NEWPORT, R.I. — “Good choice! You stole some wind,” the screen read on the race simulator at The Sailing Museum. “Woo-hoo!” hooted participant (and non-sailor) Paul Kelley of Marstons Mills, as he maneuvered the tiller and sailed his 12-meter avatar/boat, “Resolute Jewel,” into third place in the virtual race on Montana’s Flathead Lake. Kelley also proved to be an ace grinder, a crew member on a racing yacht who hand-cranks the winches that raise and trim the sails and move the boom. “Everyone loves this exhibit,” says Heather Ruhsam, executive director of the Sailing Museum. It takes some muscle to grind the winches, as you compete against a fellow museum-goer, or a virtual sailor, to raise the sails first.

The high-tech grinder gizmo is just one of about a dozen interactive elements here. Opened on May 10, the nonprofit museum occupies two levels of Newport’s historic c.1894 Armory building. (The city owns Newport Maritime Center at the basement level, which fronts the harbor shoreline, the beach, and the Ann Street Pier.) The Sailing Museum is a fitting addition to Newport’s Thames Street. “When you come over that bridge, you can tell that Newport is a sailing town,” Ruhsam says, thanks to the vessels dotting the harbor. The city known as the Yachting Capital of the US isn’t just about big, fancy vessels, though. “We have super motor yachts, off-shore racing, in-shore racing, the power yacht contingent, big boats and little boats in Newport,” she says. There’s a public dock behind The Sailing Museum so you can take a boat into town, and hop on and off the Newport Harbor shuttle, she notes.

Don’t have a boat, big or little? You’ll be in good company here. “We did a demographic study in 2019 that revealed about three-quarters of the people coming through the doors would be non-sailors,” Ruhsam says. Although the sport’s rock stars visit and share their sailing stories, those who’ve never hoisted a sail can have a good time, too, in this 8,000-square-foot space. You enter the self-guided museum and immediately face a larger-than-life video screen of a sailing race, produced by America’s Cup champion and National Sailing Hall of Fame founder Gary Jobson. You can almost feel the spray in your face as you watch. In another dome-like exhibit, you’ll get a sense of what it’s like to capsize. A virtual regatta experience, on a big screen, is coming soon, designed to capture the thrill of the sport….