The founder of 13 Stripes Brewery and his crewmates are determined to cross the Atlantic
“It’s going to happen,” says Kenworth Reeves Jr. “It can’t not happen.”
“Three guys in a ’79 Alberg, across the Atlantic,” says the cofounder of 13 Stripes Brewery. “I never knew that I wanted to do this, and now I know I don’t have a choice. I have to do this.”
That perseverance and fortitude is encoded in the name he and two friends gave the 37-foot Alberg sailboat, presently docked in Charleston, that they are preparing to take across the Atlantic to Lisbon, Portugal. They christened her Sea Se Puede, a play on the Spanish language slogan Si, se puede (“Yes, it can be done”), which is somewhat of a personal mantra for Reeves. “It means, ‘No matter what, come hell or high water, we are going to do this thing,’” he says.
“We’re restoring its natural beauty, scraping down the old teak and repainting,” Reeves adds. “It’ll probably be the prettiest 1979 Alberg on planet Earth. It’s a true gentleman’s sailing vessel. It’s built to do what we’re doing. It’s meant to explore.”
“I Have to Go”
Reeves, a self-described “entrepreneur, investor, and community builder” based in Greenville, heard the slogan a few years ago, chanted by the crowd at the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain—something he’d wanted to do since seeing the movie City Slickers at age 9.
“My in-laws were like, ‘What is wrong with you? You’re gonna die,’” he remembers. “I said, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t not do this. I have to go. I will live, I will come home, but I have to go.’”
That compulsive call to adventure would reach Reeves again sometime after he cofounded 13 Stripes Brewery, which has anchored the Taylors Mill development since 2015, and started talking boats with brewery manager Danny Dailey.
“I had called him Captain Danny for years before I even knew he sailed,” says Reeves of the impressively bearded Dailey. “He looks like the Gorton’s Fish Sticks guy.”
An invitation to join another crew for a transatlantic voyage fell through, but the idea had set its hooks, and Reeves and Dailey knew they no longer had a choice: they had to find a boat and go themselves.
As with Pamplona, “I couldn’t really articulate it. It’s in my bones,” Reeves says. “And Danny said, ‘Dude, I’m in. We have to go.’ It’s in his bones, too.”
13th Stripes Brewery founder sets sail
“I can’t not do this. I have to go. I will live, I will come home, but I have to go.”—Kenworth Reeves Jr.
A Craigslist search revealed an Alberg 37 in New Bern, North Carolina, in early 2025. He and Dailey drove for hours through a snowstorm to get a closer look at their future “gentleman’s sailing vessel.”
“I was so drawn to this boat, I couldn’t get away from it,” Reeves says. “I said, ‘Danny, this is the one, I’m telling you.’ And he felt good about it.”
Soon, another friend and fellow adventurer/entrepreneur, Greg Miller, joined the crew. “Danny’s the captain, Greg’s first mate, and I’m the deckhand,” says Reeves.
Supplies are one key consideration. The crew plans to fish along the way, and additional provisions will include canned goods, Clif bars, and a tankful of potable water, among other essentials. “A bunch of salty pirates gotta have some good rum,” Reeves notes. “And, of course, some 13 Stripes beer. We’ll start off strong, and then we’ll end up eating ramen and canned meats.”
Another major concern in any Atlantic voyage is weather, a lesson the sea taught the crew personally during a harrowing shakedown cruise last October.
“We were the only boat out 20 miles off the coast, in the middle of Hurricane Melissa,” Reeves recalls. “We’re hand-tilling in a massive storm, and my crew’s puking. It was a very long, crazy, wild night, and probably the most terrified I’ve ever been, but it molded us. We said, ‘We’ve gotta get through this. The only way out is through.’”
Changing Tack
Understandably, the three aren’t anxious to sail into any more Atlantic hurricanes. With their safety window for 2026 closing and storm season looming, that means the launch of the Sea Se Puede, originally planned for this May, will have to wait until next spring while another, more local, adventure comes in at flank speed: moving 13 Stripes from Taylors to Greenville’s Hampton Station.
“We were in engineering purgatory for a long time, and now we’re in permitting,” Reeves says. The opening has been pushed from March to, potentially, July 4—“an awesome big day for America, but that’s going to mess up our trip.”
The plans are becalmed, not scuttled, he stresses. Sooner or later, there will be a big send-off party in Charleston when the Sea Se Puede sets out for Portugal.
“I think about all the people that I love down at the dock, and untying that line,” says Reeves. “It’s terrifying and exhilarating, because we all know that come hell or high water, hurricanes, stuff breaking, orcas, no matter what—if it takes us six weeks or six years, we will not stop until we hit Lisbon.”
