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By Suzanne McFadden
Joyce Talbot is a jewel in Auckland sailing’s crown – an administrator extraordinaire for more than three decades.
So it’s hard to believe she was in her 40s when she first stepped onboard a yacht.
“I grew up in Auckland – but in a rugby family. My father and brother were both All Blacks, so I spent my junior years at Eden Park,” Talbot says.
Both wingers, her dad, Johnny Dick, played three tests for the All Blacks in the 1930s, and her brother Malcolm played 15 tests through the 1960s (he was also a famous administrator, a former deputy chair of New Zealand Rugby).
So how did Talbot become so enamoured with boats?
She met a guy in a nightclub who owned a catamaran, and he took her sailing for the first time.
“I just went ‘Oh my god, I’ve been missing this my whole life!’” she laughs. And that was the start of a long love affair – with the sea.
“The boat was called Double Bullet. And it certainly was.
“I used to get sick on the ferry going to Devonport, so when friends heard I was going for a sail, they just cracked up laughing. ‘I wonder how far you’ll get? North Head?’”
Little did she know, her voyage was only just beginning.
The guy with the catamaran was a member of the New Zealand Multihull Yacht Club. Talbot became a regular there and met the late Brian Carter, who was then the commodore who organised the Coastal Classic.
“I asked him if he needed a hand, even though I knew nothing about it,” she says. “A couple of years later, I was organising it... talk about a steep learning curve!”
From there, Talbot’s passion for the sport bloomed. She worked on 12 Coastal Classics – her last in 2002 - and became highly sought-after by other sailing organisations: The Classic Yacht Association, the Auckland Anniversary Day Regatta and more recently, the New Zealand Sailing Foundation.
Her tireless administration work for yachting was recognised in this year’s New Year’s Honours List, becoming a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM).
It’s an honour she’s truly humbled by.
“Not me, I’m the one that sits at the back of the room. I don’t do speeches,” she says of her reaction after receiving the Government House email (that originally got lost in the ether and was followed up by a shock phone call).
Talbot's work for yachting was recognised in this year’s New Year’s Honours List. Photos / Supplied
Every summer, Talbot is in high demand. It’s a seven-day-a-week job. In February, for example, she’d just wrapped up the Auckland Anniversary Day Regatta prizegiving and launched straight into a briefing for the Classic Yacht Regatta a couple of days later.
“It’s just mental at this time of year… and I’m supposed to be retired!” she laughs. “But I do it because I love it and I’m passionate about it. And I’ll continue to do it until I’m no longer useful.”
Talbot takes much reward from her work and loves following young sailors through the ranks.
“I had a lovely compliment from the owner of the one gaff-rigged vessel that took part in this year’s Anniversary Day Regatta, saying how impressed he was with the number of young people who attended the prizegiving,” she says.
“And the lovely thing for me is seeing them start off at the regatta as kids – the names of the winners stick in your mind – and you watch them progress. Then they’re applying for funding from the New Zealand Sailing Foundation, like the Armit brothers.”
Talbot helped run her first Anniversary Regatta in 2006.
“I jumped in, then realised what was involved,” she laughs.
It’s a complex production.
“There are so many host venues. And we’ve got everything now from dragon boats to radio control yachts to waka ama and all the foiling boats – that’s where all the young sailors now come in. And now there are the tugboats and classic launch races inside the Waitematā Harbour too.” The regatta committee rolls out of one event and into the next, meeting 12 times a year. “We’ll have a debrief in March, then we’re full-on into 2025,” says Talbot, the regatta’s executive officer, who works with the Auckland Harbourmaster, Coastguard, Maritime Police and the Navy.
One thing, of course, she can’t organise is the weather. Last year’s regatta was canned for only the second time in 184 years, when logs filled the harbour after the catastrophic floods.
“I spent two days trying to let everyone know it wasn’t happening,” she says.
Anniversary weekend is also a major event on the Classic Yacht Association calendar, with the fleet heading north to Mahurangi for their annual regatta.
How does she balance her two roles that weekend?
“It just seems to work out. I normally go up on a launch to Mahurangi with them on Friday and come back on Saturday, so I’m ready for their return race finish off Orakei Wharf on Sunday,” she says.
She was first invited to help out with an international classic yacht regatta, organised by the Ponsonby Cruising Club, during the 2000 America’s Cup in Auckland.
“It was wonderful with beautiful boats from all over the world,” she says.
“That was another learning experience, because I had no idea what a classic was. Now I just love the gaffers.”
That rolled into her becoming the secretary of the Classic Yacht Association of NZ – a position she still holds 24 years later. She’s also secretary/treasurer of the NZ Sailing Foundation – accepting applications for funding from talented young Kiwi sailors to compete in international regattas, and putting them before the committee.
Talbot is pleased to see the younger generations putting their hands up for committees.
“We have a couple of young people on the Classic Yacht Association committee, and I keep telling our chair, Richard Cave, ‘Don’t give them too much work, don’t burn them out!’” she says.
“Our Anniversary Day Regatta chair, Bill Lomas, just celebrated his 40th birthday last week. And [Emirates Team NZ engineer] Elise Beavis has just come on board as a trustee of the NZ Sailing Foundation.
“We’re very conscious of the fact we need these young people on board. Society is changing so we need to keep up and change with it. We need their input and their fresh ideas.”
Despite her love affair with boats, she’s never owned her own. But she’s always crewed for others – a 1904 Logan one of her favourites.
Now she spends most of her time on the water onboard committee boats. When things slow down during winter, Talbot tries to spend six weeks in the US visiting her two sons and their families.
“But I’m still on email,” she says.
She also has a daughter, who lives in Auckland, and spends a lot of time with her two granddaughters, including helping out at their schools.
Talbot is pretty happy she’s got her work-life balance right.
