Born in England in 1948, John was the second child of Ken and Joan Parrish. In 1961, the Parrish clan – including John’s parents, older sister, aunt, uncle, and grandparents – immigrated to New Zealand under the assisted passage scheme.
“Our family and grandparents all travelled on the ship Canberra, which was her maiden voyage,” recalls John. The Parrish family soon started building a new house on the North Shore, which was exploding with new subdivisions following the Harbour Bridge opening two years earlier.
John left Takapuna Grammar School in 1965 and went to Auckland University to study mathematics, eventually obtaining his Master’s degree. He studied under the Studentship scheme, whereby a portion of his university costs were met by the Government in exchange for becoming a teacher afterwards.
Now married, and with a nearly finished Sunburst dinghy in hand, in 1974 John moved to Taupo to take up a teaching position with Taupo nui-a-Tia College and, in 1977, Tauhara School. After finishing his Sunburst, John taught himself the rudiments of sailing on Lake Taupo, and then started racing with the Taupo Yacht Club (TYC). He was soon roped into becoming Club’s Publicity Officer, then, a couple of years later, the Rear Commodore. This put him in charge of racing, eventually leading to what would become a 43-year and counting involvement in race management.
John was chucked in the deep end; his first major regatta as National Race Officer (NRO) was running the 1982 470 Nationals, which had the likes of Chris Dickson, Brian and Murray Jones, Leslie Egnot, and then world champions David Barnes and Hamish Wilcox competing.
“In those days there were no tests or exams; the TYC simply put my name forward and I was granted accreditation. Fortunately, the regatta went really well.”
Meantime, John had sold the Sunburst, and bought a Tasman 20, which he finished off at home and named Hours Two. The Parrish family and their two sons, Andrew and Tom, sailed Hours Two extensively over the upper North Island, including Taupo, Napier, Tauranga and the Bay of Islands. “I loved that boat.”
After a brief flirtation with a Farr 6000, in 1983, John bought the Raven 26 keeler Slippery Bear, powered by one of the infamous Fichtel & Sachs rotary engines. “A terrible motor, most of the time it was useless.”
In the mid-1980s, Parrish separated from his wife, but remained teaching in Taupo. The Raven was sold and John knuckled down to rebuild his life. Meantime, Linda Worth (born 1946) was returning to the workforce after her marriage had also ended. A trained PE teacher, she took a position with Tauhara College, where the couple first met. One thing led to another, and John and Linda got together in 1988.
By pooling their finances, the couple had enough to buy the Lotus 10.6 Toyshop, which had been built in two-skin kauri. This purchase triggered a rethink of the couple’s lives and, impulsively, they resigned their jobs and moved to Auckland. Good teachers were in demand and John and Linda was soon back into teaching at Glenfield College. “We were so fortunate then; today you wouldn’t think about resigning unless you had a job to go to,” said Linda.
With five children between them, John and Linda gave them the traditional Kiwi boating upbringing. Murray’s Bay Sailing Club (MBSC) was their local sailing club and the children were soon busy restoring, building, sailing and racing Optimist, P Class, Sunburst, Europe, Starling dinghies, and Mistral Imco sailboards. “In those days teaching was a respected career. We raised five children and managed to do a lot with what we had. It’s very different now,” said John.
Good ROs are always in short supply, and MBSC soon recruited John and Linda to help with their busy weekend racing events. John became one of the MBSC ROs with Linda as his chief assistant from 1989 to 1997, which they only stopped doing when the last of their children left school.
Besides the club racing, John officiated countless National events including the 1987 Trailer Yacht Nationals, and the 1996 P Class Tauranga Cup. The latter had 168 entrants, necessitating a two-part start line. Since 1989, John has been National RO for over 120 New Zealand regattas, in classes from Optimists to keelers, and locations up and down the country.
John’s reputation as a National RO grew. In 1998 Yachting New Zealand (YNZ) arranged with Yachting Australia for four race officers to be volunteers at the test events working towards the Sydney Olympics in 2000. John convinced his race officer that Linda would be an asset in the team and so they both attended the 2000 Olympics on Mark Vessel 2 on E course.
In 2002, the GHYC hosted the Etchells Worlds, which had 98 boats entered, sailed by some of the best sailors in the world. Some sailors were using this event as a workup event for the 2003 America’s Cup, so the competition was fierce.
Since then, John and Linda have been involved as ROs with nearly 30 World Championships in classes as diverse as Tornado, International 14, RSX, Laser (Radial, Masters, Grand Masters etc) 49er, 49erFX, 29er, Moth, Nacra, Hobie, Topper, Splash and others. While John has run some of these World regattas in New Zealand, a number have been held overseas in Australia, UK, Europe, Asia and China.
During all their World and Olympic race management events, the couple were holding down full-time teaching jobs. Fortunately, the school’s management were flexible about allowing them special leave as required.
On the strength of his 2000 Olympic RO performance, John was invited by World Sailing to be one of the Course Representatives (CR) for the 2004 Athens Olympics, and again Linda accompanied him as one of the volunteer mark laying crew.
The role of CR is a step up from RO. It looks at the big picture of a specific course ensuring the local race management team follows World Sailing policy and being the final decision maker on important issues.
Four years later, John was appointed by World Sailing to be CR for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Bringing in outside experts was especially relevant as China had little experience in international race management. Working in China presented its own unique issues. John quickly learned no matter who was at fault in a given situation, it went better if he took the blame, allowing the local officials to save face. This enabled an honest discussion about the fault and how best to ensure it didn’t happen again. It takes a big man to take it on the chin even when the fault lies with others, however John believes this is essential when dealing with race management anywhere in the world.
John was CR for 2012 Weymouth Olympics, the 2016 Rio Olympics, and Field of Play Manager at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, an impressive track record.
“The Olympics are basically two weeks of highly focused attention, and mistakes or errors are simply not allowed. While the fleet numbers aren’t huge and there are fewer competitors compared to say a World event, the pressure to get it right for the Olympics is massive,” said John.
In all he has attended six Olympics in various RM roles, which is unprecedented in this country, as these roles are appointed on an invitation only basis. It’s a long way from running races for the Taupo Yacht Club to doing the same thing at six Olympics Games, yet John is humble about his achievements, and has never sought the limelight.
“I’ve just gone about my job, done each one to the best of my abilities and taken each opportunity as its been presented.”
As some recognition for their RM work, John received the YNZ Official of the Year in 2016, and he and Linda were joint recipients of the Peter Montgomery Trophy at the Sir Peter Blake Torbay Regatta in 2023. John also received a Silver Award from World Sailing for his contribution to sailing.
John and Linda have been involved with the Gulf Harbour Yacht Club (GHYC) almost from its beginnings. Since 1990, they have run the GHYC races as required, using Toyshop as the principal race management vessel. Moored just below the couple’s Gulf Harbour apartment, Toyshop has been used for local race management, club racing, and lots of cruising. Being relatively stable at anchor, the big-bodied 10.6 makes an ideal race management vessel, and the couple keep her in excellent condition.
“Toyshop’s set up for race management just the way we like it, so we prefer to use her,” said John.
Racing sailors from GHYC should count themselves extremely fortunate to have a RO with this level of experience. This was recognised when the couple were made GHYC Life Members in 2022.
John and Linda Parrish’s vast experience in race management led to them being employed by YNZ to run training seminars and exams for Club and National RO levels throughout the country. These are typically held over two days, and at the time of writing, the couple have presented 74 of them. John has also run, sometimes in conjunction with others, World Sailing Race Management seminars and clinics, making him one of the most knowledgeable ROs in the world. The couple’s extensive teaching experience has unquestionably made them more effective in these training roles.
It’s one thing to be a technically good RO, but the people skills when working with volunteers are even more important. John and Linda put considerable effort into making race day a fun experience so that volunteers come back.
Possibly thanks to his trained mathematical mind, John has developed an acronym for his standards as a RO – FOCUSED. This stands for Fair, Organised, Consistent, Unobtrusive, Safe (and Satisfying), Excellence and Decisive.
“It’s the people we do things with that make it worthwhile. There are wonderful opportunities in race management for ex-sailors and anyone else, and we’d encourage the next generation to do the same as we have done,” said John.
John and Linda’s commitment and dedication to race management has been unmatched. While they are doing their best to pass on their skills, John and Linda are frankly irreplaceable. After 43 years of dedicated work, in this writer’s opinion, a New Zealand’s honours award is well deserved.
Meantime John and Linda, a heartfelt Boating New Zealand salute for a job well done.
