*Nathan's Story: Nathan grew up on the western shores of Lake Macquarie playing soccer, tennis and AFL but as both parents were sailors it was only a matter of time before the 21 year old ended up in the sport.
By age four Nathan was sailing with his grandfather on his Northshore 27. Within a year he was crewing on a Sabot. He competed at his first Sabot Nationals in Mooloolaba in 1992.
Seeing the sailing potential in their son, Nathan’s parents bought him a Sabot and he started to skipper at age 7. In 1999 aged 13, he won the Sabot Championship in Yeppoon and a few days later jumped in his Flying Eleven and won the nationals in Sydney. The only other person to have achieved the double in the same year is Nathan Wilmot.
In 2001 (please change to 2002) Nathan competed at the ISAF Youth World Championships in the 29er class, the 29er World Champions in Sydney (placed 2nd) and the next day flew to Perth to compete in the 420 class at the Australian Youth Championships and 420 Nationals (where I gained selection to go to the 2002 ISAF Youth Worlds). He was selected another two times to compete in the ISAF Youth World Championships (sailed in 420), each time winning the Gold Medal. The only other person to win 3 gold medals in the double handed class is America’s Cup skipper, Chris Dickson from New Zealand.
From there on, Nathan’s sailing career took off. He started sailing the 470 class under the guidance of Victor Kovalenko, training with Nathan Wilmot and Malcolm Page and Olympic Gold Medallists, Jenny Armstrong and Belinda Stowell.
"It was such a huge learning curve and a great experience for me. I still continued to sail other classes as well. I did some match racing on Sydney Harbour and also went to Cowes with the RSYS Youth Team in
2004 in which we won".
"I have done many overseas competitions in which I have learned so much.
These include 470 class regattas during 2003 and 2004 in many different countries. I then decided to campaign a 49er, as I felt I was getting too big for a 470".
In 2004 Nathan was on his way to Sail Melbourne when he had a car accident which broke his back. He spent the next month in hospital after surgery to repair his back. He then spent three months in a back brace and was unsure as to whether he would ever get back to competitive sailing.
"Needless to say I had a long road ahead of me. I didn’t even have a crew for my 49er anymore, so that was where I had to start. There were many hours spent considering who would be the best crew to have, with many issues to deal with. Also many hours would have to be spent getting back up to speed to compete at the world level".
"I was lucky to have a coach like Craig Ferris. Craig came up to Wangi often to help me get back onto the 49er with my new crew, Ben Austin.
After a lot of hard work both on and off the water, I gradually got back into the swing of things and soon became competitive again".
