Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Austin Sperry has gone from selling research for hedge funds to spending a fortune pursuing an Olympic sailing medal.

Sperry used to work on the institutional sales desk at Bank of America Securities in San Francisco, pushing the firm's investment ideas to portfolio managers. Now he and his yacht- building father-in-law, John Dane III, are pursuing a gold medal in sailing's Star class at the Beijing Olympics.

Sperry, 30, said he and Dane, the 58-year-old majority owner of Gulfport, Mississippi-based Trinity Yachts, have spent about $1.4 million on their Olympic campaign. That's more than any other U.S. sailing entry headed to China as the Olympics open tomorrow and probably more than any international participant, said Kimball Livingston, a senior editor at Sail magazine.

``You have to have money to go sailing,'' Sperry said in a telephone interview on July 23 from San Francisco, where he picked up his credentials and U.S. team uniform. ``When you have funding, you have the ability to test a lot of equipment. It's like the America's Cup: The better-funded teams usually do a bit better.''

Growing up near San Francisco Bay, Sperry learned sailing from his father, a retired 30-year Merrill Lynch & Co. executive. He began racing competitively as a teenager and continued through college. In 2000, he earned a Series 7 broker's license to execute stock trades and joined Bank of America.

``The big thing I learned from working on the trading floor is personal relationships,'' he said. ``Anything you do, you're in sales one way or another.''

Athens Try

Sperry left the bank in 2002 to move to Miami, where his wife, Sally Dane, was in college. He came up short of a spot at the 2004 Athens Games in a Star, a two-man, 22-foot boat that's the largest in the Olympic fleet.

He and his father-in-law entered the 2005 Western Hemisphere championship in the Bahamas. They came in second and decided to take their pairing more seriously. A year later, Sperry and Dane won the Bacardi Cup in Miami, beating 91 other boats.

Trinity is the biggest U.S. builder of large luxury boats, selling for as much as $65 million, and the company's backing has allowed Sperry and Dane to avoid the scramble for corporate sponsors, U.S. Sailing spokeswoman Derby Anderson said. They have received some money from the U.S. Olympic Committee and equipment makers, Sperry said. Yacht clubs in New Orleans and San Francisco also made donations, Livingston said.

Coaches, Competitors

Sperry and Dane have hired top-flight coaches, including Olympic medal winners Steve Erickson, Mark Reynolds and Hans Wallen, and hosted training camps in Florida and California against leading competition. They also designed and built their own boats.

In October, the pair won the U.S. Olympic trials for the Star class at the California Yacht Club in Marina Del Ray. Dane, who narrowly missed making the 1968 Olympic sailing team, is the oldest member of the U.S. team.

``Dane's been trying to do this for 40 years, so he's leaving no stone unturned,'' Livingston said. ``Their budget is on par with what some countries are spending for their entire sailing team.''

At the Olympics, Sperry and Dane will compete in as many as 10 races over five days in the Yellow Sea off Qingdao starting Aug. 16.

Partnering with his father-in-law in an athletic competition has tested their relationship, Sperry said. Sometimes, Sally is called in as a mediator.

``If at the end of the day it doesn't go very well, the guy is still my father-in-law,'' Sperry said. ``You're in a really stressful situation with a lot of personalities. I don't call him names, though obviously I'd like to from time to time. Still, we've made a pretty good team together.''

Katrina's Impact

When Hurricane Katrina destroyed Trinity's New Orleans marina in 2005, Dane expanded the company's damaged Gulfport operations, purchasing 100 trailers to house employees and putting Sperry in charge of the task. Since then, Sperry has started his own mobile-home development business.

He has also become more involved with Trinity, working for its brokerage arm, International Yacht Collection. Trinity, which employs about 1,000 people in Gulfport and New Orleans, is building six yachts this year at an average price of $30 million, Dane said in an interview.

The trip to the Olympics is the fourth to China for Sperry and Dane in the last year. Anderson said that's more than any member of the U.S. sailing team, and Sperry said it's just part of their medal plan.

``We've got the big program, the big-name coaches, the best training partners, and that's why we won the Olympic trials,'' Sperry said. ``We've been the most prepared, the most focused. We've given ourselves every opportunity to win.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Leon Lazaroff in New York at llazaroff@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 6, 2008 17:43 EDT