BUTLER TWP — Zach Doerr wasn't born on a sailboat.

But he didn't miss by much.

“We had him out on the boat when he was in diapers,” his father, Tom Doerr, said.

Zach was sailing his own Sunfish boat on Lake Arthur when he was 10. He took part in sailboat races on that lake not long after.

“That kid was a prodigy,” Bill Paviol, commodore of the Moraine Sailing Club, said. “He just knew how to sail. He's taught adults how to sail.

“He raced against adults and defeated them.”

On a regular basis.

“Yeah ... I won almost all the time,” Doerr said, a chuckle in his vloice as he recalled those days not so long ago.

Doerr turns 20 in November. He is attending Webb Institute in Long Island, N.Y., a school that takes only 28 students a year.

All students at Webb Institute study Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. They do paid eight-week internships each year.

“Freshman year, we worked in a shipyard,” Doerr said. “This year, we'll be going out to sea for eight weeks. It's all part of learning this business.”

He's worked on the electrical system of a 500-foot ship.

Doerr said he may have interest in working in sailboat design for a career.

For now, he's having a good time doing sailboat racing.

He's spent the summer on Long Island, racing on weekends. He was part of a crew of four that won their division of the recent 44th annual Around Long Island Regatta.

That event, open to all sailboats 24 feet or larger, featured roughly 80 boats on the water. The race consisted of 207 nautical miles.

The boat Doerr's crew won with was 33 feet long. His team completed the course in one day, five hours and 17 minutes.

“We had a cot on board and we had to rotate shifts in terms of sleep and who was commanding the boat,” Doerr said. “It gets tricky in a race like that.

“Depending on the wind and how you want to use it, you may need all of the crew on one side of the boat for a period of time. That can impact how you sleep.

“We ate cold food. A lot of that race is endurance,” he added.

Boats had to navigate through a thunderstorm that swept across Long Island during the race as well.

“The wind was at 40 knots,” Doerr said. “You have to adjust your navigation in situations like that. The No. 1 thing is not to panic.

“You don't want to drift too far from shore because the boat may get blown around a bit and force you to add more miles to get back on course.”

Doerr's parents own three boats. They got their son his own Sunfish to sail at the age of 10.

“We required him to wear his life jacket at all times and be back into shore by a certain time,” Tom Doerr said. “Besides that, we let him go. He'd take his friends out for a sail. We fully trusted him.

“By that time, Zach had plenty of experience on the water. I'd watched him sail. We knew what he was capable of and wanted him to have that responsibility.”

Four years ago, Zach Doerr competed in an Invitational Sunfish race in Chicago. He went up against sailers who were on the Olympic team in that race.

He only finished 12th out of 13.

“He was one of two competitors on the water who wasn't professionally coached,” his father said. “Zach was competitive in that race.

“The way he's taken to sailing ... he's almost a natural at this.”

His parents enrolled him in an adult sailing class in Annapolis (Md.) when he was 13.

“Zach has been well-schooled and is very dedicated to the sport of sailing,” Paviol said. “He wants to keep getting better.

“Could he be in the Olympics someday? That wouldn't surprise me a bit.”

Doerr is grateful for the early introduction to sailing he received from his parents at such a young age.

“Sailing has always been a huge part of my life,” he said. “I can't remember not being out on the water when I was little.

“I've never had a fear of it. I've always had a love for it. My parents have been a big factor in that regard.”