80 and Bouzaid is still at full throttle ahead

By Ivor Wilkins • Photo by Hamish Ross

Milestone birthdays are opportunities for reflection, but on turning 80 Chris Bouzaid – whose life of achievement offers much to reflect on – remains firmly focused on what lies ahead.

“I don’t see much point in looking back,” says Bouzaid, whose well-charted sailing achievements include groundbreaking victories in the One Ton Cup and Sydney-Hobart Race, among others.

“Memories are wonderful things, but looking at things you are still going to do are far more important.”

On both sides of a yarn-filled birthday bash at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron in April – attended by sailing luminaries from New Zealand and Australia – his calendar brimmed with things to do, places to go.

Shortly before arriving in New Zealand, he had been in the Caribbean, racing on the 49m Vitters ketch Meraki with his son, Richard, and a full works team from Doyle Sails in the St Barths Bucket superyacht regatta.

“I posted on Facebook that you know you are on a big yacht when it takes two people to carry an empty sail bag,” he chuckles.

First stop after the Squadron celebration was a visit to Australia to see his showjumping grand-daughter, Georgia, competing in an equestrian event with a new horse. Even in this arena, sailing connections are not far away.

Georgia’s trainer is John Winning’s daughter. The Winning family are prominent in Australian sailing. They currently charter the supermaxi Andoo Comanche and took line honours in this year’s Sydney Hobart.

John Winning Snr, known as ‘Woody’, in his seventies continues to race in the highly competitive 18ft skiff scene, in which he has played a prominent role for four decades. He and his son, John Jnr – who now runs the family construction empire – enjoy a strong rivalry in the super athletic class.

One nostalgia trip Bouzaid is allowing himself is a visit to Lord Howe Island. “In many ways, my first real memories date back to Lord Howe Island, where my mother ran a guest house,” he says. “I lived there for several months when I was a seven-year-old, but I have never been back.

“I have sailed past it several times, but never stopped. When I went there as a child, I remember flying in on a small flying boat. We landed in the lagoon and a couple of kids rowed out in a dinghy to take us ashore.

“The fishing was fantastic. The permanent population was tiny, maybe 50 inhabitants, with occasional tourists. Most of the inhabitants never left, but while I was there, one took a trip to Sydney. He was so overwhelmed, he barely left his hotel room.

“Earlier, when I was five, my mother also ran a guest house on Norfolk Island. Most of what I know from Norfolk Island is stuff I was told, not what I actually remember myself.”

With his Antipodean activities ticked off, Bouzaid is in a hurry to get back home to the USA in time to re-launch his classic 30 Square Metre yacht Bijou II for a summer of racing in Maine.

Bijou II is a new acquisition. “We were skiing in Utah last March,” he says. “I still ski every year, but not as aggressively as I used to. Anyway, while we were stormbound for a bit, I found some old yachting magazines and saw this boat advertised for sale in Seattle.

“I called the owner and bought it. It is a beautiful boat, built in Germany in the early 1970s. The owner had two of them, one he called a racing version and one he called a cruising version.

“I bought the cruising version. The thing that makes it a cruiser is two tiny lockers by the companionway; otherwise it is identical to the racing version,” he laughs.

This represents a return to the 30 Square Metre class for Bouzaid. “I owned one of these boats in New Zealand when I was about 20 years old. It was called Caprice and I won the Balokovic Cup with Jimmy Lidgard and Pete Shaw. In fact, we won a couple of ocean races with Caprice

“She had no lifelines or self-bailing cockpit. I don’t think we even carried lifejackets. It was a bit different back then. We had this tiny primus stove. In one of our races, we hoisted the spinnaker and the primus went up with it and was lost overboard, so we couldn’t even have a hot drink.

“This new boat has taken a bit of sorting out. I tried to race it last season with the sails it came with, which were about 40 years old. I realised just how bad the sails were that we raced with in those days, compared with modern technology.”

Having ordered a new Doyle mainsail from son Richard, Bouzaid stitched up a new spinnaker in his basement at home. “I have three sewing machines in the basement. Col Anderson (an Australian sailmaker and sailing legend) visited me last year and we made up a new headsail together.

“With better sails, we were hanging in quite well at the end of last season. I think we won the last five races at Newport, Rhode Island.”

Bouzaid is also a shareholder with Brad Butterworth, David Glenn and Hamish Ross in the Auckland Logan classic, Rainbow, which his father, Leo, owned after World War Two. In keeping with his high-octane lifestyle, he wasted no time in joining Rainbow for a race on the Waitemata Harbour the day he and his wife, Lydia, flew into Auckland for his birthday celebrations.

“It was blowing like stink. We had the wrong sails. The bottom was dirty. We did very poorly,” he laments. “We were meant to go out racing again the following Sunday and had the bottom cleaned, but it was blowing so hard they called it off.”

However, Rainbow features in yet another part of Bouzaid’s forward planning. “We are looking at taking her over to France next year

and doing a season of classic racing there, finishing up at Barcelona for the America’s Cup.”

Under the Protected Objects Act, heritage items including classic yachts cannot leave New Zealand except under tight conditions to ensure their return. This usually involves posting a substantial financial bond.

The syndicate owners are in the early stages of negotiating those obstacles, but are keen to make it happen. They are also talking to other classic yacht owners about forming a team. “There is a circuit of classic regattas in the South of France, starting in Monaco and finishing in St Tropez,” says Bouzaid.

“They also have three-boat teams. If we could get Rainbow, Ariki and Rawhiti together as a team, they could acquit themselves very well, so let’s hope we can take this somewhere.

“This is an idea that is one day old at the moment, so there is a long way to go. But plenty of big achievements began with a conversation in a bar, so why not this one?”

Clearly the passage of 80 years has done little to slow Bouzaid’s pace, or dull his passions. No resting on past laurels, he continues to charge full-steam-ahead towards new goals and ambitions.