Most owners of Nautor’s Swan yachts marked their calendars for the 2014 Rolex Swan Cup two years ago. Set to kick off this September, it is the biggest gathering of Swans, held in the fabulous Sardinia yacht charter destination – Porto Cervo, every two years since its premiere in 1980. For Tomek Ulatowski, owner of the majestic Swan 100 sailing yacht Varsovie, this year’s Rolex Swan Cup will be extra special, marking the 30th anniversary of his debut at this event in 1984, with his first ever Swan.

Tomek Ulatowski - Owner of Swan 100 sailing yacht Varsovie - Image credit to Rolex/Carlo Borlenghi

ClubSwan had the pleasure to talk with Mr. Ulatoswki about his passion for sailing, his boats, his life and his career. It is clear that Tomek (this is how he likes to be called), has had a very interesting life, driven by powerful determination and a desire to succeed. Growing up in Poland ruled by Communism, Tomek found an outlet in sailing and quickly realised that yachting would be his way out of a country that was in a political standoff, where travelling overseas wasn’t allowed. From then on, Tomek took one successful step after the other, leading to an extraordinary business career, while still making time to enjoy sailing with his family and friends.

Mr. Ulatowski is a graduate of the Maritime Academy in Poland and MBA at Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. He left Poland in 1969 and settled down in the United States. After working for Bank of America and Crocker Bank, he founded Amsterdam Pacific Cooperation, an investment banking company in San Francisco. In 1996, Tomek started investing in Poland to eventually focus on building businesses here. Today he is a co-chairman of Multimedia Polska, the second largest cable operator in the country.

Swan 100 superyacht Varsovie - Image credit to Rolex/Daniel Forster

I grew up in Poland in a difficult political climate, with many restrictions. Sailing was a good escape for me. I started sailing as a child on the Cadet, then later on the Hornet. I enjoyed the sport and continued through my teenage years, sailing on the Vistula River then graduating to the lakes and to the sea. When I turned 18 I decided to enroll in the Maritime Academy – at that time in Poland we could not travel, so this was the only way for me to see the world. I started out my career as a cadet on a square-rigger, which was kind of an ancient three-mast yacht. It was a very interesting experience, you had to survive to advance, it was tough since the Marine Academy was training deck officers for the Polish Merchant Marine.

After graduating from the Academy, I started working in Poland, but I didn’t like my country politically so I decided to “skip town” and I landed in the US in New York. I got a job as a guard at the United Nations, and after a while I decided to move on and I got an MBA at Berkeley, University of California.

Luxury yacht Varsovie from above - Photo by Rolex Carlo Borlenghi

At that point in my life, I started sailing a lot in San Francisco Bay in various classes and around 1977 I bought my first boat in the US: it was an Islander 36, a keel boat built for windy conditions which was very well suited for San Francisco. Luckily, I was successful in my professional career and I was able to spend more time sailing and more money on sailing adventures – which eventually led to myself taking a year off traveling with my girlfriend and future mother of my three children. We traveled throughout Europe looking for a Swan 39, the boat of our choice that fit our budget. We found a second hand one in La Trinité sur Mer, a renowned sailing hub in northern France. The boat was several years old and we took time to get it in perfect shape. It was late May when we took off towards the Mediterranean, and we landed in beautiful Porto Cervo, just in time to participate in our first Swan Cup in 1984. It was such a great adventure, sailing throughout the Med and arriving in Sardinia, competing in that fantastic event… after that, we crossed the Atlantic to Antigua, just the two of us, and eventually the Panama Canal. It was a major experience in my life.

After this passage it was time to settle down a bit, so I sold the Swan 39 and started working to make more money. Eventually I bought a Swan 77 together with my friend and business partner at a yacht dealer in San Francisco. It was there that we met Patrick Adams, who was a salesman at the time. He actually stayed on with us and he has continued to be the working skipper on my boats since then. We kept the Swan 77 for a few years and competed in at least two Rolex Swan Cups with it.

Sailing yacht Varsovie - aft view - Photo by Rolex/Carlo Borlenghi

Once again, it was time to move on. Still with my same business partner, we commissioned a Swan 100, which was delivered almost six years ago. It is a splendid yacht, completely designed to our needs, which we prepared meticulously with the team at Oy Nautor Ab in Finland. We have been sailing Swan 100 Varsovie ever since, competing in various Rolex Swan Cups including the event in Virgin Gorda last year.

I love sailing Swan 100 Varsovie as a captain and helmsman, and I really enjoy racing. On Varsovie, I call all the shots, just like I did on dinghies, that is my style of sailing. When you start something as a kid, it stays with you for the rest of your life. I’ve always noticed that very rarely people develop such a strong passion later in life. I always helm the boat, I call the tactics and I navigate, with some great help from Patrick who is the mainsheet trimmer. I never hire professionals. I only sail with people who like to “hang out” on boats on their free time, who join us for the regattas. That is how we do our thing. This year we did very well at St. Barth’s Bucket Regatta and at St. Maarten Heineken Regatta, and of course we had great fun. That is the idea – to have fun and enjoy sailing.

Swan 100 Yacht Varsovie - Photo by Rolex/Carlo Borlenghi

Varsovie is a big boat, a luxury yacht with all the weight that goes with it; it’s not designed just for racing. Some of the Swans we compete against are stripped down and we can never understand the ratings! Our philosophy of sailing is to do the best we can with what we have, we don’t try to remove weight just for small gains on our racing time. That’s our style and it’s enjoyable and fun.

We love Swans, we love the quality of Varsovie, it’s really remarkable, comfortable, well rounded and extremely well designed. We are great fans of Nautor’s Swan and if we ever were to go to another boat I would definitely stay with this company. I just saw the new superyacht Swan 115 and it looks quite impressive!

We will definitely go to the Rolex Swan Cup this September – we love Porto Cervo and Sardinia. It’s a great gathering of Swans and the venue is always spectacular. Last year we attended the Rolex Swan Cup Caribbean in Virgin Gorda, and we hope the event will grow into a big gathering for all the yachts in the Caribbean. We spend the summers in Europe and the winters in the Caribbean, that’s our way of using the boat – Varsovie crossed the Atlantic twice a year and it’s extremely well built for this kind of sailing, it can also be quite competitive especially in strong wind conditions, in light winds we are a little too heavy…