Karl Budge doesn’t purport to be much of a sailor, but he is one of this country’s leading event organisers having previously turned the ASB Classic into one of the world’s best tennis tournaments. He consistently attracted some of the world’s top tennis players to this country and now he’s looking to sprinkle his magic dust on the New Zealand leg of SailGP. Karl talks about why he got involved in SailGP and what his vision is for the New Zealand legs that will be held in alternating years between Christchurch and Auckland. He also talks about what the fan experience is like at SailGP events a ..read more

Mike Sanderson is one of the most successful sailors of his generation. He’s a former World Sailor of the Year, two-time winner of the round the world race including when he skippered ABN Amro to victory in the 2005/06 Volvo Ocean Race, been involved in multiple America’s Cup campaigns, a record breaker, a successful maxi yacht skipper and now co-owner and CEO of Doyle Sails. Mike has plenty of stories to tell, and we touch on a few of those in this podcast, from why he left school early and how he earned his ticket alongside many of his heroes on New Zealand Endeavour, to heading up internati ..read more

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 d ..read more

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 b ..read more

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 actua ..read more

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 ..read more

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. Cloud ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more