Peter Wells grew up in California, but not on the water as you might expect of a world class sailor.  When Peter’s family moved to California from his birthplace of Paoli, Pennsylvania, they landed in La Canada, 30 miles inland from the Pacific.  Weekends found the family escaping the heat on their sailboat and Peter soon started sailing through the youth program at Santa Monica Yacht Club.  He made a name for himself in the CFJ and Laser II, winning national and North American championship titles, and was named to US SAILING’s national junior sailing team.

Upon graduation from La Canada High School in 1992, Peter headed for the coast to attend the University of California-Irvine where he majored in Political Science.  Although academics was his primary focus, the fact that sailing was a varsity sport at UC-Irvine was a big part of the equation, and over the next four years he was named an ICSA All-American three times.  But there was a downside – he was burned out.  He picked up a board toward the end of his college days, just for fun, but by the time he graduated he was windsurfing competitively and eyeing a run at the Olympics. 

Of his move to the board he has said:  “Windsurfing gave me that challenge I needed. Although it’s considered sailing and is raced on a lot of the same courses, I think it is a lot harder. It’s much more physical, especially the Olympic class, because you are continuously pumping the sail throughout the race.”

Ranked nationally on the US Sailing Team starting in 1998, Peter finished third overall at the 2000 Olympic Team Trials.  He dedicated himself to his Olympic campaign and a year later he was the top-ranked male windsurfer in the USA – a position he has not relinquished since. 

Facing tough competition at the 2004 US Olympic Team Trials, Peter won the first two races on the opening day of the series and ultimately edged out the second-place finisher by three points. 

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