Isaac McHardie and Will McKenzie will represent New Zealand in the hotly contested 49er class at the French Olympic test event in Marseille in July. Photo / Sailing Energy
Are these the next great names in New Zealand sailing?
Isaac McHardie and William McKenzie have rocketed ahead to become the heirs apparent to Olympic 49er legends Peter Burling and Blair Tuke.
They are huge boots for anyone to fill, but the time has come to see if they can emerge from the Burling/Tuke shadow.
This month, McHardie and McKenzie head to Europe to prepare for the Olympic warm-up regatta in Marseille and the world championships in Holland.
They are on a mission to help qualify New Zealand for the Olympics and then nail down the Kiwi 49er spot for themselves in France next year. Naturally, joining the America’s Cup team is also on their horizon.
McHardie - the 25-year-old helmsman - chatted to the Herald at his inner Auckland apartment.
Olympic qualification - where do we stand?
Nobody is in yet - the first qualifying event is our world championships at the Hague in August, a huge event with all the classes. Fingers crossed we will get a boat in the top 10 but if we don’t qualify there, more spots are available down the road, at the Oceania championships. Then there are two qualifying events to determine which New Zealand boat goes to the Olympics - the European and world championships.
We’re talking about you and William versus Logan Dunning Beck and Oscar Gunn for the Olympic spot. You seem to have leapfrogged past them for now.
You’d have to say we’re the higher-ranked team, at the moment…
You train together - how does that work?
It’s a tricky situation, I’m sure you can imagine, two boats with the same goal of not only going to the Olympics but winning a medal for the country.
It’s hard but we’ve agreed that we need to work together. We’re working closely as a country to get as much experience and knowledge between all teams, so the boat that goes to the Olympics will have a shot at winning a medal.
We share things like speed and development but there are parts of our campaign we keep to ourselves.
All of our debriefing and race course strategy is kept within our own teams.
Each team operates very differently and it would be hard to share that stuff.
There are obviously some moments - the competitiveness comes out every so often. But nothing bad.
We don’t hang out a lot with them but there is mutual respect - we understand we are competitors, but also mates.
What do you put your rising form down to?
Our improvement since Covid has been rapid. We sat down and pulled a really tight team around us which helped our professionalism grow a lot.
We’ve got a performance director, a lawyer named Nick Gillies who has done a little bit of competitive sailing and volunteered his time. It was perfect timing. He has that business aspect and upped our level in everything.
That’s led us to be more engaged with our high-performance team, Yachting New Zealand, and our coaches. He made us realise the next level we need to be at.
Any specific examples of what needed to be improved?
I was surprised at how unorganised we were. A good example is our world championships in Geelong - we showed up with the wrong mainsail. Our equipment log wasn’t correct and we hadn’t tested the main properly. It was an absolute lemon which cost us our peak event of the year.
We were very young, there was a shortage of mainsails at the time, we bought one late in the piece, and spent the whole regatta thinking the problem was us and got so frustrated.
How did you and William come together as a team?
I was training out of Kohimarama and William sailed there as well. I’ve known him since about the age of 10 and we were really good mates, sailing Optimists, and went to the world champs together.
I left the youth division early and started sailing the 49ers with someone who left me to sail with another guy. William had just come out of the youth class, we linked up and that was it.
Are you different personalities - how did you choose the helmsman and crew roles?
I’ve always enjoyed driving. William is a very physical athlete, with the build to be a crew. The crew does a lot more pulling the ropes, hoisting the sails. He was built for that. I enjoy helming, and feel I’ve got a good feel of the boat.
We’re very different personalities and we’ve got our own friend groups. William is a chilled, very easygoing guy. He studied mechanical engineering and has a very good brain, is switched on to the mechanical side of the boat, and philosophies on how all the pressures and stuff like that work which is awesome.
I’m probably more hyped up and get quite energised over certain situations. He’s very good at mellowing me out at times, and I’m pretty good at picking him up when he needs it.
I was doing a building apprenticeship through Covid although I’ve put that on hold.
I have more of a practical brain and we work hand in hand really well leading to some pretty powerful ideas. We can get the boat going pretty quickly.
You were brought up near Hamilton…
Yes, on an acre block in Tamahere. Dad (Scott) owns the Regal Haulage trucking company. My mum (Natasha) was a stay-at-home mum who taught us - I was home-schooled - and she now works at the company.
Mum and grandpa were sailors - my younger brother initially drove the interest in sailing. I wanted to play with my lego, and mum would bribe us with lollies to go sailing. A couple of months later I started winning races, and my love for it grew from there.
How did homeschooling affect your life?
I really enjoyed it. Mum did an amazing job - I’m not sure how the heck she did it.
I was about nine when we got pulled out of school and I couldn’t read or write at the time. I wasn’t learning anything.
I quickly learnt to read and write and we outgrew mum’s teaching and had tutors. I would have fallen behind massively in the school system.
We probably weren’t typical homeschoolers - I had a social life through yachting and my younger siblings were the same with their sports.
Did you have any childhood heroes?
I looked up to Sir Peter Blake, a legend of the sport. I liked the environmental side to him, protecting the ocean as well as competing. A true Kiwi hero. I didn’t know a whole lot about him but he seemed so tough and just loved the sport - his life was dedicated to it. Now it’s Pete and Blair.
The inevitable question - what is it like following in the footsteps of Burling and Tuke?
They’ve left an absolute legacy and it would be amazing to step into it and keep it going, keep New Zealand proud and the spotlight on the 49ers. They’ve been really cool role models and taken us under their wing a little bit. What they are doing now with Live Ocean Racing is absolutely incredible. They are legends of the sport.
Aficionados say Burling has a gift for helming - do you have natural advantages?
I think people definitely thought I had some sort of natural ability because it didn’t take me long to figure it out. But only so much of it is natural talent. What gets you there is a lot of hard work and dedication.
What’s the best advice they have given you?
Make sure you are ready in every aspect, rather than focusing on one thing.
The 49er is a traditional Olympic boat - do you think the future lies in foiling?
Definitely. I’ve done a little bit, and William and I won the Red Bull event in Miami. It’s the utter speed, the adrenaline, and is a lot more exciting to watch. With the Moth, for instance, there is new equipment coming out constantly which is faster, better.
The 49er is so technical and there are so many aspects to the class that it will be in the Olympics for a while. It’s still an exciting boat to watch and thrilling to sail.
Is this career of yours inevitably leading towards the America’s Cup team?
It’s the pinnacle of the sport. As a youngster you see the Olympics as your dream, then moving on to being part of the America’s Cup team. We are fully focused on the Olympics and then we will see what opportunities come.
Is there anything you would love to see changed in sailing?
I think sailing is in a good place. I’d like to keep reminding people about respect for the ocean - in places like Marseille you don’t even see a fish. It’s pretty sad to see places losing their wildlife. But the sport itself - I love it and wouldn’t change a thing.
Is freighting your equipment a big issue?
There are always hiccups. The logistics of sending our equipment around the world is probably the biggest nightmare for us.
We often need three full setups in different places - but then you want your best gear to always be at the pinnacle events. Sometimes you don’t see your boat for six months - shit, what did we forget.
At the moment our favourite mast section is too long for the plane so we have to air freight it to Marseille which involves insurance and all sorts.
We’ve been lucky though - as yet we haven’t lost any luggage, which would be a real disaster.
Although for our first trip this year, to Lanzarote (in the Canary Islands, Spain), the bottom section of the mast didn’t turn up and we had to borrow one. It showed up a couple of weeks later.
What will the conditions be like at Marseille?
A bit of everything, and it will be a great opportunity to get a feel for what an Olympics is like.
There is the super windy mistral, a strong breeze that comes off the hills that can range from 20 to 30 or 40 knots with huge waves. You also get nice sea breezes from five to 15 knots - it’s a wicked place to sail. We were there last year during the heat wave and there was some beautiful sailing. We will need to have every condition under control before we go.
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