Ronnie Simpson is a sailor, writer, media professional, entrepreneur and general life adventurer. Ronnie has about 130,000 nautical miles of offshore sailing experience, ranging from cruising solo on small yachts to fully crewed racing and deliveries on boats up to 100′. He is an experienced racer, rigger, live aboard cruiser, delivery captain and now, USCG licensed charter captain based in Maui. His Serendipity 43 sailboat MatuaMai is currently in Los Angeles. Ronnie is also a successful yacht racing journalist, sailing writer and sailing media professional who writes for multiple publications and has worked with top yacht races and racing teams around the world. He is also currently working on his first book, which is about record-breaking multihull sailboats.
After High School, Ronnie enlisted in the US Marines and served in Iraq in the Infantry in 2004. While deployed with 2nd Battalion 2nd Marines near Fallujah, he was wounded in combat by a rocket-propelled grenade while manning a .50 caliber machine gun in a Humvee. Eventually MEDEVAC’ed to Baghdad and then flown back stateside while in a medically induced coma, Ronnie would undergo his recovery in Texas before being medically retired from the Marines, all before his 21st birthday.
After his experience in the Marines, he turned to sailing and then moved to California and bought a boat in 2008. While en route to Hawaii solo in October 2008, the boat became damaged in bad weather and Ronnie eventually abandoned the boat and caught a freighter to China. Beginning in Hong Kong in January of 2009, he rode more than 9,000 miles through 20 countries on a bicycle to complete his first traveling circumnavigation, pedaling back into San Diego in August 2009.
Inspired to again sail and one day reach the Vendée Globe, he managed to make it to the starting line of the 2010 Singlehanded Transpacific Race in a sponsored boat, where he finished second in division. He came back in 2012 and claimed first in division in a Moore 24. In 2013, Ronnie sailed on a semi-professional boat named ‘Criminal Mischief’ that won division in Transpac, and he also competed in the Sydney-Hobart race. In 2014, he sailed solo on an engineless 27′ Cal named MONGO from the US West Coast to Hawaii, Fiji and New Zealand.
In 2015, Ronnie opted to return to academia and pursue a college degree, so he sailed his then 29′ Cal named ‘Loophole’ from San Francisco to Hawaii and utilized his GI Bill to obtain a Bachelor’s Degree in Integrated Multimedia from Hawaii Pacific University. Having been a successful sailing writer and yacht racing journalist since 2010, Ronnie desired to add to his skillsets and further establish himself in sailing media and potentially on-board reporting. Ronnie graduated with his degree in 2018, and he has been active in sailing media for nearly a decade, covering yacht races in France, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, USA and more. Currently, he serves as the Media Manager for the 2022 Pacific Cup Yacht Race and is responsible for their day-to-day media and social media needs, and will be covering and broadcasting the 2022 race live from both San Francisco and Hawaii.
In January 2019, a few weeks after graduating from HPU, Ronnie departed Hawaii solo on his Peterson 34′ QUIVER and sailed to Majuro in the Marshall Islands before sailing south to Kiribati, Tuvalu and finally, Fiji. It was his second time sailing into Fiji (Mongo 2014), and he again fell in love with Fiji and desired to start a surfing/ sailing business there, and began that process in 2019. Registering a company on March 4, 2020, Ronnie had unfortunate timing with the COVID pandemic and eventually left Fiji in May of 2021 on his Peterson 34 QUIVER. 29 days later, upwind and solo, he arrived in Honolulu and sold the boat in June of 2021 in Honolulu. In March 2022, he purchased the Doug Peterson designed Serendipity 43 MatuaMai lying in Los Angeles. Current plans include Baja Haha 2022, a delivery to Hawaii, and eventually a return to Fiji.