Yacht’s Rock: WSU graduate Nicole Rockfish breaks mold as new commodore of Cougar Yacht Club

The Cougar Yacht Club isn’t your ordinary yacht club, and its incoming new commodore isn’t your ordinary commodore. Founded in 1992, the club is open to anyone whose heart beats for Washington State University. Dues are cheap – only $115 for a lifetime membership – and there aren’t a lot of rules. It’s a low-key organization with an emphasis on fun, friendship and fidelity to WSU.

Like the club itself, its commodore-in-waiting is cut from different cloth. Of course, there are exceptions, but the typical commodore of a yacht club is a white male over the age of 55 with an expanding waistline and a receding hairline.

Nicole Rockfish has none of those characteristics.

Rockfish, 38, grew up in difficult circumstances. Abandoned as a child, she spent her early years on the Tulalip Reservation near Everett, then moved into a transitional home – essentially an orphanage – for her teenage years. Undeterred by adversity, she came to WSU and graduated in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in Natural Resource Sciences. Living in Moscow, Idaho, she earns her daily bread as the Palouse-area sales manager for Ziply Fiber.

Life has thrown a lot of curveballs at Rockfish, and she’s hit many of them out of the park. Relentlessly cheerful and assured, she’s had to work hard because nothing has come easily.

“I have a lot of experience with getting things organized and getting things done,” Rockfish said. “I’m pretty sure I can handle anything the Cougar Yacht Club throws at me.”

Taking command

On Friday evening, Rockfish will be inaugurated as commodore of the Cougar Yacht Club alongside incoming Vice Commodore Bill O’Brien. Now a Seattle-area Realtor, O’Brien was born and raised in Spokane, graduated from Mead High School, and earned a business degree at WSU.

Their commissioning ceremony will occur in the posh surroundings of the Seattle Yacht Club, but it will be almost undetectable amid the swirl of Seattle’s opening day of boating season. (Note: Opening day of boating season is a big deal in Seattle; see sidebar.)

On Saturday, Rockfish and dozens of other yacht club commodores will assemble their fleets in Portage Bay for the famous boat parade, which is a highlight of opening -day ceremonies. At the appointed hour, she and her fleet will motor in a stately procession through the Montlake Cut, heading east, toward Cougar country.

It’s hard to know how many boats from the Cougar Yacht Club will be on hand, but it will be a proud moment for the club’s new commodore.

Running with the wind

An accomplished sailor and whitewater raft guide, Rockfish has always been at home on the water. Her sailing career began at WSU, when one of her college buddies was given a Catalina 28 by his father. The boat lived on Lake Union, so Rockfish and her jolly band of friends drove to the West Side at every opportunity.

“We were in the San Juans all the time,” she said. “We spent our summers just wandering around in the San Juans.

“We were just kids with a boat,” she added, her eyes staring inwardly at the memories. “Nobody told us anything.”

They also campaigned the boat in local races, notably the Tuesday night Duck Dodge on Lake Union and the infamous Whidbey Island Race Week. A tough competitor, Rockfish earned a reputation for sailing close to the wind – and a nickname, too: “Outta Control Nicole, She’ll sink a boat to win.”

Charting new course

The Cougar Yacht Club has been around for more than three decades, but the COVID-19 pandemic took the wind out of its sails. The membership was aging and disengaged after years with little or no interaction, so outgoing Commodore Paul Twibell knew a go-getter was needed to rekindle enthusiasm. He asked Rockfish to be the club’s vice commodore a couple of years ago, she agreed, and the new VC was duly piped aboard.

“Since then, most of my time has been spent trying to hold her back,” Twibell said, “because she just goes – ‘Zoom-zoom-zoom.’ ”

With Rockfish at the helm, the Cougar Yacht Club aims to attract new members, energize its current members, and create more opportunities for social engagement. “A lot of that is down to Nicole,” Twibell said, “because she’s got so much energy.”

O’Brien, the club’s incoming vice commodore, is similarly impressed by the cheerful enthusiasm that follows Rockfish like the wake behind a speedboat. “If there’s a fun Cougar event, Nicole is always present,” he said. “She’s a real promoter, she’s very positive, and she engages people from all walks of life.”

Rockfish says her goals are to boost membership, revitalize old traditions, and steer the club to a better spot over the horizon.

“When you think about being a commodore, you start thinking about your legacy,” she said. “What Paul and Billy and I want is to give the Cougar Yacht Club a whole new set of sails.”

Paper yacht club

As vice commodore for the past two years, Rockfish knows what she’s getting into. At last count, the Cougar Yacht Club had 636 members and a fleet ranging from “a cargo freighter to a guy in a kayak,” Rockfish said. There is no clubhouse and the club has no physical assets.

For these reasons, a wide streak of irreverence runs through the Cougar Yacht Club, but there’s also dignity and a sense of decorum when needed. There’s always laughter – and maybe a beer or two – when the fleet assembles for special occasions, but the emphasis is on presenting WSU in the best light.

The club’s primary focus is to provide opportunities for members to meet and interact with one another. You needn’t be a WSU grad to join, so the club is open to “anyone who feels in their heart that they belong to the Cougar Nation,” Rockfish said. As an inland club, the Cougar Yacht Club’s fleet is widely dispersed with the majority of boats located in Coeur d’Alene, the Tri-Cities, Lake Union and the San Juan Islands.

Opening day of boating season in Seattle is one of the biggest events on the club’s calendar, as are pre- and postgame events centered around the Apple Cup. “We host parties with all the Cougar boats,” O’Brien said, “and we invite all Cougars and friends of Cougars to come down and join us.”

These “sailgating” events – yes, it’s a term – are typically held at Pier 66, near the ferry terminal, when the Apple Cup is played at Seahawk Stadium. They are held on Union Bay, right behind Husky Stadium, when the game is in the dogs’ house; in those cases, “we normally have about 50 boats sailgating under the purple glow of Husky Stadium,” Rockfish said.

Clucking defiance

Apropos Apple Cup games at Husky Stadium, there’s a memorable story behind the photo of Rockfish and O’Brien waving Cougar flags from a boat near the enemy fortress.

It was November 2020 and the Apple Cup had been canceled due to several WSU players testing positive for COVID-19; it was the first time an Apple Cup game had been canceled since 1944.

Washington fished around for another opponent and came up with Utah, but Rockfish, O’Brien and then-Commodore Paul Twibell were undeterred.

“I got on the phone with Billy (O’Brien),” Rockfish said, “and I told him, ‘Get the boat ready! They can’t take the Apple Cup away from us!’ ”

O’Brien duly fired up his boat and the entire brain trust of the Cougar Yacht Club – Twibell, Rockfish, and O’Brien – motored into Union Bay.

Those are home waters for O’Brien, so he knew exactly where to position his boat. Sure enough, television cameras inside the stadium panned to the bay and zoomed in on O’Brien’s boat to reveal two swabbies on the foredeck, lustily waving Cougar flags.

Moral of the story? The Cougars were out of the game, but they weren’t out of the fight.