Erin and Isla Kee, a sister team from Kerikeri Cruising Club, are taking their first-ever step into international competition in the RS Feva class, writes Tom Linskey.
Ask any sailor way up there in the big leagues and they’ll tell you: they didn’t get to the top of the ladder all by themselves. Their family, friends, coaches, sailing club, and fellow competitors helped build them into confident, capable, world-class competitors. Yes, they all started somewhere.
So it is with the Kee sisters, Erin (16) and Isla (14) who after several years of local support, along with learning their boat, an RS Feva, have recently notched up a string of local wins in the class. In July they are flying halfway around the world to international competition: the RS Feva European Championship (July 9-13, Lake Balaton, Hungary; windward-leeward courses, 160-boat entry limit) and the RS Feva World Championship (July 24-28, Follonica, Italy; inner and outer trapezoid courses, 240-boat entry limit). It’s a bold move for the Kee sisters. But they are ready.
Their father, Peter, notes that parental support has included: “Transport, equipment, on-water support, assistance to their coach, and accommodation at events” – a list that may sound familiar to other parents of racing kids. “We’ve encouraged the girls to enjoy all aspects of sailing with a focus on fun, from campfires to cruising to racing supported by the team of volunteers at Kerikeri Cruising Club. We encourage the girls to give back by coaching at learn-to-sail and holiday programmes.”
Only a handful of years ago, the girls did not have any dinghy racing skills. But they certainly had ocean-sailing experience. Peter and wife Meillia sailed their 40-foot Alan Mummery design, Per Ardua, with the family – Erin, Isla, and brother Sam – from Auckland to Malaysia, where they taught school ashore for five years. Upon returning to New Zealand, they moved to Kerikeri in Northland and joined the Kerikeri Cruising Club, where the sisters gravitated to the fun-to-sail, entry-level boats of the club’s Centreboard Programme. Peter and Meillia are both teachers locally, and members of the Kerikeri Cruising Club Centreboard Committee.
Then, three years ago, Peter and Meillia added a parental nudge, though Erin, then 13, and Isla, 11, hardly needed it: “We kinda pushed them into the deep end with 420 team racing and the RS Feva,” says Peter. “They have had first-rate coaching from top local coaches. Reuban Corbett, the coach of the Kerikeri High School teams sailing squad, has taken the girls from rank beginners to being proficient 420 teams racing sailors in less than two years.”
In addition to teams racing in the 420, the Kee sisters sampled fleet racing in the RS Feva, and they’ve been on fire ever since. The 3.64m RS Feva, a strict one-design sloop with a gennaker but no trapeze, is a fast, exciting vehicle for teens who are ready to advance into doublehanded racing. The RS Feva is a worldwide class, embraced by many sailing associations and yacht clubs for its appeal to young people who are done with poking along in an Optimist but are not ready to step up to a 29er or 49er. The boat, with durable triple-layer roto-moulded polyethylene construction, is light enough to plane easily, and kids are able to handle it on the launch ramp. Affordable access to an RS Feva, thanks to the Kerikeri Cruising Club (the $250 10-weekend Race Squad Programme includes coaching and boat hire), has helped knit the Kee sisters into a team.
The top ranks of European dinghy classes are thick with sibling teams, but not all brothers and sisters are happy sitting elbow-to-elbow through a stressful season of racing. But on the RS Feva – and probably on any boat – the Kee sisters are happy campers. Most important, on the racecourse they click. Erin starts the boat, drives it fast, and focuses on downwind tactics. Upwind, Isla is “eyes out of the boat” – the puff picker, windshift wrangler, and tracker of the competition as the fleet spreads over the racecourse. Downwind, Isla flies the gennaker and hoists and douses it fast at mark roundings.
On shore, the pair finish each other’s sentences. “We discuss the tactics before and during the race.” “Neither of us is in charge.” “Maybe being sisters makes it easier to share the decision-making as we know each other very well.” “When you do something right, it’s so rewarding.” “We love being on the water.” “Doing anything on the water is great.” “We can’t remember the last time we argued.” “When you argue, you go backwards.”
On the beach, the Kee sisters are modest. On the water, they are fierce. Their motto could be: We sail hard. We sail fair. We learn heaps every day.
After two seasons in the RS Feva, the sisters began doing well in competition, so this year Peter enlisted David Ferris, a highly-respected Kerikeri sailmaker, coach, and racer as their coach. During practice sessions, Ferris drills the sisters on boat handling, starting lines and laylines, tactics (boat-to-boat) and strategy (wind and current), rigging and tuning, and keeping their poise in the heat of battle. “David has enabled them to go from being near the front of the fleet to winning events,” says Peter.
Coach Ferris has been known to slap a ‘penalty’ on the sisters. One training session, on a blustery, gusty reach across nearby Te Puna Inlet with the gennaker up, the boat wailing along on the edge of control, a big blast knocked the boat flat. “We were laughing, screaming, everything was so out of control,” says Erin. The sisters righted the boat and sheeted in, immediately jumping onto the plane. Another blast bowled them over – an epic high-speed wipeout. They righted the boat and kept going – still screaming. At their heels in the RIB, coach Ferris shouted instructions on how to handle the next blast – what to do with the helm and the kite sheet – without capsizing. He also imposed a penalty: for every capsize, ten press-ups each.
“That worked,” says Isla. “We hate press-ups. After that we didn’t capsize.”
This year, the Kee sisters have been winning or finishing in the top few places in the RS Feva Travelers Series, a series of regattas at different clubs – the Murrays Bay Sailing Club, Taipa Sailing Club, Bucklands Beach Yacht Club, Maraetai Sailing Club, and the Royal Akarana Yacht Club. Most recently, the Kees claimed second in the 45-boat RS Feva National Championship. Their friendly rivalry with Torbay Sailing Club members Luke Shaw and Freddie Knights at every event this season has been pushing them on. And their inspiration to go for the big RS Feva prize in Italy came from Kate Rasmussen and Maddy Russell of the Maraetai Sailing Club, who as the current Women’s RS Feva World Champions, proved that Kiwi girls can win big overseas.
“The girls could not have reached this level without the boats provided for the training programmes at Kerikeri Cruising Club,” notes Peter Kee. “The club has been very positive about kids’ sailing development, providing funds to help with attending the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron’s Kawau Training Week each December. The club has an Etchells keelboat which the kids can crew on for keelboat racing. Club stalwart Doug France’s enthusiasm was instrumental in getting the girls into dinghy sailing when we first arrived.” In typical Kerikeri Cruising Club fashion, a group of members raised the money to buy three new RS Fevas for the club five years ago.
So, this sister team is ready for the international stage. They’ve completed their boat prep and their training. They are physically fit and mentally clear. They are flying to Europe with a new set of sails, some Dyneema rigging bits created by Coach Ferris, and they’re packing their teamwork and their confidence in each other. Their plan is simple: stay steady. “Don’t change from what we do in practice. Don’t overthink it,” says Erin. “We’ll need to get front row starts and get clean air as fast as we can,” adds Erin. Their ambition – to win and to join the ranks of top Kiwi women who have distinguished themselves overseas – goes unspoken. The current roster of top New Zealand women in international and Olympic yachting – Alex Maloney and Olivia Hobbs, Jo Aleh, Polly Powrie, and Molly Meech, Erica Dawson, Veerle ten Have, just to name a few, were once 16-year-old local sailors, too. There is a framework, a path for the Kee sisters to follow.
Still, a sailboat regatta holds more unknowns than any other contest in sport. In sailing, not only do wind and sea conditions change, they are not uniform across the racecourse, and the ‘playing field’ can suddenly shift its shape and size. Some crews may be particularly fast in one condition or point of sail, such as light air or downwind (the Kee sisters prefer medium to heavy breeze). So, steadiness and consistency – especially in a world championship with 14 races in a big fleet – is a smart strategy. “Keep it simple,” Erin emphasizes. “Do what we do at training and see how it goes during the event. And if that leads to success, we will be extraordinarily happy.”
INFO
RS Feva – world leading double-hander with a vibrant class across the globe (rssailing.com)
NZ SAILCRAFT – NZ Agent for RS sailing
2023 RS Feva European Championships – International RS Feva Class Association
2023 RS Feva World Championships Information – International RS Feva Class Association
https://www.facebook.com/nzrsfeva (class association Facebook page)
