Lesley Jean Roberts

Born in England (1960), Lesley spent her early years in Australia racing dinghies and her later years cruising reef systems.

Lesley Roberts commenced crewing the Mirror dinghy at age seven and progressed through several locally designed classes to the 470, Laser, Tasar, Fireball, Flying 15, Etchells 21, Dragon and the Europe. In those boats she represented Australia and Hong Kong in dozens of World, Pacific and regional Titles.

Lesley is a mariner, nurse, paramedic, programmer analyst and teacher and enjoys the contact with people that these varied careers afford.

Taking 1991 off from desk bound employment Lesley crewed in a 48 foot yacht; a eight thousand mile voyage of discovery during one year, through the ocean waters surrounding and between Papua New Guinea, Chuuk, Guam, Hong Kong, Philippines, Borneo and Singapore and many other islands in the Pacific.

Lesley became the national coach for the Philippians, then the Cook Islands; these teams enjoyed high international success under her leadership. In her own country of Australia, Lesley coaches fleet, match and teams racing. Lesley is also involved in the technical administration of the sport as a member of Racing Rules Committees, together with umpiring and Protest Panel duties.

Lesley is an adventurer, lives aboard, cruises reef systems, enjoying the puzzles of sailing and complexities of racing.

Her background has combined to produce a highly respected expert on sailing theory and practice.

Life was too short, the weather too fine, and the world too full of interesting and exciting pitfalls... Life, he was fond of telling himself, was like an ocean. You can either grind your way across it like a motor boat or you can follow the winds and the currents – in other words, go sailing. "Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt", Macmillan & Harmony Books, 2003, p. 225

Sean Hackett is a racing sailor and instructor with over 20 years experience in various dinghy classes, and competes at national and international level. His interest in technical description and depiction of advanced sailing concepts is augmented by training in engineering. I owe Sean a debt of gratitude for his competent drawing out of these ideas.