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A story of strength and heart for developing young sailors – Keith Hay named among the 2016 Volvo Excellence Service Award winners.
Many stories of endurance and perseverance have come out of the challenging times arising from the Christchurch Earthquakes. One of the lesser known is the dedication of Keith Hay of Mount Pleasant Yacht Club (MPYC) in keeping alive the spirit and action of junior sailing at MPYC in the aftermath of the quake.
The recipient of one of Yachting New Zealand’s 2016 Yachting New Zealand Service awards has been involved with the club since the 1980s. Over the last 35 years he has held positions on the management committee and dedicated much of his time to encouraging youth sailing programs and growing the club’s membership base, showing commitment and enthusiasm even through the challenges following the 2011 earthquake.
Keith has always had a heart for youth sailing, identifying early on that the club’s future was it’s junior members. A quiet man with a hands-on approach, he completed the Yachting New Zealand coaching courses, focusing his patience and considerable talent on fostering a team culture within club and optimist fleet; keeping family values as a centre piece and encouraging the love of sailing, pursuit of excellence through training, coaching, club racing, and regattas.
Following the quake which temporarily put paid to MPYC, Keith looked beyond the physical limits of the club and sought to keep the junior sailing programme alive. Despite an unsafe club building and raw sewage sullying the sailing grounds, Keith’s passion and enthusiasm for getting kids out on the water drove him to seek out fresh sailing areas and arrange with neighbouring club’s to host the MPYC sailors.
Over his time at MPYC Keith has also held a position in the Canterbury Yachting Association (CYA) and helped develop the Sunburst fleet at MPYC, favouring it as his personal dinghy of choice.
Yachting New Zealand congratulates Keith for his tireless efforts to promote and grow junior sailing in his region, and for helping to rebuild the spirit of MPYC and grow it’s membership base so more people can continue to participate in the sport he and many other’s enjoy.
