‘Bucket list’ voyage now underway for Gardiners

er and we’ll need to slum it a bit,” Nick explains.

Marlborough sailing stalwart

Ian Gardiner have taken father/ son bonding to another level, joining forces with son Nick to tackle one of NZ sailing’s iconic events.

On Saturday Ian and Nick, who is now based in Auckland, set sail from Auckland on their Thompson 30 yacht Drinks Trolley, the pair competing in the 2023 Two-Handed Round North Island Race (RNI).

The Gardiners are one of 38 teams and one of two father-son crews from New Zealand, Australia and New Caledonia tackling in the anticlockwise circumnavigation of the North Island. The fleet will stop over at Maunganui, Waikawa and Napier.

It will be 23-year-old Nick’s second attempt at circling Te Ikaa-Māui. He and Ben Beasley finished 26th on line honours and took out their division on Moving Violation in 2020. The duo were a crowd favourite as the youngest crew and with their Elliott 7.9 the smallest boat in the last race.

While they briefly considered a repeat performance this year, the opportunity to sail with his father on Drinks Trolley proved too good for Nick to turn down. Ian is a highly-experienced yachtsman and was instrumental in the Queen Charlotte Yacht

Club rebuild as well as being the Yachting New Zealand Region Development Manager for the South Island.

Nick, who left Marlborough more than six years ago, chuckles when asked if spending so much time with his father require an adjustment.

“Well, one of the things I learned from 2020 is that a lot of the time you’re actually sailing single-handed as the other person is asleep.

“Besides, there’s not much he doesn’t already know – and at least he’s bringing up our boat’s average age.

“I see him whenever he’s up here [in Auckland] for work but this is just a really cool opportunity to sail with him, to hang out and catch up.”

There’ll be enough time for that, too, with Moving Violation finishing the 2020 race in 10 days, 15 hours, and 20 minutes.

“I’m confident this time we’ll be much faster as we have a much bigger boat,” Nick said.

“Drinks Trolley is more of a sports yacht, so it has a big cockpit and is designed to have between four to seven people racing it. We’ve certainly noticed the fact that we were light on crew, so we’ve modified the boat for this race, adding 600l water ballast tanks.

“It makes things a bit more physical for us but hopefully it gets us places quicker.”

They’ve also made changes to make the ride slightly more comfortable.

“Moving Violation was a very comfortable boat downstairs whereas Drinks Trolley is a rac-