Ken Passeri | Modern Sailing

Ken Passeri

Instructor

Ken Passeri’s love of sailing began as a boy in the 60s sailing the family Sunfish in Foster City and the South Bay. He began teaching sailing in Sausalito in the late 70’s and early 80’s. In those years he became an expert San Francisco Bay windsurfer.  

Since then, Ken has spent most of his sailing time in the Bay and Delta and in Southern California waters out to Catalina Island. He has chartered in the U.S. and British Virgin Islands. Ken has a completed a few ocean passages, both to Hawaii and to Mexico spending time in the Sea of Cortes. Since 2019, after obtaining his Coast Guard license, Ken has been teaching sailing at all levels from basic keel boat through coastal passage making in monohulls and catamarans, in around the San Francisco Bay with Club Nautique.  

He has a special interest in, and has taught, celestial navigation. Ken’s current boat is a Catalina 36 MK II and he enjoys cruising local Bay and Coastal waters.

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  • 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.

  • Salesforce (Ashley H.)

    Our team at Salesforce did the Corporate Regatta Team Buidling activity (August 2026). What a blast!! HIghly recommend for your next team activity. It's fun to be out on the water, but the skippers also did a great job of teaching us all the sailing basics. The race is set up well so that we all had a chance to try out different roles. We did it with 11 people across two boats but having more boats is also doable and would lead to even more competition.

  • 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.

  • John Kratochvil, Oregon

    I would like to compliment Stan Lander for his coaching, counseling and teaching Heavy Weather Offshore Sailing. Stan was very accommodating to all of the student's interests and shared his many years of insight on handling the boat in heavy seas. I would certainly recommend Stan and this course to sheltered waters sailors. My confidence in handling a boat of this size was certainly enhanced by the experience.

  • Mike, Santa Rosa, California

    All of the courses and my instructors (JT and Stan) were extremely professional and full of knowledge and experience. I found I was able to learn from their experiences beyond the scope of the courses, and look forward to future opportunities to do so. I would highly recommend Modern Sailing to anyone.

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