Bird’s Eye View // Season 2, Episode 2 - PETER BURLING

[00:00:00] Speaker A: This is Bird's Eye View, your sailing podcast Live Sail Die have put together what we hope is going to be the most informative and entertaining sailing podcast you've ever heard. I'm Darcy Waldegrave. I'm hosting and trying to keep these two roustabouts calmed down. Joey Allen and Barbara Kendall, two of the biggest names in the sport. We're broadcasting from Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron's Crow's Nest, one of the iconic rooms in New Zealand sailing. Lock yourself in, this is going to be wild. Bird's Eye View is sponsored by Appliances Online, New Zealand's home of legendary service for top brand appliances with free delivery and removal, 24. 7 customer support and a price match guarantee. Welcome on in to episode two, season two of Bird's Eye View. This podcast brought to you in association with Appliances Online and of course the fine folk at Live Sale Die. My name is Darcy Waldegrave. On each side of me I've got the legendary. Can I say that you're legendary? [00:01:09] Speaker B: Not old now, mate. [00:01:10] Speaker C: He's a legend in his lunchbox. [00:01:11] Speaker A: Oh, there you go. We've got the elderly Joey Allen joining us on one side and of course Barbara Kendall, as always, smiling from the start right to the very end. And it gives us great pleasure to welcome in a man I'm sure you all know. His name's Peter Burling. He's had a crazy old career. I shouldn't really go through it. There's been Olympic medals, there's been America's cup winning this, but it just keeps going and it's not going to stop. Pete Burling, welcome in. [00:01:40] Speaker D: Hey, thanks for having me. [00:01:42] Speaker A: Thanks for taking the time as well, because I'd expect that you're a tad on the busy side right now. [00:01:47] Speaker D: Yeah, it's been a busy year, but actually right now is a little bit quieter than normal. So it's been great over the summer to have a little bit of time off, you know, make sure the batteries are nice and recharged and ready for a big year ahead. [00:01:58] Speaker A: How do you relax? How do you recharge? Because don't tell me you go. I know you're going to say it. Don't tell me you go winging. [00:02:04] Speaker D: Yeah, do a fair bit of winging. [00:02:06] Speaker C: There you go. There's another one. [00:02:09] Speaker D: I actually started on the surfing side of it, funnily enough, so more like downwinding, toe surfing, and then ended up winging off the back of that. So I probably prefer the more or less downwinding surfing waves. Having a bit of fun. [00:02:23] Speaker A: What's been outside of the water? How do you decompress? Or is that not possible for you? [00:02:30] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, just enjoy hanging out with friends and family. I've obviously got a little one now, so that's pretty good fun as well. And then, yeah, don't have a massive amount of time off, to be honest. So make sure you make most of it. [00:02:42] Speaker A: And plenty of time lying late. Right. Having a few coffees, staring into the sun. [00:02:47] Speaker D: Lying late? No. [00:02:48] Speaker A: Lying late in bed. [00:02:49] Speaker D: No. [00:02:49] Speaker A: You're not a sleep in kind of guy, are you? [00:02:51] Speaker D: Well, I don't think that's the little ones really help the sleep in side of things. I used to quite enjoy sleeping on a day off, but yeah, now you're definitely up a little bit earlier, kind of making the most of it. And yeah, the other thing with what we do is obviously a lot of people we chat to are actually overseas. So you end up almost with this kind of late night shift on zoom calls and phone calls, checking in with the other side of the world. So now it's definitely run a pretty interesting day in terms of workload, but it's really good fun. [00:03:17] Speaker A: Changed a bit since when you're a young fellow and I know Bob's dying to ask you because she always does. There we go. [00:03:23] Speaker C: So let's start from the beginning. [00:03:26] Speaker A: You've done that before. [00:03:28] Speaker C: I think a lot of people probably know a little bit about you. But just tell us a little bit how you got into sailing. Just the entry into the level and then I think Beijing was the first Olympic Games because we went to that together. We were on the same team together in Beijing and Pete was like the young kid of the team. We had the grommets of the team and young 17 year old coming into the Olympic mix. [00:03:47] Speaker D: Grommets. [00:03:47] Speaker C: It's fantastic. So, yeah, how did it all begin? Because 17 is pretty young to go to Olympic Games in sailing. That's really young. You know, the average age usually is around 24, 23. So yeah, yeah, take it away, Pete. [00:04:03] Speaker D: Well, it's definitely pretty cool to get to my first Olympics when I was 17, the last year of school. But yeah, I got into the yachting. My dad actually sailed when he was younger and then went to uni and like most people do, stop sailing. Kind of had a family and then thought it'd be a really cool thing to get my brother back into to start with. And then I was kind of getting dragged along, decided it looked like a pretty thing, good thing to get involved with a good bit of fun and kind of just went from there. [00:04:29] Speaker C: What boat did you start sailing in? [00:04:31] Speaker D: I started in Opti. I actually grew. Yeah in Taronga. So we, I was brought up in. Parents still live in the same place in welcome Bay in Taronga. So we kind of first started sailing the little estuary down there. Dad had a couple of lasers so we used to bash around into up a little bit. Spent a bit of time around the lakes down there as well. But then your first kind of single handed boat was obviously an Opti. Yeah, for me I grew relatively early so I kind of ended up suppose throughout my whole career kind of racing older people and I think yeah my upbringing as well in Tauranga the club has kind of centre borders right up to keelboats. So you have that trailer sailors keelboats pretty early on kind of started joining in the trailer boat scene which was for us Wednesday nights and yeah it was really cool to actually be able to race adults at a pretty young age. [00:05:22] Speaker A: When did it click? When did you suddenly go ooh, oh I'm quite good at this? [00:05:27] Speaker D: Well I think I was always reasonable at a regional level when I was super young but I think the level of the regions wasn't that high at to be fair. So I did a lot of kind of competing and yeah, I look back at it as well. We had a really cool group that came through at the same time which I think dad was a big part of kind of creating the learn to sail and you know, creating that drive around the club at that stage. But you know, people like Jason Saunders who we still sail against, Sam Meech, Bruce Kennedy. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of, a lot of those, the same people we bump into a lot around the traps. You know we sailed against a lot when we were super young, all from that Taronga area. So I think it just shows you how much momentum kind of creates momentum in a certain way. And we definitely went through a lot of the classes together pretty quick. [00:06:16] Speaker C: So when you're young and you look back now, what do you think was your superpower difference compared to. I know that Jason Saunders has done really well and Sam Meech has done really well. But what has sort of set you apart at that really young age, you know, to be 17 years old in a 470 at the Olympic Games. What was, what was do you think was the key factor? One of them, you know, that's your superpowers. I know it might be hard because. [00:06:42] Speaker D: Like I think now sport it's always super hard to put your finger on one thing. Right. You know, we deal with so many variables on a day to day. True. [00:06:49] Speaker C: Maybe that's the superpower. [00:06:50] Speaker D: Everything's different. You're trying to figure it out and figure out like what idiosyncrasy is going to win that that particular day. And yeah, I think for me I was always super competitive as a young person and it was quite interesting because so much of that group were. You like, look at people like Jace as well, super competitive people but you know, just kind of managed to be quite well rounded, you know, kind of didn't really ever have too many weaknesses when I was sailing so you know, really tried to cover all bases and yeah, I think that's something that's kind of stuck with me right throughout my career. So it's yeah been something that I've always really tried to have a lot of fun out there. Well, I mean not tried but actually had a lot of fun out there. You know, really enjoyed the, I suppose the challenge and the freedom or whatever you think as a young person, you know, whatever people enjoy going out there and doing but you know, it's definitely a lot of responsibility as a young dude when they go out sailing. You know, you're out there kind of battling the elements and responsible for whatever you've got to do. [00:07:48] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, no, that's, it's good answer. [00:07:51] Speaker A: The family always speak. Pretty much every guest we have in here, they all talk about starting off as always, Mum or dad getting them up there. But I'm presuming the community as well because I keep hearing this, everybody's linked somehow. One or two degrees of separation that must play a huge part in people's careers. [00:08:08] Speaker D: Yeah, well, I think the New Zealand sailing community's always relatively tight knit as well. You know, once you start kind of progressing through it, it's very easy to get very good advice from people that have performed bad advice or bad advice. [00:08:22] Speaker A: Yeah, but people are willing to share. Everybody is in together, aren't they? No one's hiding, are they? Are they hiding from you? [00:08:28] Speaker D: I don't think people ever hiding things. But I think one thing people don't talk about enough about is that everyone's different. You know, everyone has a different routine, everyone enjoys things in a slightly different way or you know, gets the best out of themselves in a slightly different way. So you know, I think in our sport there's definitely. It's not a complete cookie cutter kind of thing. You know, if something works for someone else, it doesn't necessarily work for you. And I think You've got to figure out how to get the most out of yourself and find your path at times as well. [00:08:54] Speaker B: So I'm going to interrupt. I'm going to interrupt. So now we're going to do. We're going to do four quick fire questions. Okay. These are. [00:09:02] Speaker D: This is the first. [00:09:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. [00:09:04] Speaker C: It is cheap as I'm at 10. [00:09:06] Speaker B: Okay. So all the boats you've sailed in your life are all rigged up ready to go. [00:09:12] Speaker D: All of them. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Whitbread boats, Volvo boats, moths, 18 footers, everything. The America's cupboat. But you've got the day off and you can pick your favorite boat to go out for the day. What would it be? [00:09:30] Speaker D: Water conditions? What do you. What do you. [00:09:32] Speaker B: What do you. What do you want? I'll give it to you. Whatever. I don't care. Whatever you want, you can do. Dial in the conditions. [00:09:45] Speaker D: Surely this is the impossible question, isn't it? Answer the question, Answer the question, Answer the question. Um, why you're going. Yeah, sail 49er. [00:09:57] Speaker C: Wow. [00:09:57] Speaker D: Been a while. There you go. [00:09:59] Speaker B: Like, it would be a pure joy to go out and. [00:10:02] Speaker D: Yeah, well, it's been a little while, so, yeah, it would be good fun to go back out. [00:10:05] Speaker B: Okay. [00:10:06] Speaker D: Okay. I'd say it's the impossible question because everything's for a circumstance, right? Like the 49er. Like, I definitely love sailing it, but, you know, I really enjoy the. The racing side as well, you know, like, the racing's so good. You know, if you looked at a Whitbury boat, like, you play, pay plenty of fun tax, I think, in those, but, you know, Volvo 65S is the one I spend a bit more time in. But, you know, when you're boosting it downwind in the Southern Ocean or something, it's pretty. Pretty epic as well. [00:10:31] Speaker B: Was it from a drone off your boat that they got. Yeah, that's embedded in my memory forever. [00:10:37] Speaker D: There's been some absolutely amazing footage from both. I think the race I did was the first one where they were starting to get a bit more risque with the drones. You know, if you drowned a drone in rain or dropped one, it was kind of like you were probably going to lose a couple during the race. So, yeah, we really made a big effort to try and make sure we got it up. Got some footage in the Southern Ocean. It was just unbelievable. And that North Atlantic footage as well was super cool. [00:11:01] Speaker A: I think Joey has actually done what we always do on this podcast. He's gone off on a tangent and forgot what he was saying. [00:11:07] Speaker B: Yeah, there's three more questions. Three more questions. [00:11:10] Speaker D: This is a tricky quick. Fire that first one. [00:11:12] Speaker B: This is a tricky one. This is a tough one. Touch rugby day. They still do touch rugby at team New Zealand. [00:11:18] Speaker D: Yep. [00:11:19] Speaker B: Okay, so you know that brutal cruelty of when you're picking the guys who to play in your team and you got to the end of the list and there's three guys standing there waiting to be picked because the embarrassment of being picked last is. So he's carrying this school. You got to pick two of these. [00:11:38] Speaker D: Banned from touch rugby a couple of times. [00:11:42] Speaker B: There's three guys that have to be picked, but you can only pick two. Okay, now I'm going to give you the names. You got Ray Davies, Dick Meacham and Grant Dalton. You've got to pick two and leave one on the sideline. [00:12:00] Speaker D: I reckon I'll take Ray and Daltz and. Oh, Daltz is quick, but he won't be able to walk the next day. He's definitely. He's quite fast. [00:12:09] Speaker B: So why wouldn't you pick Dick Meacham? [00:12:11] Speaker D: Because you'd probably end up in a brawl or something by the end of the. [00:12:15] Speaker B: Good answer. Okay, the next question. Your house is on fire. [00:12:21] Speaker A: Wow. [00:12:22] Speaker D: Okay, going deep here. [00:12:25] Speaker B: Your wife's out, the kids out, everything's safe. And the fireman comes up and says, mate, you can go in, but you can only grab one trophy off the mantelpiece, which is your most precious trophy that you'll save from the burning ruins. [00:12:41] Speaker D: I'll be keen to get three of them, actually. [00:12:43] Speaker B: No, no, no one. [00:12:47] Speaker D: The gold medal. Rio. [00:12:50] Speaker C: There you go. [00:12:50] Speaker D: I'll be keen to get the other two middle. So, yeah, they're pretty similar. If you get one, you can probably keep them. [00:12:56] Speaker C: If everyone else asks me that, where do you keep. [00:12:58] Speaker D: Tucked away. [00:12:59] Speaker C: Hidden away, like unsafe or just tucked away? [00:13:02] Speaker D: They're just tucked away. [00:13:03] Speaker C: Tucked it away. [00:13:05] Speaker D: It might be hard to get them in the safer, George. [00:13:07] Speaker C: Well, no, because if it's fireproof, you're fine. Because that's what we did. [00:13:10] Speaker D: That's what I did. [00:13:11] Speaker C: I had to. Because we just about lost our whole house. And I had exactly that happened. Walked into the house and they said, you've got 10 minutes to grab what you want from your house. [00:13:21] Speaker D: Whoa. [00:13:21] Speaker C: And I was just like, okay, well, my metals, because they're irreplaceable. And I had a brand new iPad. Had. Didn't have anything on it, but, you know, cheap as. [00:13:31] Speaker D: I didn't think we'd get some real world experience on the Quickfire. Yeah. [00:13:34] Speaker C: So we install I installed a fireproof safe after that. And I'm like, actually, I'm just going to put a few things in here just in case. [00:13:41] Speaker D: It's good. Life lessons. [00:13:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:43] Speaker D: I'm learning as we go on this. [00:13:44] Speaker C: There you go. And we've only just started. [00:13:45] Speaker B: Okay. Okay, last question. Last question. Daltz has told you you've got to do the JJs. You've got to go across and do the JJs. Now, I'm assuming you'll take Blair with you. Who's your third man? I'll let you. I'll let you off. I'll let you pick two for the one position. [00:14:02] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:14:02] Speaker A: Was that. What kind of assumption was that you would definitely take. [00:14:07] Speaker D: Swap in for Ginge, you know. He's looking all right, isn't he? [00:14:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Ginger's. He's. He's pretty. [00:14:13] Speaker D: Not this weekend, first week in March, but. [00:14:17] Speaker B: Who. Name. Name a person that you'd. [00:14:21] Speaker D: We'd need someone big, I reckon was me and Blair. You have to be quite heavy in an 18, don't you? [00:14:28] Speaker B: Well, you've done it. [00:14:29] Speaker D: Oh, I've done it. It was a little while ago. Who would we take as a bowman? I'm running blank. Sam. I reckon Matty Stevens does main anyway. Joey Allen. No, we'll take you. [00:14:43] Speaker B: No. [00:14:46] Speaker D: I'm unsure. Okay, give me some names. Throw some names at me. [00:14:50] Speaker B: Matty. Oh, he's not a. You need a bow. [00:14:53] Speaker D: We could get Blair to do bow and get Matt on the mud. Yeah, that could be good. Well, I was trying to get some experience in the. Out of the Kiwis, you know. Yeah, just shortcut it a little bit. [00:15:00] Speaker B: You can't go past Matty. [00:15:01] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, he'd be. Well, he's obviously won it a couple of times and three. [00:15:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:05] Speaker D: Pretty handy. [00:15:06] Speaker B: Oh, there you go. Well done. [00:15:08] Speaker A: I love the quick fight. This is good. I like the way he's going. This is Bird's Eye View podcast with live. So die appliances online. 100 behind us. Derek, you buy a fireproof safe at Appliances Online. Does that count as an appliance? I'm not entirely sure. [00:15:25] Speaker D: Sure we could find out. [00:15:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Something's going to happen. We'll find out soon. Pete Burling is our guest and I'll let you carry on. Bob, what have you got for us now? [00:15:34] Speaker C: So I'm going to go back to when was that decisive moment where you go, I can get to the Olympic Games and I want to go to the Olympic Games. Or was that like just something that happened? [00:15:45] Speaker D: I think for me it was something that happened. And I always feel quite lucky that, you know, you hear these stories of people in their career where they're, you know, having to make really tough decisions and sacrifice a whole heap to get to the professional level of sport. I felt really lucky. That kind of managed to. I suppose, like I said ages ago, you're always competing against older people, so you got really comfortable doing that, you know, we had a massive amount of success in the 420, me and Carl. During that time we thought we'd just. [00:16:12] Speaker C: So did you win a world champs in that or you just. [00:16:15] Speaker D: Yeah, so I won one. Sorry. I got fifth driving and then I was growing relatively quick, like I said. Got a bit heavy for the 420 helm position. Jumped on crew for Carl and then we won in Europe and there was actually a worlds in New Zealand six months later, which we won as well. So kind of went on a pretty good run there and then thought, shit, we might as well jump in the 470 and give us a crack because the Olympics was 18 months away or something like that. And we were two pretty young guys. We were pretty light when we first got in, which obviously we didn't stay light through to Beijing. But I always remember our first European event, we jumped in and managed to get a sixth in our first Olympic class big regatta, which got us onto the kind of, I suppose, actual program at yachting New Zealand at that stage, which at that stage it was quite different to what it is now at that stage you had to get a result before you got any support. So it was amazing to be able to actually crack through and get a result so early on and kind of got support through there. And then we actually didn't quite manage to get. We got 10th equal and missed the middle race on countback in the worlds prior to the Olympics. So we didn't quite manage to meet the official selection criteria, but made it through on the up and coming pathway. So it was really cool to get that nod. [00:17:30] Speaker C: And then after the 470, where did you go after that? [00:17:33] Speaker D: Yes, after the 470, we. I suppose I'd grown pretty quick through that stage. I think I started sailing the 47080 months out from Beijing at, you know, under 70 kilos. And, you know, by the time Beijing came around, I was, you know, 75 or something and pretty skinny at that. And then to kind of decided I wanted to give the 49er a crack. I always really like that high performance side of it. Seemed like I was about the right weight for it. And then it was also something that no one had sailed in New Zealand for a little while at that stage. So there was definitely this kind of hole in the New Zealand Olympic sailing, which was. I was always a bit confused as to why it was the 49er was the boat that wasn't represented for us because it was such a. Seemed like a cool boat at that stage. And then reached out to Blair at that stage, who I kind of knew through the sailing scene and kind of asked if we wanted to team up and give it a go for London. And, yeah, that was how it all started. [00:18:32] Speaker C: How did you go about deciding who was going to crew and who was skipper? So you swap? Did you swap and did you change around a little bit? [00:18:38] Speaker D: No, I kind of decided that I wanted to drive it at that stage. Yeah, throughout my career I'd done obviously a lot of driving and then kind of jumped in crewing when I was quite big. I think it was really good for my, I suppose, well, roundedness in my sailing. Having done kind of a couple of years of crewing at a really high level as well. And obviously those Olympic boats are two up boats. It's kind of so much as the dynamic between the two people and both people really being able to get on the same page and get the most out of the boat and really push it super hard. So, yeah, I kind of looked around. Obviously the 49er, you need people that are the right size as well. So for us, we kind of were in that bracket where we're both about the right size. And Blair had done a little bit of sailing with your brother, actually, in the Tornado prior to that, and everyone had spoken really highly of him at that stage. So I thought he'd be a good guy to take it on with. [00:19:32] Speaker A: Did the connection happen immediately? Did you just dial in with each other and go, this is actually going to work because you kind of work as one, essentially? [00:19:41] Speaker D: Well, I think we always really enjoyed sailing together from an early stage. And, yeah, both enjoy a lot of the same hobbies as well, you know, whether it's out surfing or spearfishing, free diving, winging now. But it definitely took us a little while to actually break through. And I think part of that was, you know, we're both pretty young guys, both pretty inexperienced campaigners and probably realizing the level you've got to get to. And then also kind of building that knowledge base around the 49er again, because, yeah, it definitely took us a little while. We were pretty lucky to get Nathan Hanley, you know, to give us a bit of advice. And then probably one of the best decisions we made was actually teaming up with the Australians at the time, who were one of the favourites going into into the Beijing Olympics. And yeah, we really sped up our learning curve through that cycle without having to travel too far. [00:20:30] Speaker C: So the amazing thing was they jumped in the class and four years later you win the silver. [00:20:36] Speaker D: Yeah, which is. [00:20:39] Speaker C: That's quite hard to do when you jump in class. It usually takes a couple of. They say that it takes a couple of quadrennials to get into there. So the key factor was the Australians. [00:20:49] Speaker D: Well, I think there was so many key factors. Looking back at it, you know, we got really lucky with the group of people, managed to get around us. Yeah, we obviously started off with Nathan, who sat a lot with Dan Slater, kind of helping us through that initial phase of the boat handling. And then he actually decided he wanted to coach Joe and Paulie instead of us at that Olympics. So we kind of left without a coach at that stage. And then it was Jez Fanstone's first Olympics as the High Performance Director of Yachting New Zealand. So he brought a whole heap of experience in from the Australian side and I think was really good at that campaigning side. We also managed to connect with a guy, Dave Slyfield, who a lot of Kiwis will know, especially in the yachting scene, and he had a massive influence on just kind of making our campaign a lot more professional than it probably was to start with. Getting good processes and around debriefing, planning and how you're actually going to unpick this four year cycle, to fast track it enough that you've got a realistic shot of winning a medal at the end of it. And I always remember we kind of came into it as relatively, I suppose, good sailors, but just the amount of learning we had to do through that cycle to actually get good enough to win a medal for our country was a whole heap. And it was a really fun time. [00:22:08] Speaker B: Looking back at it, getting back to you and Blair, I remember years ago, you telling me that you communicate there was no talking on the boat. And I. When I. When you told me that, it stuck with me. Like, that's a level that no one I've ever known has reached, where there's. [00:22:27] Speaker D: No, I don't think, no talking. But yeah, I think a lot of things. You're kind of. You've sat so much together that you're kind of on the same page as to what's more than likely. It's like a marriage, but you've definitely that's very different. You've definitely got to talk and communicate a little bit. But yeah, that's all the. I suppose when you get into communication, there's only so many words you can fit in in a short period and you kind of need to. You need to figure out like what stuff you don't need to talk about because it's just going to naturally. A lot is garbage when you. Yeah, you can fill a lot of wasted time, I think, with saying the wrong thing or having to talk about things that should just come natural. Where if you kind of both understand what you're actually trying to achieve, then it's comes a lot easier. [00:23:11] Speaker A: Pete, we had Troy Tindall in here for the episode one of series two. He's talking about Pistol Pete. Wasn't quite sure where that nickname came from. Anything to do with you crashing into the side and ripping pistons out, or was it something quite different? The stories come out here. [00:23:29] Speaker D: It was. I think it was a long way before that. But yeah, that was a good little crash. Good for fun. [00:23:37] Speaker A: Tell us what happened there. We've got one side of the story. [00:23:41] Speaker D: Yeah, I can't actually remember when it was. Must have been just after the London Olympics, right? [00:23:45] Speaker A: I think so. [00:23:46] Speaker D: Team career stuff. But yeah, kind of. I suppose throughout my whole campaign, I've always really enjoyed to take on a few different things and really feel like it's beneficial for your sailing to be doing multiple things at once. Just because kind of you get that the ideas from the other programs that you're doing and managed to bring them back across kind of. Yeah, right from the early days when, you know, always end up sailing, you know, a couple of different boats at the same time. You know, even when you're young, you're throwing in a bit of teams racing, but a keelboat stuff. Other bits and pieces. But yeah, so I managed to get the. Well, Troy was actually running team career at the time and yeah, he called me up after they lost Nathan to Artemis at that stage and said, did I want to do the last couple of World Series events for them? And yeah, we're actually doing some practice match racing out in San Francisco and we were doing a match race start against Russell Coots actually in the practice. And we got the lured position, but push it a little bit close to the RIB that was at the lured end and clipped the back of the outboard. So, yeah, kind of cleaned out this engine, but we had the good bottom to start. Just kind of misjudged it a tiny. [00:24:56] Speaker A: Wee bit, so they say. It's not Piston, it's Pistol Pete. So where did that first come from? [00:25:01] Speaker D: I've got no idea, but it's been there. [00:25:03] Speaker B: I think it's just because it rhymes, mate. [00:25:06] Speaker C: Hey, so I'm gonna just bring it back to silver medal and then a gold medal. Did you know that I presented Pete his silver and his gold medal? [00:25:15] Speaker A: No. [00:25:16] Speaker C: Yeah, that was. And to me, that's like one of the most. You know, when you look back at your life and I'm sure you'll. You'll get to a stage where you actually take. Because you're very, very busy now. You're in, you know, wife, children, all the sound campaigns, and you'll get to stage and you look back and you go, looking back and go, wow, look at all this stuff that happened to me. It's really third person. And that's one of the moments for me when I look back and I go, oh, my God, I gave a silver and a gold medal to this guy, you know, and you're in that situation. So for me, that's one of my moments. And so when you do reflect back, and now I know you've got a daughter coming through and hopefully she'll love sailing and all that sort of stuff, you'll go through that stage. What. What would you advise giving the kid, the. The new generation of these kids coming through, you know, and it's foiling. There's very few people on these boats and we've got this whole wave of amazing wahini toa coming through and sailing. So what do you. What do you. What would you say to these young women, young guys coming through? And. And what do you see the future looking like? [00:26:19] Speaker D: Well, I think it's really exciting. It's cool to see how much sailing is growing and evolving at the moment. So I think one thing there is. It's really exciting to see where sailing is going to get to in the next 10, 15, 20 years. It's been amazing to see how far it's moved in the last little while. But, yeah, advice for me, I think, firstly would be make sure you're enjoying what you're doing. I always say this to anyone, but there's a lot of things that happen in life and you've got to really make sure you enjoy the pathway you're on and enjoy what you put time into, because things aren't always easy. Things are hard work at the end of the day, quite often. And if you're not really enjoying that, it just gets that little bit harder to push through when the Times get tough and just continue that positive attitude. I think secondly, it'd be to be curious and the kind of really open to learning and improving and trying to really figure things out. Like I said earlier, I think everyone's slightly different, so it's very hard to be in that kind of too cookie cutter for what other people are doing. But you've obviously got to take that experience but then really figure out how to apply it to yourself and how to get the most out of yourself. [00:27:36] Speaker A: You use that in your role as a CEO because now you're actually running the show, you think the last thing you need would be to apply even more pressure on top of what you're doing. That been for you, that experience? [00:27:49] Speaker D: Yeah, it's been amazing. It's been really cool to, I suppose, see the business as a whole, but also to really. I think we've been really lucky through it to have some amazing people around us to continue to kind of be able to unload. At times we really need to. And at times we need to focus on just the competition element of it. But yeah, to be able to see the whole thing and grow a really cool brand and push it forward's been really amazing. [00:28:16] Speaker A: No, the acceleration has been ridiculous. We talked about that in the last episode as well. The Sale GP is just. It's an exponential curve. It's just gone like this. So you're key in that you're involved, all the teams are involved in that. Or is kind of Russell just running the whole show? [00:28:31] Speaker D: A bit of both. Obviously we all talk about everything because obviously the team in the league are very linked in, you know, if one goes well, the other goes really well. And, you know, I think it was a pretty special milestone, you know, getting a first New Zealand event, you know, seeing how. How the level Christchurch, I suppose, set in Littleton. Down there, you're seeing how many Kiwis, 8000 a day, whatever it was 18,000 over the weekend. Coming down to Cheris on in the grandstand, I think something I didn't really expect to ever really see in my yachting career. But then to see the level that Auckland event got to pretty recently was just unbelievable to see the sport, to watch that. [00:29:13] Speaker B: It was unbelievable. The Auckland one, honestly, just what, what was it like coming out of that Mach 1? It just looked terrible. [00:29:23] Speaker D: Or you get used to kind of coming out of Mach 1 and, you know, things being relatively confined in Sail GP. So the Corsair in Auckland is actually pretty similar to a lot of the ones we race in. Are they that Small, quite often. Yeah. Well, the whole sail GP ethos is really to, to try and give people a really good viewing experience from, from short, just so you don't have to go out on a boat and make it really accessible to fans. [00:29:47] Speaker A: So yeah, in the center of the room, keep saying it's all about the fans. [00:29:52] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. But I mean, you do enough races that it nets out, right? Like in your traditional yachting sense, you probably don't have the kind of consistency, race to race that you would if you were doing a long three hour race out to sea or something like that. But you know, you do enough of them over the season, I think it always nets out pretty good. [00:30:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:11] Speaker C: Live ocean. Tell us a little bit about what, what really, what drives you in that and how you would like to make a real big difference in the next 10 years. I know it's hard because we're up against it, you know, with humans. [00:30:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:28] Speaker C: But what, what is the part that pesky humans, man. What, what, what is the part that, that, that makes your heart go. Yeah, I, I, I want to make a big difference. [00:30:38] Speaker D: Well, I think probably I should take the story back a little bit more towards the beginning of Live Ocean. And for me, as a young Kiwi growing up and around the ocean we've talked about at the beginning of this podcast, most of my hobbies revolve around the ocean. Being out on the ocean, whether it's wind related or getting below the surface. And as a young Kiwi as well, you don't have that much of a baseline as to what things should be like or, you know, you look out at the ocean and it just looks kind of nice every day. You don't really know what the, the health of it's really like. But yeah, so I suppose for me it all started when I, with the around the World race, actually. And at that stage, you look out from like a vantage point or a beach or whatever and you see 10 miles or something and it's, you know, it looks pretty infinite and big. And you know, at that point, I'd never really sailed across an ocean as well. You know, sailed obviously from somebody like here to Fiji and done a few coastal races like Sydney to Hobart, but you've never kind of sailed across an ocean. And then, yeah, I think the ocean race for me really gave me that perspective of shit, this place we live on isn't as big as probably what I thought it was. You know, at that stage I'd only ever flown, you know, to places like Asia or America. And you Know, it feels like you're almost in a time machine in a certain extent. You know, you get in this little airplane and hop across there, 12 hours later, you're somewhere in a completely different environment. You know, he's. And then you fly somewhere else in a completely different environment. And, you know, you see places like Rio when we're there for the Olympics. You know, the most beautiful kind of topography, harbor, beaches. And then you just see how degraded the. The ocean is. You know, you're all going to these extreme links to try not to swallow water because of the amount of sewerage in it. You know, we're really worried about gastro and things you're doing to, like, wash yourself down to try and stay healthy during an Olympic environment. There were pretty extreme, but you kind of always think, that's quite far away from where we are. And then, you know, I think during the ocean race, you start to realize, you know, this place we live on is not that big. I think at that stage also really saw the power sport has on tackling some of these more challenging problems. One of the teams there was turn the Tide on Plastic, and they definitely didn't lead the race in terms of performance. But I think the message they gave through at that stage was really powerful in tackling a pretty complicated issue. So I definitely got back to NZ and thought during your career, it would be a really cool thing to be part of a really positive change that stage. I think Blair had kind of had a similar experience, so we decided we'd try and figure out what to do over the next little bit. Obviously, we're going back into another 49er campaign, another America's cup campaign at that stage, and then just started talking to the science community here and people that were connected with the oceans as a whole and just realizing how quick things are changing, how big an issue there actually is, and how, I suppose little was actually going on in the space. You know, there's. In New Zealand, there's so many amazing things happening at very small scale, off the smell of an oily rag with very limited visibility. So that was really, really where live ocean started. You know, we wanted to be a kind of holistic ocean charity. Our ethos is really a healthy ocean for a healthy future. You know, not many people know that over half the oxygen comes from the ocean. Over 90% of the heat gets absorbed by the ocean. You know, when you start talking about biodiversity or like New Zealand's potential impact on a global stage, like, you have to have the ocean in the conversation. [00:34:19] Speaker A: So it's about awareness, education, fundraising, predominantly. What is it about? [00:34:24] Speaker D: Yeah, a lot of amplifying, accelerating. So yeah, we in the infancy, we got behind some really amazing programs that were going on. You know, one was with the Albatross, for example, and really crazy story because, you know, over the last 20 years they've lost something like 70% of the breeding females mainly, mainly through incidental mortality, through surface longlining. But it's, yeah, just we got behind the species because it's. They call the Antipodean home. Right. Like the Antipodean Islands are 250 miles off the southeastern corner of New Zealand. Absolutely middle of nowhere, pest free island. You know, a couple of humans that go there a year to monitor the birds. So on land they have, their conditions haven't changed but climate change has affected them a little bit just as to how far north or south they're going. But then also that's kind of their crossover with the fishing fleets is really having a huge impact as well. So it's been amazing to go through that project, you know, and actually be able to push through some systemic change, you know, at a government level. You now have to use all three of the mitigation techniques, you know, when doing your set. So it's been amazing to see a project like that that was kind of just heading towards extinction and you know, from sailing through the Southern Ocean, you see these birds and they're so beautiful, you know, they're absolutely incredible. Yeah, yeah. [00:35:54] Speaker C: Did you ever have one? We had one land on our boat when we were sailing back from Fiji when I was young, it's 10 years old and we were in the middle of this massive, massive storm and we had no gps, no satellite navs, nothing. We were just getting battered about, hove to in the middle of the ocean and you know, every time the boat would come over, mum would go, this is it, this is it. You know, at least we're all together anyway. We had an albatross land on our boat and it was there for a day and rested on our boat and then went through the eye of the storm just in our boat. And then the wind came off the other side and it flew off and so it was pretty. They're amazing boat. But I remember that from when I was 10. Amazing birds. Yeah, sorry, that's a side thing. [00:36:31] Speaker D: So cool. I mean we have the same story when you shoot Southern Ocean and it's not particularly pleasant to say at the leash and you're boosting along at 30 knots and all your gear trying to keep your hams from going numb and you know, they're just kind of just cruising around you doing circles and you've got all this technology to tell you where to go essentially or GPS's and whatever else. And then, I mean the birds just flying across half asleep, just cruising. Well, they shut off half their brain flying, you know. [00:37:02] Speaker B: Amazing. [00:37:02] Speaker D: It was amazing even talking to those couple of scientists. I mean one of the stories that blew me away was they were doing some tracking and monitoring Kath and Graham that were down there on the island and they. Yeah, this female disappeared for a day and they kind of thought they just hadn't seen her and then they looked at the tracker of, you know, what she'd been up to and just flown straight from the Antipodes straight line to the Chatham Rise, had a feed straight line back day later and you're kind of like, how do they know it's there and navigate dead straight there and. [00:37:36] Speaker C: It'S like, wow, connections. That is. [00:37:39] Speaker D: That's so evolved when you think of, you know, it's humans what we have to use to navigate. Well they just kind of. [00:37:46] Speaker C: Yeah. And they've just got it, the instinctuals. [00:37:48] Speaker D: But then you could tell the same stories with like whales or dolphins even. Dolphins. Yeah. Out here. Kelp geese. Yeah. [00:37:57] Speaker C: You know, they fly a long way. Yeah. [00:38:00] Speaker A: So your hands are pretty much full. That and a lot with the sale. GP There's a small America's cup situation on its way. Where's it going to be? P Come on, spill the beans. [00:38:13] Speaker D: I'm the wrong person to be asking. [00:38:14] Speaker A: No, don't say it's above your pay grade. Come on, where's it going to be? [00:38:17] Speaker D: Come on, come on. [00:38:19] Speaker C: Where would you like it to be? [00:38:20] Speaker D: Same with live ocean. You know, we're just lucky we've got an amazing team around us. You know, it's something that. Yeah, I mean without the, the team there, we've obviously got to shoot off and not be very hands on for. For periods but you know, really try and support when we can. Yeah. Cup. To be honest, I'm pretty easy where it is. As long as it's somewhere, somewhere nice to. To live and hang out. Yeah, I, I think the cup in Barcelona was absolutely amazing. It was really cool to have it on the meet again. See the amount of support there, see the amount of teams in the Americas cup growing. For me personally, I just want to see the Americas cup kind of continue to grow and get bigger and better. [00:39:03] Speaker A: You ever lean on dolts to get it back here again? We saw how much fun it was with the Sail gp. We'd all love it back. [00:39:10] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, it's always really cool racing on your home track, but, you know, there's obviously the commercial realities behind that as well, and, yeah, that's a big part of the equation. So, yeah, Dalton and the rest of the team are putting a whole heap of hard work into that at the moment, trying to figure out what the best thing is to do and hopefully it's not too far away. [00:39:32] Speaker A: Typical media question, wasn't it? You probably had enough of them from me over the years. But looking back at that, like, just to start the whole media thing off, when you young sailor, you go into the Olympic Games and suddenly people know who you are, the attention that's coming, and you're expected to be able to deal with the media and talk with the media. How's that been for you? Has that been a comfortable space for you to be in? Because it's grown, hasn't it? Because suddenly you're very much the center retention. It's so g. Big And America's cup and sailing in New Zealand. How's that working for you? [00:40:05] Speaker D: Yeah, it's definitely been an interesting transition. You know, I think for me as well, I've always been a relatively private person, so, you know, trying to get more and more comfortable with how much you share and have people know about your life. [00:40:18] Speaker B: What's the stupid question? Not from us. [00:40:22] Speaker D: Was it? Obviously not from you guys. [00:40:25] Speaker C: Good answer. [00:40:27] Speaker D: You get a few. I think the thing that frustrates me the most when journalists, you know, they haven't done any prep. Going into a story without a story. [00:40:35] Speaker C: Did you do any prep? [00:40:36] Speaker B: I did, yeah. [00:40:37] Speaker C: I know. The quick file was good. [00:40:39] Speaker A: You've spent a lifetime. [00:40:40] Speaker C: Sorry, we're interrupting you. [00:40:41] Speaker B: Only Tom I've ever done it, I have to say. [00:40:44] Speaker D: But when you know, like, you're talking to someone who should know, like. Like the base of what they're talking about with you and. Stop it. And you're kind of trying to fill in some really big blanks. Yeah, I always find that a little bit frustrating. [00:40:56] Speaker A: The question's like, how do you feel? Do you like the ocean? [00:41:02] Speaker D: I mean, those ones trying to give you space to take it wherever you want. Ocean. But yeah, the interesting part for me is just how much it's evolved and changed over the last little bit as well, you know, with how prominent social. [00:41:16] Speaker B: Media is coming, the changes. [00:41:18] Speaker D: Yeah. How? How? [00:41:20] Speaker B: On your watch, you know. [00:41:22] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:41:22] Speaker B: What's gone down on your watch. [00:41:24] Speaker D: Yeah. But it's definitely a hard one. To. To keep head of. And yeah, it's also a hard one to prioritize in your day. Right. Like, you've obviously got so many hours and you want to have a little bit of downtime. You kind of want to concentrate on your performance for a little bit, do some fitness, hang out with your family, whatever. [00:41:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:42] Speaker D: So it's always a hard one to figure out, you know, how do you actually prioritize spending this half an hour, an hour, whatever it is a day. [00:41:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:50] Speaker D: Being. Doing a good job of it because for the commercial realities of support, it's so important now as well. [00:41:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:55] Speaker A: We really appreciate your time here, by the way, coming in and doing this and. And from newstalk ZB point of view, and I've been stinking up the corridors of that place, so I don't know how long you have always been approachable and friendly and you give us great content. You don't just go, yes, no, I suppose that's the closed and open questions thing. And same with Chick. You guys really make an effort to do that. And I think that's enormous because people want to know who you are, what you do, because that means you. They buy into what you're doing. So I remember there was a rather large breakage a couple of years ago and we got you on the air first thing in the morning and that. That immediate communication in the sail GP was really quite exciting. It was great to listen to too. But you were right there going, yeah, I'll talk about it. I'll go, yeah. [00:42:40] Speaker D: Well, to be honest, I actually quite enjoy being able to front foot things. You know, there's obviously different plans in the media, so. But for me to actually be able to front foot things, you know, if you have a bad day or, you know, something goes wrong, or you can actually tell a genuine story of what's going out there so that the rumor mill doesn't just churn away. You know, I always found it awkward ones where you kind of can't talk or you don't actually have a genuine answer. I always find those as a little bit harder or. But yeah, I can definitely think of some pretty interesting media moments. You know, one was obviously after the capsize in Bermuda, you know, where you as the person that has to go to the press conference, at the end of the day, you're kind of walking along there and the boat's still, all right, that'd be me. Yeah. The boats capsize. You've just come in and yeah, at the end of the day, and he's just Fielding all these questions about, you going to be a ride, is it going to be fixed for tomorrow, is how beds are damaged. And, I mean, you kind of knew that the main structure of the wing was all right, the main structure of the boat was all right. There's a lot of fairings and other bits and pieces that weren't. But, yeah, also, I think people don't know that. That whole story as well was that in the. The morning building up to the first race, we actually broke a flap in our training wing. Oh. So we'd put our. What we called our B wing in the boat that day because obviously, windy day, we kind of wanted to look after the asset a little bit. Had busted that on the way in the build up to the start, been back in, taken that wing out, put the A wing at that stage in the boat, went back out, obviously had a good first race, capsized in the second race. So we kind of knew in the back of my head as well that we'd done a fair bit of damage to both our wings during this day. So you're fronting the media. It's always interesting. I always remember that one just because it was like a. I genuinely don't know, but I'm pretty sure we'll figure it out at some stage. I'm not sure if it'll be tomorrow or the day after, but we've got a lot of people working super hard in the background. So. Yeah, just stories like that, you're better off to tell it as you see it rather than. And sugarcoat things at some times as well. [00:44:52] Speaker A: Well, in a vacuum, people create content. If you don't tell them, suddenly the rumor mill goes, you know, what happened? Why did that wing snap? Well, what's happening here? Where are you going next? And we don't hear from you, People start, you know, talking. They can't help themselves. [00:45:06] Speaker B: Just let me interrupt here. Can you give us any insight into what's going on with the British? [00:45:13] Speaker D: I've got to stay clear a little bit, to be honest. [00:45:16] Speaker B: But is it. Is it possible? It could be. It could split into two teams. [00:45:20] Speaker D: Is that a. I think it'd be really cool for the cup if we got another British team, to be honest. [00:45:25] Speaker B: Is that a reality? [00:45:27] Speaker D: I don't see why it's not. Yeah, they've definitely got enough people up there. I'm pretty sure they've got enough funding up there to do it. And, I mean, the UK is always one of those markets that there's so many people that follow sailing, but there's not a massive America's cup audience. It'll be really cool, I think, for the sport to have that competition as well, so it'll be interesting to see how it all unfolds under the over the next little bit. Definitely doesn't seem like a pleasant situation for either of the parties, but yeah, hopefully we end up with two cup teams out of it. Yeah. [00:46:02] Speaker A: I think that we've been told we've got to stop because we could go on all day and all night. And we know that you've committed all this time to us and to the podcast. We really thank you for that. Really looking forward to see what happens next and hope you can pick up what happened in Sydney and apply those lessons to your next time around. Peter Burling joining us here. This is our podcast I'll say Out. It's lsd. It's called Bird's Eye View and it comes to you in association with appliances online. And if you want to go out there and buy yourself an appliance, we've got yourself a discount code. It's LSD B, E V. And you're able to sort yourself something out, I'm sure. A waffle maker, a fridge, a safe that's waterproof, fireproof, waterproof, fireproof. Hey, that's it from us. Thanks again so much for coming on up. It's been a real pleasure, mate. Get in there and conquer. [00:46:58] Speaker D: Awesome. Thanks for having me. [00:46:59] Speaker C: Thanks, Pete.