STANFORD, Calif. -- The water and the wind were Jack Parkin's playground. He didn't choose sailing. It chose him.
The tides, the current, the sun, the moon. These are the tricksters. A sailor must know what to believe and what to trust. Indecision would be folly.
Parkin, a Stanford sophomore, understands those lessons all too well. From infancy, he's learned the subtlety of nature and the powers that control it.
On Tuesday, Parkin will skipper the match-race boat in the Big Sail against Cal at San Francisco's St. Francis Yacht Club. It's an honor traditionally awarded to a senior.
Parkin already has proven himself among the best. He is the reigning U.S. Youth Match Race champion, and was a Youth World champion. He's experienced a variety of boats, venues, and waters and conditions, all from seeking races, and competition and recognition by logging 75,000 miles this year alone to compete.
"I love the sport," Parkin said. "And I get to be out on the water all day. Not only is it a nice break from the real world but it's also a competitive sport. You can't beat that combination."
Jack's parents, Barry and Sue, competed for Great Britain. Barry raced in soling, placing fourth in the 2000 Sydney Games. Sue raced 470s in in three Olympics (1988, 1992, and 1996). Barry and Sue met on the British team at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
Jack downplayed the "Wow factor" of having Olympian parents.
"It's not something I would brag about," Jack said. "But if my friends find out … Yeah, that's pretty cool."
Jack wasn't bred to be a competitive sailor necessarily, but sailing was part of the family's lifestyle and family friends were world-class sailors. When Jack won the 2016 world title in New Zealand, a close friend, whose mother raced with Sue in two Olympics, won gold the same day.
Jack lived in Berkshire, England, until moving to Greenwich, Connecticut, at age 10. In those early years, the family spent most summer weekends at Hayling Island Sailing Club on the south coast of England where they had a weekend home. Jack learned about sailing by being around it. It wasn't lessons as much as playing, and watching, and trying some things himself. He began sailing in an Optimist at the age of 7, and "took to it straight away," said his mother.
If Jack has a signature to his sailing, it would be this: "He's very aggressive, in his boat handling and decision-making," Stanford coach John Vandemoer said. "He doesn't let up on the throttle at all. He continues to go hard and that's really important in match racing. He does that probably better than anybody else."
Once the family moved to Connecticut, Parkin furthered his sailing education in sheltered Long Island Sound, where the warm summer temperatures and light winds were ideal to perfect fundamental techniques. However, the rest of the year could get cold. Parkin recalled that at one high school regatta, the boats had to negotiate small ice floes.
But it's Parkin's versatility that also is in his favor. He can go from choppy and windy San Francisco Bay, where the team trains out of its Redwood Shores boathouse, to the relatively still waters of New Hampshire's Lake Mascoma for the Captain Hurst Bowl and still excel.
"Jack has an ability to make the boat go fast in any condition," Vandemoer said. "That's sounds very simple, but it's actually really hard in our sport, because conditions change constantly, there are so many variables -- weather, current, tide.
"He has a great feel for when the boat's starting to slow down and shut down, and how to make those adjustments to keep it up to speed. That's something very hard to teach."
Parkin has an eye on becoming the third Olympian in the family, racing for the U.S., the country he most considers home. Meanwhile, he anticipates majoring in management science and engineering, with a focus on finance.
Yes, Parkin has interests off the water: "If I was trying to get away from sailing, I probably wouldn't go sailing," he said.
But Parkin, in the truest sense, is a sailor. And that's fine with him.