HAWKESBURY sailor Evie Haseldine has fully committed herself to what is an all-consuming passion, and has reaped the rewards, earning a spot in the Youth Olympic Games to be held later this year.
Evie has only just turned 15, but she has been around sailing boats for most of her life with her dad at the Drummoyne Sailing Club.
“My dad has been a sailor all his life, and so has my grandfather, so I guess it is a family thing,” she said.
“It is a pretty cool lifestyle. You're always by the water and what is not to love about that.”
In 2018 though, Evie has decided it was time to devote much of her life to sailing, after a massive victory in January where she, along with sailing team mate Will Cooley won an Australian championship.
The victory came as somewhat of a surprise. Will and Evie had only been sailing together for three months, and despite weeks of training, were unsure how they would go together at the national championships in January.
They soon found out after posting a time fast enough to qualify for the Youth Olympic Games – to be held in Beunos Aires later this year – in a Nacra 15 boat.
“When we won it was pretty cool,” Evie said.
“It was a good achievement for all the hard work we put in in such a short amount of time.”
‘Hard work’ is another way to say that the teenager from North Richmond has devoted much of her recent life to training to be the best sailor she can be.
In the lead up to the national championships, Evie and Will sailed every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Sailing, as Evie said, isn’t like swimming where you turn up, swim your laps and then go home.
Sailing involves at least an hour worth of rigging up the boat before getting out onto the water, and then roughly the same amount of time at the end to pack up.
“It isn’t something you can just quickly jump into,” she said. “It is an all morning or all afternoon sort of deal.”
And if she isn’t actually sailing, she is thinking about it.
At the Youth Olympic Games, they will sail factory standard Nacra 15s, however, at most other events, the sailors can tinker with their boats in much the same way that car racers tinker with the set up of their engines, suspension system and aerodynamics to gain an edge.
“Some weekends, we won’t get out on the water at all and we’ll just spend our time working on the boat,” she said.
“People can look at it say wow she is pulling that rope pretty quickly, but to get a gold medal at the Olympics that is strategy and efficiency, and not just knowing how to do it when you are out there racing but knowing how to prepare the boat.”
Of course, that is not all either. The boats they sail require two people to operate them, and communication is essential.
”We need a lot of team work and a lot of discussions,” she said
“Communication is probably the most important thing on the boat.
“If we're not talking to each other then we don't know what we are doing and then nothing works because we need each other to sail the boat.
“Off the water, we need to discuss when we train and when we can make it and things like that. It can be difficult sometimes but that is part of being a team. If you are in a football team, you can’t be in one unless you train together.”
On top of that, two days a week, she said she was up at 4.30am to drive to Homebush to work out at the NSW Institute of Sport, all before heading back to the Hawkesbury to attend school at Arndell Anglican College among other training sessions to keep her mentally and physically in shape, all in aid of being the best she can be.
“As much as I know I have to go to the gym, I actually enjoy it,” Evie said.
So far, it has been worth it according to Eve, and it is not hard to see why.
She recently attended the world championships in Barcelona, and on June 5, flew to Singapore to compete in the Singaporean national championship.
“When we won nationals it opened a lot of doors for me,” she said.
“It is fortunate there are great opportunities waiting for me. It is something that you just can't let go.
“I don't think I'll stop sailing in my life and I think that is a good thing.”
Not that Evie is getting too far ahead of herself. She knows sailing might not work out – an unfortunate injury could end her career for example – so she is making sure she has a back up.
While in Singapore, she will be taking with her the very thing that many young people in any school wish to escape from.
“I know I'll be taking school work with me when I go to Singapore for sure,” she said.
“I want to do well at school. We’re constantly told that we need to have a back up plan, because things don’t always work out.”
However, Evie got to meet a very famous example of what can happen if all goes to plan.
At the age of 16 Australian sailor Jessica Watson completed a southern hemisphere solo circumnavigation. She was named Young Australian of the Year in 2011 and awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia because of her achievements.
Evie met her this year, along with a number of other high profile women in the sailing world.
“It was inspring to meet someone like her. If she could do it at 16, why couldn't it? That's what I was thinking,” she said.
Off the water, Evie said one of her favourite things to do was dancing.
“If I wasn't a sailor I'd be dancing all the time,” she said.
“When I was younger I was dancing all Saturday. I’ve done jazz, ballet, tap, hip hop, contemporary.
“At the moment I am only dancing one day a week and I do ballet.”
The Youth Olympic Games will start on November 7 in Beunos Aires, Argentina.
