Issue date
Later this month the yachting community will come together to celebrate the year’s successes, achievements and contribution to our sport at the 2015 Volvo Yachting Excellence Awards.
Every year Yachting New Zealand receives a wad of nominations in the Service Award category, the calibre of which never ceases to amaze. Restricted to an annual ‘budget’ of just ten Service Awards it can be a tough job for the judging panel to narrow it down.
The short story is that around New Zealand there are dozens of individuals who quietly contribute hours and hours of service to the sport which we’re all passionate about. These are the people that make our yacht clubs, our class associations and our key regattas tick – and without them things would fall apart.
They all deserve a thank you – every time you see them on the beach or at the lake. And it is Yachting New Zealand’s pleasure to say thank you and pay tribute to their efforts, with a Service Award.
In the lead up to the 2015 Volvo Yachting Excellence Awards, on in Auckland on 27 November, we bring you a feature on each of the ten 2015 Service Award winners. Today we focus on Rob Burn.
Rob Burn – for services to Queen Charlotte Yacht Club
Over the years of Rob’s involvement with QCYC and Sailing within New Zealand, he has focused beyond the local pond and with some blue sky thinking and lots of energy and commitment, has contributed to the development of junior and youth sailing within New Zealand at local, regional, national and international levels.
Rob has held various positions at Queen Charlotte Yacht Club over the years including stints as Club Captain, Junior Convenor, Vice Commodore, and Commodore.
This journey for Rob and QCYC has seen QCYC and it’s junior sailors become the top south island Club, with more junior and youth sailors supporting South Island, National and International events than any other club in the south island.
Key to this achievement has been instilling in young sailors, the belief I that they can and expect to achieve at high levels. Establishing an ethos of high quality coaching has been an integral element of achieving this goal and some 'out of the box' thinking and the introduction of overseas coaches and ultimately, and Rob’s role in establishing a system of ranking regattas and the inaugural InterIslander regatta, have been a the platform for launching this level of achievement at his home club.
Underpinning Rob’s contribution is his philosophy that sailing is one of toughest sports to succeed at an international level and to achieve that, we have to work together at a club, regional and national level; sharing information and working together to see the big picture. This 'Helicopter' view has been evident in his work contributing to the development of the NZIODA ranking system; establishing regattas across NZ that have now become part of the sailing lexicon and returned huge value to sponsors who have maintained their commitment to the sport.
Encouraging the development of regattas outside of Auckland has helped foster access to top quality competition for all sailors in the North and South of NZ. One fine example of this is the InterIslander Regatta, conceived by Rob with the support of QCYC and now hosted in Picton for a number of years. Rob realized that in order for local sailors to achieve their full potential, it was essential to develop sailing on a wider scale and his work to bring in the first overseas coaches to small clubs was to become the model adopted by other clubs.
Whilst looking outward, Rob continued his valuable work within QCYC with a hands on approach; Race Management, running rescue boat training within the club and plucking many a young sailor from the waters. His boat “Neptune” has become a familiar feature at regattas not least of all for the adequate stock of spare parts and food fuel for weary sailors, even spare fuel for Jury boats. Rob became known as clocking up more kilometers taking sailors to regattas and volunteering on the Courses than almost anyone. More recently, Rob has taken up laser sailing himself and has worked hard at promoting and encouraging senior sailors within QCYC encouraging them to participate in club coaching.
Without doubt, Rob’s networking within the sailing fraternity has been a hugely valuable skill and the knowledge sharing has been a gateway to opening access to the sport of sailing.
