Sandra G. Tartaglino, 60

Tiverton, R.I.

Sandra Gayle Tartaglino, of Tiverton, Rhode Island, died suddenly in a tragic boating accident on Narragansett Bay Sunday, Aug. 11, 2019. Born in Boston, she was the daughter of John and Paula (Tracy) Tartaglino of Tiverton. Sandra was a graduate of Taunton High School (’76) and then earned her bachelors and masters degree in Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her professional ambitions aided her in the development of state of the art cardiac catheterization instruments with leading medical device corporations including Cordis Corp, Boston Scientific and Guidant Corp. She was a pioneer for women in the field of engineering. She was a world-class competitive sailor, well known in the high-performance racing world as one of the few female skippers of Formula 18s. A true lover of multihulls, she raced in many classes including Nacra 6.0s, Hobie 16s, Nacra 17s and more. She actively competed and placed in many major championships local and abroad. Her passion was sailing, which included a special gift for educating many a willing student (crew). Her competitive spirit and love for sailing developed early while spending many summers with her siblings growing up and sailing off Third Beach in Middletown, R.I. Sandra also enjoyed cooking (mostly for others), and organizing fajita nights for her nieces and nephews. She traveled the globe many times as part of her sailing adventures, always sharing her trinkets and swag with her nieces and nephews (usually requiring a well-executed Auntie Sandy scavenger hunt). Besides her parents and multihull sailing family, she leaves behind her three sisters, Shelly T. Croft (Alfred) of Tiverton, Sharon J. Clemmey (Brian), and Sally T. Charbonneau (Brian) of Taunton Mass., and her brother Stephen J. Tartaglino of Somers, Mont., who introduced her to multihull sailing, as well as many loving nieces and nephews.