About The Photographer

Sean Downey was born in McAllen, Texas and raised in the city of Mission, Texas. Both are located in the Rio Grande Valley along the border of Texas and Mexico.

Sean was raised in a very artistic family with a strong influence of music.  He played the trombone for many years and was quite accomplished in the area.  At age twelve, he began playing sports including Football, Basketball and running track, and put aside his instrument to do so.

In his Junior year of High School, Sean walked away from basketball and became involved in drama, and journalism.  He was involved with many theatrical performances, including musicals, and was also active with his church's youth quoir.  He became a photographer for the school paper and yearbook, and in his Senior year, was the Photo Editor.

Upon graduation, Sean once again walked away from his artistic and journalistic roots and joined the United States Marine Corps.  He completed Recruit Training at Marine Recruit Depot San Diego, then Marine Combat Training (MCT) at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, and upon completion he was sent to Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base in Virginia Beach for is MOS training.

He was then stationed on the island of Okinawa, Japan for one year, and then the last two and one-half years of his enlistment were spent back at Camp Pendleton, CA, where he met and married his ex wife Mary and was introduced to sailing through his brother in-law Jim.

Upon his honorable discharge Sean settled in southern California.  Sean became very active with the sailing community of Long Beach, CA as a member of Shoreline Yacht Club.  He could be seen regularly racing on "Expresso" an Express 37 owned by Bob and Debbie Moore.

In 2002, Sean was approached by Steve Steiner, then Managing Editor of YachtRacing.com, one of the first successful online yacht racing publications, and was offered a position as Associate Editor.  Sean immediately fell back into his journalistic role and also picked up a camera once again.

By 2004, Sean had taken the reins as Managing Editor for YachtRacing.com and had taken the publications from a readershep of 5,000 to over 150,000 through his web design and photography.

In 2005, Sean was offered, and accepted the position as North American Editor for Sail-World.com, one of the top three sailing publications in the world. However, due to differences between managing staff and himself, Sean left the publication amicably.

In early 2006, Sean launched his own publication as Executive Editor, Inside Yachting.

Sean continues to cover major regattas on the West Coast regularly including Yachting Cup, Newport to Ensenada, Transpac, Long Beach Race Week, Congressional Cup, Mayor's Cup and Rolex Big Boat Series.

www.seandowney.com