Ep 42 - Erica Dawson

It’s fair to say Erica Dawson has had a big year in 2021 for a number of different reasons. She broke her leg in a training accident only five weeks before the Tokyo Olympics, but made a speedy recovery to take her place alongside Micah Wilkinson in the Nacra 17. She also joined the New Zealand SailGP Team and made history when she became the first Kiwi woman to compete in the high-octane sailing circuit.

Erica reflects on the last 18 months, the highs and the lows. She talks about what it was like to be selected for the Olympics only to go through the uncertainty of not knowing if she’d actually get to go and compete, how she coped with breaking her leg in the leadup to the Games and what her experience was actually like in Japan. She also delves into life on the SailGP tour and what it’s like sail on the foiling catamarans.

Erica is also an advocate for women’s sailing and played a leading hand in the development of Yachting New Zealand’s Women and Girls in Sailing Strategy and talks in this podcast about what she’d like to see over the next few years.