Anna Merchant returns to PIC Coastal Classic after crossing the Atlantic Ocean - twice
By Suellen Hurling
After crossing the Atlantic twice in the space of a few months, Anna Merchant is coming home to a very different kind of offshore challenge: 119 nautical miles up the New Zealand coast with the people who gave her a start in the sport.
The 27-year-old was part of a team who delivered an IMOC60 from France to New York before racing aboard MSIG Europe with Conrad Colman in The Ocean Race Atlantic back to France, but there will be little time to put her feet up. Her next assignment is the PIC Coastal Classic aboard Steve Mair’s Shaw 12 Clockwork.
Anna is calling this edition of the Coastal her 10th and said that here in New Zealand, she’s more than happy just being another yachtie on the race track. Her recent Atlantic campaign offered a glimpse of a sailing culture unlike anything she had experienced before. In France, offshore racing is woven into everyday life and its sailors are recognised far beyond the dock - over there, if you’re an offshore yachtie, you’re a celebrity.
“The French have so much passion for offshore sailing,” Anna said. “It’s something I haven’t really seen anywhere else. You can be walking through the supermarket wearing your team top and people come up wanting to know everything about the race, what you’re doing and where they can follow it. It is quite crazy.”
For all the scale and excitement of an international campaign, returning to Clockwork carries a meaning of its own.
Steve Mair and several of the boat’s core crew were there for Anna’s first offshore race. They helped teach her the skills that have since taken her across oceans, through major New Zealand races and onto the international stage.
“People are a huge part of it,” she said. “Sailing with Clockwork and Steve, and with a lot of the core members of that team, is special because they are the people I did my first offshore race with.
“They have taught me a lot of what I know. To go and do something on the scale of what I’ve just done, then come back and race with the people who gave me my first opportunity, is pretty special.”
That first offshore experience came aboard Clockwork in the Groupama Race, followed by the delivery home from Nouméa. Anna has since built an increasingly varied résumé spanning match racing, foiling and offshore competition. Clockwork has built an impressive record of its own. The boat won line honours in the 2026 Three Kings Offshore Race, trimming more than four minutes from the previous race record. Anna has raced around the Three Kings twice and has also logged plenty of miles in the Gold Cup series and has raced around the North Island of New Zealand two handed with her partner, Aaron Hume-Merry.
Ask what keeps pulling her offshore and Merchant admits it can be difficult to explain to anyone who has not experienced it.
“Some people completely understand it and some people look at you and think you’re actually crazy,” she said.
“There’s something about the challenge. You love to hate it. When it’s good, the feeling is something you really can’t get anywhere else. When it’s bad, you push through it and forget about it pretty soon afterwards, because the rest of it is almost unexplainable.
“When you’re out there, nothing else really matters. You’re just present, and you never know what the next challenge will be. There’s something special about it that I don’t think you get anywhere else.”
This year’s Coastal Classic could test that affection for a challenge. The forecast is for light conditions, raising the prospect of a long, slow race north rather than the high-speed sprint the front of the fleet would prefer.
Clockwork’s crew discussed the forecast before confirming they were all willing to commit. With several sailors preparing for their first Coastal Classic, the answer was yes.
“Obviously, it’s going to be slow and long for a Coastal,” Anna said. “We’ll have to take breakfast for Saturday morning, something we haven’t had to do for a long time! But we’ll make sure we have good chat and good tunes, and try to enjoy it as much as we can.”
There will be stories from Steve, whom Anna nominates as the crew member most likely to produce the best one-liners, and biltong for the small hours when something savoury beats another sugary snack.
It may be a world away from the spectacle of an Atlantic finish in France, but that is precisely the point. The Coastal Classic is home waters with a boat full of people who have shared Anna’s journey from the beginning.
For all the latest, visit www.coastalclassic.co.nz
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