Race officers, a club sailing secretary, a Sailability volunteer and one of the developers of a schools sailing programme were among the people with Wellington sailing connections recognised at the Barfoot & Thompson Yachting Excellence Awards. Two Wellington club sailors also collected performance awards.
Six people with ties to Wellington sailing were honoured at Yachting New Zealand’s annual awards night, held at Royal Akarana Yacht Club in Auckland on Friday, 6 November. Most of their work happens ashore or on the start boat: running offshore races, managing regattas, preparing boats for disabled sailors and taking school students out on the water. Two sailors from Wellington clubs, Muritai Yacht Club’s George Gautrey and Plimmerton Boating Club’s Karl Purdie, were also recognised for their results on the water. The full list of winners is on our website.
Four decades on the start boat
John and Linda Parrish received the Peter Lester Award for Outstanding Contribution to Sailing. The awards citation credits the pair with more than four decades of race management, officiating at more than 120 national regattas and more than 30 world championships, and helping train officials in New Zealand and overseas. John has officiated at six Olympic Games.
The awards list credits them to Gulf Harbour Yacht Club, where they have run the racing since 1990 and were made life members in 2022. Wellington sailors know them too. Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club, which describes the pair as honorary members, credited “impeccable race management led by John and Linda Parrish” at its 2020 Port Nicholson Regatta, which ran 44 races across four divisions over three days, and they led race management at the 2021 regatta as well.
John learned to sail on Lake Taupō and was accredited as a race officer through Taupō Yacht Club. As Boating New Zealand‘s John Macfarlane recounted last year, his Olympic run began with Sydney in 2000 and ended with Tokyo, where he was field of play manager. “The Olympics are basically two weeks of highly focused attention, and mistakes or errors are simply not allowed,” he told Macfarlane.
Offshore and alongside
Two of this year’s Yamaha Motor NZ Service Awards went to volunteers with long Wellington records. Yachting New Zealand’s citations list Geoff Herd under the Short Handed Sailing Association of New Zealand (SSANZ). Over more than two decades in offshore sailing, he has been race officer and safety officer for Round North Island races, the Round New Zealand Race and SSANZ Triangle events, and has held senior roles with both SSANZ and Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club. SSANZ made him a life member this year.
Lynn Porter has served Lowry Bay Yacht Club since 1998, including as sailing secretary. She has also spent many years as a volunteer bosun with Sailability Wellington, preparing equipment so that sailors with disabilities can get out on the water safely.
Building the boat
Remy Thomassen helped develop a new boat for those sailors. He is the first recipient of the Hesketh Henry Inclusive Sailing Award, which Yachting New Zealand introduced this year to recognise people who create opportunities for disabled sailors. His citation recognises 30 years of support for sailing at Evans Bay Yacht and Motorboat Club, volunteering with Sailability, and helping develop the ParAble class yacht.
Sailability Wellington was founded by Evans Bay members more than two decades ago. Sailability Wellington says it now sails up to six days a week from Evans Bay, Seaview and Onepoto in Porirua, with 27 Hansa yachts and 70 volunteers. The ParAble came out of its search for a boat suited to sailors who need more space, stability or adaptability than the existing designs offered. The volunteer-led project took about 13 years and more than $600,000 in fundraising to produce a 4.1m yacht with a self-draining cockpit, a 240kg payload and a hull designed to launch straight off a beach trolley. The first production boats reached Sailability’s Seaview base late last year, and Yachting New Zealand now recognises the ParAble as a national class.
Sailing as a classroom
Dean Stanley received the AON Sustainability Award for helping develop and grow RŪNĀ, Yachting New Zealand’s schools and community programme, and for helping establish Worser Bay Boating Club as a pilot site.
RŪNĀ combines time on the water with practical lessons about the marine environment. At Worser Bay, the club’s education centre has students examining plankton under a microscope, mapping intertidal habitat and comparing water temperature, salinity and turbidity with the species recorded by baited underwater cameras.
The programme has grown well beyond its Wellington pilot. Yachting New Zealand reported in June that 5,539 students took part in club experiences during the 2025-26 season, and RŪNĀ won the Environmental Sustainability Award at this year’s New Zealand Sport and Recreation Awards.
On the podium
Gautrey, a former Yachting New Zealand Male Sailor of the Year, finished third in the ILCA 7 open fleet at the European Championships in Kaštela, Croatia, in May. The championship’s own medals went to European sailors only. He led from the opening day and took three of the first four races, but a 16th in the first race of the final day cost him the lead, and the abandonment of the last race ended any chance of winning it back. He finished on 42 points, three behind champion Pavlos Kontides of Cyprus. “It’s disappointing not to get the win here,” he said.
Purdie won the Great Grand Master age-group title at the Finn World Masters in Brisbane in February and finished third overall. In his report on the New Zealand Finn team’s Brisbane campaign, Purdie described that as New Zealand’s first overall podium at the Finn World Masters. It was his third world title, following OK Dinghy world championships in 2008 and 2010.
