Sailing: Leadership learnings

Blair Tuke (far left) and Guy Endean chew the fat with the 2015 Northland Secondary Schools Sportsman of the Year, Callum Prime and Sportswoman of the Year, Samantha Polovnikoff.

As with most career pursuits, one in sport often involves sailing through a storm of sideline activities and decisions.

Helping to make that process a smoother glide for a lucky bunch of up-and-coming Northland athletes, yesterday, Northland sailor Blair Tuke and two of his Emirates Team New Zealand comrades - Ray Davies and Guy Endean - jumped aboard the inaugural ASB Performance Pathway event to nurture secondary school athletes on how to navigate the high seas, and the imminent troughs and peaks that come with them when plotting a course toward sporting success.

Emirates Team New Zealand's Ray Davies (centre) speaks to the ASB Performance Pathway Day athletes.

"It was pretty awesome for me to be able to bring a couple of the guys from the team up and have the opportunity to talk to the kids from Northland," Tuke said.

"They're sort of where they're ready to take that next step so hopefully we were able to help them out a little bit."

Far from coming untethered and sailing adrift in his young, yet successful sporting career, Tuke, the 2015 World Sailor of the Year, said coming home to help ready the next generation of Northland's sporting elite is an easy feat compared to those faced in his day job.

"If you can learn a little bit from people that have been there and done it, hopefully it will help them out.

"With me being from Northland, hopefully that works out a bit [too]. We're super busy at the moment, we're sailing with Team NZ in the morning down in Auckland, but it's important for us to come up here and we're more than happy.

"We understand that we're privileged to be in the position we're in as professional athletes, but at the same time we've got to give it back and that's all part ofit."

The inaugural ASB Performance Pathway event also saw around 35 Sport Northland ASB Secondary School Sports Awards finalists take part in activities, including coaching in the areas of nutrition, sportsmanship, leadership, financial literacy and care and communication.

The sessions were hosted by Northland Pathway To Podium and Educare Northland Sports Talent Hub programme co-ordinator, Ady McKenzie, the practical demonstration by the NorthTec High Performance Lab, financial literacy by ASB's Faye Sworn, and care and communication by St John.