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There’s not a lot Sharon Ferris-Choat hasn’t done in sailing. She’s a two-time Olympian, first woman to be part of a team to win a round the world race, world distance record breaker and the first woman to skipper a GC32 team. And she’s not done yet. The Northlander talks about how she stumbled into the sport, how she found herself at the Atlanta Olympics only two-and-a-half years after committing to an Olympic campaign, her long association with the legendary Tracy Edwards and what’s still left on her bucket list. There have been plenty of highlights along the way, like breaking the 24-hour distance world record and winning the Oryx Quest, but also major disappointments, not least of all when Royal & Sun Alliance dismasted deep in the Southern Ocean when on track to claim the Jules Verne Trophy. Sharon was on the helm when the maxi catamaran lost its rig and details what happened and why she still has regrets about that day nearly 25 years later. Sharon is an extraordinary sailor who is largely unheralded in this country. She’s deeply passionate about the sport and the need to provide greater opportunities for women and is always searching for what might be around the corner.

Jo Aleh always maintained she hadn’t retired when she stepped away from top-level sailing after the 2016 Rio Olympics but it was still a surprise in some circles when she announced earlier this year she was targeting a third Olympic medal in Paris. Rather than do it in the 470, the boat in which she and Polly Powrie excelled for so long, Jo has taken up a fresh challenge and jumped in a 49erFX with fellow Rio medallist Molly Meech. Jo talks in this podcast about what drew her back to the top level of the sport, what it has been like trying to master a new boat and form a new partnership, what it will take for the pair of them to win a medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics and how she will deal with expectations. She also delves into how she coped with the last five years, when she combined office work with coaching, and talks about what she’s trying to achieve in her role as chair of World Sailing’s athletes’ commission. One of the more important conversations we had was around the struggles Jo had with her health during her Rio campaign and how she approaches that part of her life now, which could be valuable for any young sailor, parent or coach, and we kicked things off by talking about her involvement in Live Ocean Racing, which was announced earlier this week.

Peter Burling and Blair Tuke are never far from the action, whether it’s the America’s Cup, SailGP or in their environmental work, but the spotlight for this episode of Broad Reach Radio is on their Olympic sailing in the 49er. We take a look back on where it all began for one of the world’s most successful partnerships, some of the challenges they faced in the early days when some wondered if they could actually realise their potential and how they went on to become so dominant. They delve into that golden period between the London and Rio Olympics, when they were virtually unbeatable, what brought them back for a crack at another Olympic medal in Tokyo and how they dealt with the impact of Covid-19 and the postponement of the Olympic Games. Pete and Blair also give an insight into two of the most dramatic races they’ve been involved in, the medal race at the 2019 world championships on home waters and last year’s medal race at the Tokyo Olympics.

Steve Ashley was an 18-year-old sailmaker living in England when he was asked to crew on a 34-foot yacht for the 1979 Fastnet Race. Little did he know, like the rest of those scattered on the 303 boats who took part that year, he was about to be involved in one of the most notorious races of all time and one that led to the largest combined rescue operation since the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940. Steve talks about the leadup to that race, the fact they received no warning about the ferocity of the storm they were sailing into, what happened when hurricane-strength winds hit in the middle of the night and how he and the rest of the crew on board went about ensuring their survival when others perished. Steve has found himself in dicey situations many times, and also talks about a notorious passage he had from Bermuda to New York, as well as his role in the early days of the Westpac Rescue Helicopter. 

The America’s Cup has long been at the cutting edge of yacht racing and we’ve seen incredible development over the last decade or so and a lot of that has to do with Dan Bernasconi. Dan is head designer at Emirates Team New Zealand and played a large hand in things like the evolution of foiling in the America’s Cup, the use of cyclors on Team New Zealand’s boat for the Bermuda campaign in 2017 as well as the design of the AC75 monohulls used in the last edition in Auckland. Dan’s route to the America’s Cup came via Formula 1, and he talks about the six years he spent with McLaren when they were at the top of the tree, how he then got into the sailing game and how he approaches boat design. He also delves into some of the major developments he’s been behind, the team’s thinking around when to reveal to rival teams some of the latest innovations they’ve been working on and what it’s like when some of the radical design features come off.

Andy Ventura sailed solo from New Zealand to the UK via the Southern Ocean so he could get to his mother’s 80th birthday party in the middle of a global pandemic. As you might imagine, it was a remarkable and sometimes dramatic journey. He experienced everything from being becalmed in the Southern Ocean to raging storms, capsizes to concussion, and also endured some worrying equipment failure that could have led to an altogether different outcome. Andy talks about how he prepared for the journey, what life was like on board his 35-foot yacht and how he dealt with the ongoing obstacles and setbacks.

It’s fair to say Erica Dawson has had a big year in 2021 for a number of different reasons. She broke her leg in a training accident only five weeks before the Tokyo Olympics, but made a speedy recovery to take her place alongside Micah Wilkinson in the Nacra 17. She also joined the New Zealand SailGP Team and made history when she became the first Kiwi woman to compete in the high-octane sailing circuit. Erica reflects on the last 18 months, the highs and the lows. She talks about what it was like to be selected for the Olympics only to go through the uncertainty of not knowing if she’d actually get to go and compete, how she coped with breaking her leg in the leadup to the Games and what her experience was actually like in Japan. She also delves into life on the SailGP tour and what it’s like sail on the foiling catamarans. Erica is also an advocate for women’s sailing and played a leading hand in the development of Yachting New Zealand’s Women and Girls in Sailing Strategy and talks in this podcast about what she’d like to see over the next few years.

A couple of weeks ago, Tom Saunders became just the second New Zealander to win the Laser world title in nearly 50 years of trying. It was a breakthrough result for the 29-year-old and sets him up nicely as he not only tries to go to his first Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 but also win a medal for his country. Tom has been on the circuit for the best part of a decade and talks about his experiences in that time – how he’s coped with disappointments after finding success came quite easily to him as a youngster, what was different about the last world championships in Barcelona and how he might not have even gone to the world championships had he stuck to his original plan. He also delves into his background growing up in and around a group of young sailors in Tauranga who have gone to achieve phenomenal success, what influence his brother has had on him and how training for and racing in an ironman event last year has helped shape his mentality as he commits to another Olympic cycle.

Roger ‘Clouds’ Badham is one of the world’s pre-eminent meteorologists and was also the first person to forecast for yachties and boaties on a fulltime basis. His 50-year involvement in the sport has seen him work on 10 America’s Cups, nine Olympics Games, more than 40 Sydney to Hobart races and countless world championships and big events. He’s been a critical member of Team New Zealand for 20 years, helping them firstly win the Cup in Bermuda in 2017 and then retain it earlier this year in Auckland, and has also worked with New Zealand’s top Olympic campaigners for the last five Games. Clouds has described weather forecasting as like short-term futures trading - either selling or buying left or right – but his accuracy is something he’s renowned for it and it earned him a job working with the Ferrari Formula 1 team. Roger talks about his career in this episode of Broad Reach Radio, how he got into the industry, what forecasting was like in the early days before computer modelling and then the arms race as teams tried to get the edge, what impact he’s had on various campaigns and the pressure he can sometimes come under to get it right. He also touches on the world of Formula 1 and how it differs to high-level sailing.

Martin Tasker spent most of his time behind a microphone, having commentated and presented news stories on anything from the America’s and Admiral's Cup to the Ocean Race and Olympics. In fact, in his time as a reporter with TVNZ, he produced close to 5500 stories, many of them about yachting. He lifted the lid on a number of news breaks, like the time Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth were lured to Alinghi, but was equally happy telling the story about something happening at grassroots level. Martin talks about his career as both a yachting reporter and commentator in this podcast and tells the stories about how he and Peter Lester were threatened by Oracle with expulsion from not only the America’s Cup but also the country, what it was like to be on the inside with Team New Zealand in Bermuda in 2017, the lengths he would go to for a story, and the time he became the story after a seemingly innocent comment picked up when he thought he was off air caused a huge controversy.

Leah Fanstone (nee Newbold) and Keryn McMaster were trailblazers for New Zealand women’s offshore sailing in the 1990s. The pair notched up two laps each around the globe in the Whitbread Round the World Race, once together on the all-women’s crew on board EF Education, and they tell their stories from those epic races in this episode of Broad Reach Radio. None of those circumnavigations were particularly easy, as they battled a catalogue of bad luck, breakages and broken promises, not to mention old-fashioned attitudes, but they made a big statement for women’s sailing. Leah and Keryn have so many memorable stories from those races and talk about everything from mutinies and swimming in the Southern Ocean to haul sails back on board to messages from the American first lady and getting smothered by rotten fish. They also delved into various important topics around women’s sailing including how female sailors can get noticed as well as last week’s news that women’s teams will be involved in the next America’s Cup.

Chris Bouzaid has been called the father of New Zealand international keelboat yachting who inspired the likes of Sir Peter Blake and Grant Dalton. He was the first non-Australian to win the Sydney-Hobart Race, first non-European to win the One Ton Cup which, in those days, sat only behind the America’s Cup in terms of importance, and was part of the New Zealand team that finished 1, 2, 3 at the 1971 Sydney-Hobart Race, something that had never been done before, and which saw New Zealand claim the Southern Cross Cup. These achievements saw Chris named New Zealand sportsman of the year in 1969, and he was also inducted into the New Zealand sports hall of fame, awarded an MBE and listed as one of New Zealand’s sportsmen of the 20th century. But Chris considers himself more of a businessman than a top yachtie and also ran one of the world’s biggest sail making businesses. It was something he was thrust into early in life, taking over his dad’s business with his brother when only a teenager, but he recognised the importance of marketing and did a lot of this through his yachting exploits. We traverse a lot of Chris Bouzaid’s career on and off the water in this podcast and the part he played in awakening New Zealand’s passion for international yachting. He tells the story of the day he shared the front page with the moon landing, how he won 121 races with his famous yacht Rainbow II, the impact hosting the 1971 One Ton Cup had on this country and the embarrassing, but scary, tale of his worst wipeout ever.

Finishing fourth at an Olympic Games is one of the hardest things for any athlete to go through and, unfortunately, it’s what happened to Paul Snow-Hansen and Dan Willcox at the recent Tokyo Olympics. What made it even more emotional was the fact the medal race was probably the last time the pair will sail a 470 competitively together with the class going to a mixed format for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Paul and Dan are presently in MIQ in Christchurch but Broad Reach Radio caught up with them just before they left Enoshima, the sailing venue for the Games. They reflected on that Olympic campaign as well as the nine years they had been sailing together. But their association goes back way further than that, to the time they competed against each other as young Opti sailors and went to junior world championships as teammates. Paul and Dan have some good stories to tell, like the time they scrambled to get out of Spain as Covid-19 took a hold on the world and how their Rio Olympics was scuppered by illness but they also give a good insight into what it’s like being an Olympic sailor and the impact it has on loved ones. And, of course, they tell the stories of their worst wipeouts ever.

The Olympics have played a large part in Tom Ashley’s life, firstly as a competitor and Olympic gold medallist, then as an international coach and now as a CEO of a national sporting organisation with high hopes of success in Tokyo. In this episode of Broad Reach Radio, we talk to Tom about the many layers to his journey, from growing up in the sport at a time of remarkable success in this country and his non-conventional approaches to training to achieving his lifelong goal and then rather stumbling into coaching in a vastly different environment to the one he was used to. Tom also talks about how he got into sports administration and his plans for the future and offers his thoughts on what athletes can expect at the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. Tom Ashley is articulate, thoughtful and engaging and has a really good recall of details, which all come across in this podcast.

Few people have done as much in sailing as John Cutler. He’s been involved in five America’s Cups and will next month go to his fifth Olympics – he came home from his first in 1988 with a medal – and is also a multiple world champion and Admiral's Cup winner. On top of that, John has been a professional sailor for more than 30 years, and also been heavily involved as a coach and official. John talks about his journey, from lanky teenager who discovered the sport after moving to New Zealand to his place now as an elder statesman, and most things in between. He never really thought you could make a career out of sailing, and still wonders how he has in an industry he’s labelled as precarious because of its ruthlessness, politics and egos. John is well liked and well respected and offers a good perspective on the sport and his place in it in this podcast. 

Suzanne McFadden has been instrumental in the upsurge in coverage of women's sport in this country and was recently named New Zealand sport journalist of the year. She's also had a long association with sailing, having reported on the sport since the early 1990s. Suzanne writes almost exclusively about women’s sport these days, and talks in this podcast about a range of topics from quotas in professional sailing to the dangers of an unhealthy lifestyle for top athletes and what more can be done to shine a light on females. She also dives into a number of stories from reporting on sailing, like the time Team New Zealand tried to influence her, how Peter Blake became synonymous with red socks, her run-in with Chris Dickson and the story behind the split in Team New Zealand in the early 2000s.

Thousands of people with disabilities go sailing every year and it’s a side of our sport that is growing all the time as people experience a level of freedom and control that can be hard for them to find elsewhere in life. Tim Dempsey and Brendan Tourelle both play major roles in Sailability, the name given to sailing for people with disabilities, and talk in this podcast about who can participate, the technology used, where the sport can take them and what it is even like to get out on the water. Both Tim and Brendan bring plenty of their own experiences, given both are confined to wheelchairs, and tell their vastly different but powerful stories. They also delve into some of their experiences on the international circuit, including Tim’s journey to the 2012 London Paralympics, what the racing scene is like in this country and the chances of sailing being included again on the programme for the Paralympics. Tim and Brendan were open and honest in this podcast but mostly enthusiastic about the possibilities for people with disabilities to get involved in sailing. If you haven’t seen Sailability in action, it can be very inspiring and they’re always looking for more people to get involved.

Peter Montgomery has the most recognisable voice in world sailing and is known colloquially as the Voice of the America’s Cup, having commentated the last 13 editions of the Auld Mug. But he’s much more than that having also been involved in the broadcast of all 13 round the world races and the last 10 Olympic Games, not to mention countless All Blacks tests and weekend sports shows. Peter delves into some of the highlights of his 51-year broadcasting career, how he stumbled into the industry, how he pioneered many of the approaches to modern broadcasting and his relationship with a mythical little old lady with blue rinse hair from Riverton. He also talks about the story behind one of the most recognisable pieces of New Zealand sporting commentary, the time Dennis Conner labelled Team New Zealand cheats, what made Sir Peter Blake tick and how Team Zealand wouldn’t have won the 1995 America’s Cup without him, and his take on his sometimes frosty relationship with Grant Dalton. On a more personal level, he opens up about one episode in his life he’s not altogether proud about, namely his reaction to being told he had cancer. Peter is full of stories, and has an incredible recall for details and dates. He's one of the special characters whose influence goes well beyond sailing because he's had an enduring impact on sport in general and New Zealand broadcasting.

Statistics show the number of females who belong to yachting and boating clubs in this country drops from about 30 percent at youth level to 20 percent at senior level. This is something clubs and Yachting New Zealand are trying to address and leading a lot of the work in this area is Rosie Chapman. Rosie is the women’s sailing manager and Laser Radial coach at Yachting New Zealand and is focused on attracting more female participants, retaining those already sailing and also advancing equal opportunities. We talk about a range of things in this podcast from quotas and gender equity at the high performance level to pathways and obstacles. But we also discuss important topics like menstruation and body image and what needs to be done to cater more to the needs of female sailors. Rosie also talks about her journey from high performance sailor to coach and how this has affected her outlook and opens up about some of the struggles she’s faced. This was a really good discussion about some important issues and it would be useful for any young sailors, both female and male, and their parents and coaches to have a listen.

Max Sirena is an America’s Cup survivor, having done seven campaigns with various teams, but he has a burning desire to win the America’s Cup with an Italian team. He got close recently, taking Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli to the America’s Cup match, but ultimately came up short against Emirates Team New Zealand. The team boss dissects Luna Rossa’s campaign in this podcast - the dual helmsman strategy, their top speed, the pivotal race eight when they led by nearly nine minutes only to lose and what happened for his relationship with Emirates Team New Zealand to break down. But we also delve into what happens next, like Max’s future with Luna Rossa and the America’s Cup, his thoughts on where and when the next one will be and the impact some of the new rules will have on other teams.