Nautical Style: An Interview With Tucker Thompson

By Matthew Longcore

Last month I had the pleasure of meeting Tucker Thompson at a presentation about the America’s Cup. The event was hosted by Black Rock Yacht Club and attended by guests from other local yacht clubs including Cedar Point Yacht Club, where I am a member. Tucker is a sailing television host and America’s Cup commentator. He is also the co-founder of Range & Bearing’s, a company specializing in custom apparel, accessories, and decor.

I recently had the opportunity to meet with Tucker for an interview. Here is a transcript of our conversation.

ML: Tucker, thank you for meeting with Ivy Style. When I met you at Black Rock Yacht Club, we were photographed together and people commented on the similarity of our attire – in this photo we are both wearing navy blazers and club ties (it seems we both received the memo!) My tie features the burgee of CPYC, how about yours?

TT: That is my favorite tie, and like yours, shows a special affinity for the motifs patterned on it. It’s a limited-edition America’s Cup tie given to me by the owners of Vineyard Vines when I was the host of the 35^th America’s Cup in Bermuda. They only made a few and I’ve never seen another so to me, as a massive Cup fan, it’s priceless.

ML: You attended St. George’s School – aptly nicknamed “St. Gorgeous” – in Middletown, Rhode Island. The school is located near Newport – the sailing capital – and has a beautiful hilltop campus overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Naturally, the school has a great sailing team. In his first novel, This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald describes St. George’s School as “prosperous and well-dressed.” Did your experience at the school shape your love of sailing and/or your sense of style?

TT: St. George’s had a profound effect on my life and definitely shaped my love of sailing. I grew up in a small town in Delaware where I learned to sail. I thought I’d become pretty good at sailing and had already won a National Championship before I arrived at St. George’s and really learned what competitive sailing was. Competing on the sailing team was instrumental for me but attending a school right next to Newport was life changing as a sailor. Newport is the epicenter of sailing in the US and one of the greatest sailing towns in the world and I loved every minute I spent there. There’s no shortage of preppy style in Newport or at St. George’s where we were required to wear a blazer and tie to school every day.

ML: Ivy Style readers are traditionalists who appreciate classic and timeless style. In many ways, sailing is a very traditional activity, with a long heritage dating back centuries. Sailors must develop a high level of skill and the code of conduct at sea relies heavily on sportsmanship. At the same time, the sport of sailing is changing rapidly in our age of advanced technology. What are your observations?

TT: As a sport sailing, like many other things in today’s world, is evolving faster than at any other time. The America’s Cup, an event steeped in history and tradition, still competes for the oldest trophy in all of international sport, but the boats are now flying above the water on hydrofoils at speeds of over 60mph! As an activity and a pastime however, sailing is still very much tied to the lifestyle and traditions of the past and the act of going sailing and the physics behind it are the same as they’ve always been. Most leisure and even competitive sailors do not sail aboard hydrofoiling speed machines and still gravitate to sailing because it is one of life’s timeless activities that disconnects you from the fast paced, technology driven world and reconnects you with the past, which is one thing I like about it.

ML: As a kid, I sailed with my grandfather. In 1983, we sailed to Newport to watch the America’s Cup. The New York Yacht Club famously lost the cup that year. I can still remember my grandfather, an avid sailor, saying that the winged heel of the challenger, Australia II, gave the boat an unfair advantage over the defender, Liberty. Do you think that is a fair assessment?

TT: Having an advantage doesn’t make it unfair, particularly in competition. It is what teams strive for in the America’s Cup. In fact, because of the way the rules of the event were written in 1870, the Defender (the team that holds the Cup) has a massive advantage over any team challenging them for the Cup. This is why it is such a massive accomplishment when a Challenger finally wins. The New York Yacht Club successfully defended the Cup for 132 years until Australia II won in 1983 and broke the longest winning streak in the history of sport.

ML: Your clothing brand, Range & Bearing’s, strikes me as quite preppy and very much my style. With the warmer months ahead, I am already thinking about clothing with a nautical flair – Nantucket Reds, Sperry Top-Siders, Helly Hansen outerwear. How does your brand fit with that aesthetic? What differentiates Range & Bearing’s and what does it add to the mix?

TT: As a sailor, I celebrate the nautical style and I come from the yacht club world. Range & Bearing’s was born from my US Yacht Club speaking tour. I’ve traveled to hundreds of yacht clubs hosting presentations about the America’s Cup and noticed a consistent problem. Club-branded merchandise is often an afterthought, and the minimal products offered are usually outdated and low quality, which is the opposite of what’s expected by members who are proud of their club. We realized that if we could offer the highest quality apparel and the most uniquely creative accessories that are tastefully designed with each club’s burgee members would love them and the response was astounding. We now have thousands of new products in hundreds of clubs, but what differentiates each one is our customization process. Rather than simply embroidering a burgee on an existing brand’s product, each item we create is custom designed exclusively with each club allowing members to celebrate their club’s individual style.

ML: The name of your brand and the logo have a great backstory. Can you tell us about that?

TT: Our first product was burgee socks. Amazingly, in over 25 years I’ve never seen a club pattern their burgee on dress socks. We launched the brand as Yacht Socks, and it was so successful that we realized we could design and offer many other unique items for clubs. So we quickly had to change the name. It had to be something that highlighted our nautical heritage but allowed us to evolve into golf and country clubs and beyond. Range and bearing is a nautical term navigators use to determine the distance and heading to a destination and the words also relate to the range to the pin in golf and the driving range. So, Range & Bearing’s was born and our logo is a burgee formed by the nautical code flags for “R” and “B” – of Range & Bearing’s – combined together.

ML: Does Range & Bearing’s offer any products directly to consumers? Or is everything custom  designed for clubs?

TT: Although we’ve been asked, we don’t offer our products for retail because everything we create is made exclusively for each club. The items belong to the individual club and can only be purchased by members of those clubs, which is what makes them so unique and special. That individual exclusivity further highlights and celebrates the pride members have for their respective clubs. Like my America’s Cup tie you asked about above, you won’t find our products anywhere else and can’t buy them unless you belong to the club they represent.

ML: Lastly, how can a yacht club (like CPYC) get customized clothing items featuring the club burgee? What is the process?

TT: That’s the fun part of the process. Clubs can chose from over 100 different products in our online catalog ranging from (preppy) apparel to accessories and gifts to clubhouse décor and dining ware. Once a club decides on their products our design team will work with the club to create various custom options of each item based on a club’s colors, and burgee or emblem placement. They can choose the style, the pattern, and even the colors of complimentary details like buttons and zippers. We’ll provide various mockups of each item. Once a final decision is made the items are produced and shipped to each club. And we’re not limited to just yacht clubs. We create items for country clubs, city and beach clubs, corporate events and hospitality, sports teams and sponsors, and even do employee uniforms. We take great pride in everything we produce and would love the opportunity to work with CPYC!

For more about Range & Bearing’s visit:

www.rangeandbearings.com