenient, but the course outline and instruction were outstanding. Modern Sailing is fortunate to have such a well organized instructor in Mr. Stan Lander who teaches very well from a rich professional background. Mr. Lander was generous with his time and patiently in helping students who needed more attention or time in understanding various aspects of the curriculum.

  • John Clark

    Every aspect of Modern Sailing - training, syllabus, course materials, quality of the boats, quality of the instructors, and the very friendly and helpful staff - exceeded my expectations. Modern Sailing has a first class sailing program in an environment with challenging winds and currents. I look forward to coming back to charter a boat and certainly plan to continue my sailing training.

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Modern Sailing School & Club

Sausalito Location
2310 Marinship Way, Sausalito
(415) 331-8250
(800) 995-1668

Berkeley Location
1 Spinnaker Way, Berkeley
(415) 331-8250
(800) 995-1668

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