Podcast

Andy Ventura sailed solo from New Zealand to the UK via the Southern Ocean so he could get to his mother’s 80^th birthday party in the middle of a global pandemic. As you might imagine, it was a remarkable and sometimes dramatic journey.

It’s fair to say Erica Dawson has had a big year in 2021 for a number of different reasons.

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.

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.

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.

Leah Fanstone (nee Newbold) and Keryn McMaster were trailblazers for New Zealand women’s offshore sailing in the 1990s.

Chris Bouzaid has been called the father of New Zealand international keelboat yachting who inspired the likes of Sir Peter Blake and Grant Dalton.

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.

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.