Rumson area’s Sarah Chin: Sailing to victory
RUMSON, N.J. — Olympic sailor, Pan American Games gold medal winner, semi-pro soccer star, record-breaking javelin thrower, and first female placekicker in NJ history to kick a field goal in boys’ varsity football. And she lives in our town. And has four children ages 12 years and younger. A fairy tale? Nope, it’s the amazing athlete Sarah Mergenthaler Chin.
Her sailing adventures began at age seven, learning to sail at the Monmouth Boat Club on the Navesink River with her extended family. She loved sailing, although her high school focus was primarily soccer and track. She earned 12 varsity letters in 5 different sports, garnering National, All-State, and All-Conference recognition. But in 2002, she set her sails to master the 470-class sailboat dinghy for the 2004 Olympics. Sarah had never even sailed that type of demanding boat before, but she trained hard with sailing partner Amanda Clark. They missed qualifying for the Athens Olympics, finishing second by only three points. But in true Sarah Chin “never-give-up” style, she immediately set her sights on the 2008 Olympics.
Training full-time, Sarah and Amanda qualified and represented the USA in the Beijing Olympics, as well as two Olympic Test Events, nine World Championships, eight European Championships, and countless World Cup events all over the globe. She semi-retired to raise her big family here in Rumson (they are all sailors too, of course), and promote USA youth sailing programs. But it’s hard to take the wind out of the sailor, and when an old friend asked Sarah to try out for the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, she was ready.
Sarah jumped into a training regimen with two teammates, Allan Terhune and Madeline Baldridge, to prepare for the US Pan Am Team Trials in North Carolina. Competing again the top teams from around the US, decided by 8 races over 4 days, Sarah and her team won the final two races to join the 2023 US Pan American Team. They continued training all spring and summer, winning the 2023 Lightning North American Championship. At the autumn Pan Am Games in Chile, the week- long competition featured 11 races in large ocean waves with big wind. Sarah and her teammates led the regatta from start to finish and took home the Gold for Team USA, ending a 24-year gold medal drought. Clearly persistence does, indeed, pay off.
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