Long time Olympic and America's Cup competitor/commentator dies suddenly
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World NZ 10 Aug 08:25 AEST
Peter Lester is carried up Takapuna Beach by his fellow sailors after winning the 1977 World OK Championships - February 1977 © NZ Yachting
It seems like only last month that Peter Lester was being carried shoulder high in his OK Dinghy, up Takapuna Beach, having just won the World championship.
The occasion was the first time a New Zealand sailor had won an International dinghy class world championship, sailing in their home waters.
Peter Lester was awarded the Sir Bernard Fergusson Trophy, for Yachtsman of the Year, for his OK Worlds victory.
That win began a long career that spanned the Olympic classes, three America's Cup campaigns, offshore and inshore keelboat racing including Admirals' Cup wins, and three One Ton Cup wins. He interfaced those competitive sailing achievements into High Performance coaching, and then as a TV and media commentator covering multiple Olympic regattas and America's Cups.
Lester died suddenly on Friday night at the age of 70yrs.
Although he was best known in his latter years for his media work, which took many forms, Lester's strength was that he was, and remained, very well connected to the competitive sailing side of the sport. He rarely appeared in media centres, other than to commentate or at a media conference. The rest of the time he was in the boatpark or dockside, chatting with former competitors, and new ones - getting the inside word and thinking.
Pete Lester came to Auckland from Lyttleton, in the 70's and continued to work as a "seagull" (casual wharfie) on the Auckland Wharves. He always enjoyed strong Waterfront Union support, it was clear that the union bosses and workers alike quite enjoyed seeing one of their own winning at the top level in a rich mans sport. It was from the seagulling that he got his greatest asset, the ability to talk with people at all levels as an equal, and always remain very grounded.
In sailing commentary, instead of relying on hours of results analysis, Lester could bring the his audience latest stories and insights from the sailors, often gleaned the night before and even just before the day's racing began. He had sailor access like only one other.
Lester started his media career one notable day at the 1992 America's Cup, when the TVNZ team were based in a studio at the Team New Zealand base in Coronado. It was the day of the first race in the Semi-Finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup, despite all the prep-work there were still some bugs in the links between the TNZ studio and the main studio in the International Broadcast Centre on the opposite side of the channel. The glitches had been popping up all through the pre-race phase, and culminated in what appeared to be a power cut in Coronado. In fact only the video link had dropped, and the team could no longer see their images going out. "Now we're F**ked!," said the rookie commentator, only to be told by the producer that the microphones were still live, and his comment had gone live to a nation-wide audience, numbering hundreds of thousands eagerly awaiting the start of racing.
That event marked the start of a 32yr long career in sailing commentary which ended all too soon. Lester was a lead sailing commentator at the 2024 Marseille Olympics - still working with Denis Harvey - his producer from the 1992 America's Cup. Harvey had the foresight to pick up the tactician from the 1988 Big Boat America's Cup Challenge, and dropped him into commentator seat.
Much of Lester's commentary time was spent in a booth in the International Broadcast Centre, commentating live while watching the video feed on a TV monitor - or on occasions a laptop. Not an easy task - and particularly when there is no wind, no racing and not a lot to talk about. In those situations Lester could easily segue into an anecdote about a competitor, the class or event, or something that may have happened earlier in the regatta, which he had explored with the sailor in one of his usual forays into the boat-park.
He often described his approach to sailing commentary as being similar to a test cricket commentary - slower paced, anecdotal and without the screaming commentary which bedevils so many contemporary sailing broadcasts.
In what proved to be his last America's Cup commentary, at the 2024 America's Cup, Lester was positioned on the water in the Kiwi's team's foiling hydrogen boat. It provided him with the ideal broadcast booth - able to look around the course, at the boats and breeze, and he used his sailor's intuition to give his audience tremendous insights - reading the race as it unfolded in front of him, like the top sailor he was, and highlighting the challenges and issues before they became obvious to the shore based team. Sadly his insights were not given the time they deserved, and by the time he was called into the commentary, the race and moment had moved on - so he just flicked to tell his audience what was actually happening.
Peter Lester's other great strength, was being able to draw on his sailing background to discuss the nuances and differences between competitors. He had the gift of the gab, and was able to pick up and explain these obscure technical points to a non-sailing audience, in a way that the boffins could not. He combined the sharp eye of sailing strategist, with feel of a helmsman, along with an analytical sailing brain that could sift the key points, and convey these to his audience with his easy commentary style - easily understood by sailor and non sailor alike.
As with cricket commentary, you don't always have to be right, but you do need to have an opinion or view, and be prepared to back it up - and Peter Lester had a broad and deep wealth of experience on which to base his always cogent perspectives.
After his win in the OK Worlds, at the age of 22yrs, Lester's sailing opportunities opened, and he sailed two Olympic classes - the Soling and Finn. However the New Zealand sailing scene was becoming increasingly crowded and competitive with the rise of other top sailors such as Rick Dodson, Russell Coutts, Murray Jones, Hamish Wilcox, and David Barnes to name but a few.
He sailed in the 1977 One Ton Cup in Auckland, as a helmsman on the Farr centreboarder, Mr Jumpa, skippered by his long-time OK dinghy rival, Graeme Woodroffe. They placed second. Peter Lester was a natural selection as a helmsman/tactician on several offshore keelboat campaigns, including the 1987 Admirals Cup which New Zealand won for its first and only time.
In that event sailed on the notorious Solent, Lester sailed as a helmsman/tactician aboard Propaganda. Brad Butterworth was the other half of the helming team on the Bevan Woolley skippered One Tonner. They were top individual boat in the series, regarded as the World Championship of offshore racing. The NZ Admirals Cup team of that year were awarded the Sir Bernard Fergusson Trophy, making Lester a co-winner of NZ's Yachtsman of the Year.
I sailed with Pete in the 1983 Admirals' Cup, in the former Holland design Wee Willie Winkie, chartered by Ian Gibbs and renamed Swuzzlebubble IV. He was helmsman/tactician in a campaign that involved a lot of boat preparation. Pete was great to sail with. He was always there for the long hours of boat-work. As a sailor he was mostly confined to the back of the boat. "I steer clear of coloured sails", was his retort when invited to come forward and see what it was really like in frontier-land.
Despite his success in many world championships, and classes, Peter Lester is best known for his role, alongside skipper David Barnes, in Michael Fay's "Big Boat" challenge for the 1988 America's Cup. At the time, the 120ft Farr design was the most radical monohull race yacht in the World, and in which there was a very steep learning curve, always with the risk of a structural or rig failure, which would have brought the controversial campaign to a premature end.
After the Big Boat Challenge was decided in the favour of the 65ft multihull, Peter Lester moved into coaching roles, in addition to his new broadcasting career. His first was as High Performance Director for Yachting New Zealand from 1994 until just after the 2004 Olympics. He then took up a more strategic role in the Gulf state of Qatar, charged with getting the fledgling sport of sailing established in the Middle Eastern state.
Peter Lester is survived by Susie, his wife of 40 years and three children.