Jokaim Karlsen, the official head coach of the University of Rhode Island sailing team, has had not only a long journey being from overseas, but also a unique one to get where he is today.
When Karlsen started his coaching career he did not picture himself at URI.
“I did not think it would lead to URI,” Karlsen said. Karlsen is originally from Norway, and moved to the US in 2010
Anywhere in the U.S might have been a longshot to Karlsen. Karlsen has a special journey but also unique beginnings when his passion for sailing started as a little kid. Sailing isn’t a big deal in Norway, according to Karlsen, but his love still grew as a child.
“Sailing is a niche sport in Norway,” Karlsen said. “Lots of tradition, though, specifically through Olympic sailing and historically, so it’s always been a small sport. But you know, the connection to the water and boating in Norway in general is big, especially through fishing and stuff.”
While sailing wasn’t big in Norway that didn’t stop Karlsen. A huge reason Karlsen got involved with boating in the first place was his family.
“I mean, it started with my dad, who was a sea scout,” Karlsen said. “My mom and dad live close to the water, but specifically my dad with the sea scouts and the sailing club. I grew up in a town of 6,000 people. My dad and his friends started a sailing club because the day my older brother and their friends wanted to, they wanted them to sail.”
Being in a town where sailing isn’t taken seriously, there are not that many sailing coaches known for coming out of Norway, Karlsen is one of very few.
“The amount of professional coaches that come out of there as a career is very few, and I think I know of one that had a career outside of Norway as coaching, who then went back to Norway,” Karlsen said. “My path and story is, I mean, it’s kind of one of a kind.”
Karlsen’s journey to URI is in a class by itself. Now that he is here and the official head coach, he knows there is much more work to be done. Karlsen is looking to build a tradition and culture with the URI sailing team, giving lessons and stories from his past coaching experiences.
“When I grew up salling,… we had one motto, and that was ‘If you want to, I want to,’” Karlsen said. “Because if I didn’t want to put the time in to work out and go to practice and train, then they didn’t want to put all the time into it as well. That’s what stuck with me for all these years.”
Structure and working together are also important to Karlsen. Kytalin Hendrickson, who is a third-year on the sailing team, has specific things that work with Karlsen’s coaching style for the sailing team.
“He’s a lot more collaborative than our previous coach was,” Hendrickson said. “He really appreciates our feedback and likes to listen. He also runs our practice a little bit more structured, and it’s a lot more like, become away from our events, our competitions”
Accountability, hard work and structure are what’s most important to the culture Karlsen is trying to build and he hopes it helps on the sea as well. Karlsen’s expectations are to improve off of last year when the Rams placed 14th in the Open Dinghy Nationals at the 2023-24 Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association. He also wants to make his impact on URI by helping the team accomplish things it hasn’t before.
“I think we’re still an underdog within the teams that are out there, but I think we can do really well,” Karlsen said. “Then for the women’s team is to make the finals for the women’s it’s been a few years since you or I have done that as well, and we’ve got a couple of good boats this year. So I’m hoping to really do that.”
Captain and forth-year Miles Bailey also has expectations for the open sailing team this year as well.
“I think the pressure’s on to perform,” Karlsen said. “We came away from last season with some takeaways that we didn’t perform, I think the way we wanted to so I’d say, top 10 in the country would be a pretty solid goal.”
Making an impact at URI while also teaching lessons from his long journey is important to Karlsen as it is to make his players and team better. URI sailing’s next set of competitions will be on Sept. 21-22 competing at multiple events, including the Salt Pond Invite at URI.