After interviewing Gino Morrelli for my column last week, I had a chance to ask the same questions of his partner, Pete Melvin, of Morrelli & Melvin Design and Engineering Inc.
Morrelli and Melvin are best known for their catamaran designs and their work in writing the class rules for the 34th and 35th America's Cups.
I have known about Melvin from the first time I picked up Yacht Racing & One Design magazine, now called Sailing World. He was sailing for Boston University, where he was named an All-American, in the 1980s.
"We won the dinghy nationals a couple of times and the Fowle Trophy my senior year," he said.
Some background: He was born in Jackson, Miss., grew up in Florida and earned a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from B.U. in 1985. He spent five years working as an engineer for McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach before leaving in 1990 to join Gino and our Freedom's Wing, Little America's Cup team.
