Meet the Team
Megan Thomson
Introducing Megan, our helm and the woman who pulls us all together. Forget how she finds all manners of regattas or series for us to compete in, Megan is the one who got the 2.0 team on one boat in the first place. Sometimes it takes a decent mental capacity to understand what Megan is trying to say, with calls such as “bailing to starport” or “go for a big fast” frequently being heard from the back of the boat, and while she might not always be late to a start - she’s almost always late to training. It’s a good thing we can’t see Megan most of the time, or we might start to worry about just how accident prone she can be. There have been snapped tiller extensions and broken protest flags on occasion, and sometimes a thud and a yelp when she trips over the wiggle stick and winds up covered in bruises. As long as she’s only calling the boats ahead of us idiots and not us ourselves, we love her to pieces.
Serena Woodall
Meet Serena, 2.0 Racing Team’s main trimmer, or as we call her, the baby. At the age of 17 Serena is the youngest of the group. What she lacks in age she makes up for in experience; Serena was on the winning team of the NZ Youth Match Racing Nationals, is currently a NZ Teams Racing Champion and sailed with Laurie Jury in the 2018 NZ Match Race Nationals placing 4th. Serena is currently finishing her final year of school at Waiheke High School. Much to her mothers dismay she currently spends more time sailing than she does at school. The team has noticed the lack of time she spends at school has started to show when it comes to reading the flags and relaying the “correct” course. Is it too soon to make this joke? Serena may look small but she is a mighty big (80 something kg) asset to the team, she’s also probably the only one who can handle listening to the skips chat all day, and the only one who dares talk back. “Kiwi drop?” “No!”.
Lisa Dartnall
Meet Lisa our downwind trimmer, also known as; team mum, financial manger and social media guru. What does the rest of the team do? - yeah not much! In all honesty our team would be a wee bit lost without Lisa. Without her we would have missed flights, forgotten our lunch, and our Facebook and Instagram pages would not exist. Alike Anna, Lisa’s a match race veteran, and not just because she’s the oldest in the group. Lisa began attending match racing regatta’s in 2013, before she had a couple of years break to focus on her studies of Marine Biology and Geospatial Science at the Auckland University of Technology. Onboard Lisa brings the strength of her calm levelheadedness, until she’s concerned that the skipper is about to crash. Squealing “do you see the boat” “watch out for that wall” “careful don’t run over the jellyfish!”, it’s enough to make the whole team jump out of their skin. Other than needing 10 hours of sleep every night, her obsession with smelly marine life and her occasional tendency to over stress we really struggle to find anything to roast Lisa on and feel honoured to have her as team mum.
Chelsea Rees
Chelsea, our upwind trimmer, aka the new kid on the block. Whilst Chels hasn't sailed with the team for long and is yet to make her match racing debut, don’t let that fool you! Chelsea brings a great deal of experience from her 420 campaigning days and can snap a Jib better than Elle from ‘Legally Blonde’ can bend and snap! (Please look up the reference if you don’t get this joke). In more recent years Chels has been focusing on her studies in Law and Environmental Science at the University of Auckland and has become quite the guru at kiteboarding, currently co-president of the UoA Kitesurf Club. When she first started training with us we don’t think she remembered what a boat actually looked like... but when it comes to reading the breeze, this girl is valuable to have onboard! After begging her to come sailing with us, we eventually wore her down and we’re ecstatic to finally announce her as a member of our team!
Anna Merchant
Bowman
Meet Anna, the bowman or bow-woman! Anna has the most experience of the group, making her match racing debut over 5 years ago. In saying this, the 2.0 Racing Team doesn’t let her near the gennaker when it comes to rigging. If you ever want to learn new, creative, and twisted ways to rig a kite, Anna’s your girl! Whilst rigging the kite isn’t one of Anna’s strengths, she’s the guru when it comes to dropping it at the bottom mark. Anna has competed in over 20 national and international match racing events, more than the rest of the team combined. More recently, Anna has been working at Core Composites, and racing on Clockwork. The Clockwork team have had a range of great results over the past year in events such as Groupama, Coastal Classic and the Bay of Islands Race Week. With all her experience we’re stoked to have Anna as a core member of our team, also did we mention, she looks great in pink!