Luke Hickling Successfully Started Moriches Island Sailing Through Height Of Pandemic

Luke Hickling was able to turn 2020, a year that was difficult for a lot of people on many different levels, into a positive one.

Even though sailing was one of the safest sports during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic last year — it’s an outdoor activity and sailors and their boats are spaced far apart — many yacht clubs and sailing schools weren’t taking on new members, such as the Westhampton Yacht Squadron in Remsenburg.

Always wanting to start up his own private sailing school, Hickling, 28, an East Moriches resident who graduated from Westhampton Beach High School in 2011 and is a third generation member of Westhampton Yacht Squadron, seized his opportunity.

Moriches Island Sailing, located at Silly Lily Fishing Station at the end of Adelaide Avenue in East Moriches, was started by Hickling last June, and ever since then he’s providing private sailing lessons, captained charters, sunset cruises and beach days. It’s been a boon, Hickling said.

“I always knew I had that entrepreneurial spark, and I like the idea of everything being on my own terms, and so I bought this boat, which is a flying scot, for $1,100, put hundreds of hours into it, fixed it up, and here we are. I was going to do this part time and be at the club part time, but I got a lot of interest in this so I said I’m going to go for it and see how it goes.”

Hickling has a ton of hours sailing, not just in local waters but abroad as well, working on superyachts in various points around the globe. He’s been teaching people to sail since he was a teenager, and was a member of the club sailing team at the University of Miami, from which he graduated from in 2015. He holds various boating licenses in a number of different countries as well.

Hickling and John Zambriski, the head sailing instructor at Westhampton Yacht Squadron, go back many years from Hickling’s time of competing and coaching at the club. Zambriski admitted that when Hickling came to him with his idea of what eventually became Moriches Island Sailing he was a little disappointed. Zambriski hoped that one day Hickling would take over his duties at the yacht squadron.

But, putting professional wants and needs aside, Zambriski was happy to see Hickling go off and do his own thing and be successful at it. And he also said there is a need for it in the area.

“He put a pretty good plan in place, took the initiative to advertise and spread the idea around, basically by word of mouth, and developed a nice little business for himself,” he said. “When people join a yacht club they join for various reasons. … With a private sailing school, it’s a great opportunity to introduce people to the sport of sailing without committing to a membership of a club.

“Personally, I’m very happy for him,” Zambriski added. “The year before, he was basically like my mini-me. I could count on him when I wasn’t there. He’s a go-getter, though. He’s always had this drive.”

Lin Vink, who has split her time with her family between New York City and the Westhampton area for the past 10 years or so, wanted to find a local, sailing-specific school for her two sons Julian and Kai, who were both 12 and 8, respectively, when they first started taking lessons. She found it in Hickling’s Moriches Island Sailing.

“I have always been interested in getting our kids into sailing but always found the experiences to be patchy,” she explained. “They were getting the mileage on the water but they weren’t seeing real progress. Then when the pandemic came, I especially did not want them to be in a camp-like environment, so we got connected to Luke by some people from the yacht club, who couldn’t take nonmembers at the time. So we got to know Luke, we took a few trial lessons, and we’ve never looked back.”

Ms. Vink said that her eldest son, Julian, had some sailing experience but Kai had no experience whatsoever when they started learning from Hickling. By the end of last summer, both had gained enough confidence in their boats to sail in a pretty competitive regatta out in Amityville.

“It’s been a fantastic experience,” Ms. Vink said. “Luke is always very professional, and one of the things that I like most about him as a parent is that he’s very focused about safety. He has just the right mix of keeping it fun while ensuring that they are learning, which is hard to find. Big sail camps, while they have their benefits, it’s just a different pace.

“Luke also knows the area like the back of his hand,” Ms. Vink continued. “He has a confidence level in his teaching style and he bonded really well with the kids. And he’s very punctual. When he says he’ll be ready by 2, he’s ready to go, which I really liked when I was picking them up. It wasn’t like I was waiting there, which I appreciate that attention to detail.”

Hickling would like to expand his new business, at least a little bit, adding another instructor who could possibly take weekends, and he’d like to add a few more boats to his fleet. But he’s comfortable with how things are at the moment and he’s enjoying it.

“I really love doing this in the summer. I love being out on the water. I really enjoy teaching and being around kids,” he explained. “Being able to see the kids going from not being able to sail, to going out there and racing, that’s one thing that I’ve kind of learned from this is how quickly kids can pick this up.

“For the summers, there’s no place I’d rather be,” Hickling added. “It’s a beautiful place and I feel very fortunate to have grown up here and have family here.”