MERGING SKILLS AND DRIVE: MATT KELWAY IS CUTTING HIS PATH AT NORTH SAILS
Kelway embodies Lowell North’s ethos that successful sailors evolve into successful business people
“He’s a great competitor. He’s one of the best bowmen in the world. He's got the skills, he's got the racing focus, he's got the drive to win, to do better, to improve every day. And being a bowman and working within North Sails is kind of unique because he brings a different skillset to the feedback he provides. He's very orientated on sail handling and sail durability.” The speaker was Paul Westlake, VP and Grand Prix Sales Leader and the topic was Matt Kelway, Sails Expert at the Auckland North Sails loft in New Zealand.
Westlake was picking up on what’s different about Matt Kelway’s role with the company – he’s working in a sales position that would normally be taken by a driver, trimmer or tactician, and not just doing it well, but doing it brilliantly. “This is about an evolution of the way we do business, and here's a guy who's showing it can be done. It’s a paradigm shift to what we've done historically,” concluded Westlake.
📸 Carlo Borlenghi
Matt Kelway’s story starts in Auckland, New Zealand, where he was born and grew up. By the time he was four years old he was already day-tripping and racing out of Bucklands Beach Yacht Club on the family boat. He graduated to an Optimist, and then a local single-hander called the Starling. “I did that for a couple of years,” explained Kelway, “one of the key moments was that my coach was Andrew Wills -- Willzy.”
Andrew Wills is Sales Manager for the North Sails Auckland loft, and after Kelway finished racing the Starling at 17, he did a lot of sailing with Wills in a multitude of local and international classes. “I really became Willzy’s bowman those next few years,” he commented. “He was at North when I finished Uni [in 2007] and he got me in the door with North Sails. So, if I hadn't met Willzy, none of this would've happened.”
Kelway was studying for a business degree in Management, Tourism and Finance, and the degree required a three-month external placement with a business. Andrew Wills thought that Kelway could help with the loft’s scheduling and operations systems, and worked with Richard Bicknell, GM at North’s Auckland loft, to arrange a three-month trial employment. Kelway stayed on, and became instrumental in the installation, set-up and use of a new scheduling system.
“We worked really, really hard at the loft over those next couple of years on our whole workflow, our systems, our machinery... We turned the loft from a company that was around 35% efficient to almost 95% efficient,” said Kelway.
During that time, senior management were often off-site for everything from America’s Cup to round the world projects, so Kelway had plenty of opportunity to learn and step into other aspects of the business. He never stopped sailing though, and it was after meeting mainsail trimmer Marco Constant at a Melges 32 regatta in San Francisco, that he got invited to join the crew of the RC44 Katusha. He sailed with them for three years.
“I got to sail with Russell Coutts, Brad Butterworth, Francesco Bruni, all the top guys. And then you meet all the other pro racers, pro bowman and pro trimmers like Robbie Naismith. Robbie’s been a big help to me right through my career. So that class was a huge, huge stepping stone for me really in terms of an international network,” said Kelway. Another introduction, this time at the loft in NZ, led to him joining Gavin Brady as bowman for Team Beau Geste’s 52 and 80 footers, winning ORC World Championships in 2018 and 2022, as well as multihull sailing in the MOD70.
Meanwhile, North Sails was consolidating and restructuring into a single, more efficient global business. Kelway’s skills and know-how in supply chain, logistics and operations were going to be in high demand, but not in New Zealand. He was offered a position in the UK. “I was really interested in that and looked at it quite seriously. I was actually going through the Visa application…” It was then that fate intervened with an invitation to race on the SY Visione in Bermuda.
“I remember sitting on Visione with Roo Stevenson who's the boat captain and explaining about the new job. And he said, ‘Come do some sailing. We'll get you some events… you can do your business stuff when you're old, and then go back in the office.’ So, when I went into a meeting with Kenny [Ken Read, North Sails President], I said I wanted to carry on with the sailing bit and what can we do?”
Meanwhile, others at North were also having second thoughts, realizing that Kelway’s future might lie elsewhere in the short-term. “It was Jens Christiansen that said. ‘He should be doing sales just by virtue of the fact that he's on the boats, he's on boats all the time, and he's organized and efficient,’” explained Magnus Doole, New Zealand-based Sail Designer, who’s worked and still works with Kelway on many projects.
So, by the time Matt sat down with Richard Bicknell and Ken Read for a meeting on his future, during that Bermuda regatta, there was a new plan. “They said, ‘look, no, we're not going to do the UK thing, you'll stay in New Zealand and you're going to move into a sales role, doing a lot of project work with North Sails Grand Prix clients.’ That totally reshaped what I ended up doing for the next eight years,” said Kelway.
Moving into a sales role was a big change from the back-office to a customer-facing position. There was a lot to learn. “Shifting into sales was a big step. It was a lot of studying,” said Kelway. At the time, he was sailing with Gavin Brady on the MOD70 Beau Geste and that became his first project. He was also aboard US owner Jim Swartz’s Vesper for a few seasons, getting a win in Mini Maxi 1 at the Maxi Worlds in 2022.
📸 Andrea Francolini
It was in 2021 that Paul Westlake guided Kelway back into the RC44 class, working with Robert Hook as the sail designer. “We went around talking to the teams and really found out all the stuff we needed to work on… We've spent the last couple years chipping away in that class and just working really hard on designs and working with the teams. And now we've got a lot more market share back in that fleet, which is huge,” explained Kelway.
“He's very, very focused,” said Westlake. “He understands the balance between what the business requires and what the customer requires. He manages the whole RC44 class for us. He manages all the sales activity, the sailmaking support services at the regattas… He goes to a couple of events a year for us, the key events when decision-making is happening. He's the man on the ground that everybody knows and respects.
“Traditionally, we used to have one salesman for each RC 44 program. If you go back a bit, to the Farr 40, or Mumm 36 days, we might have 20 salesmen dealing with 40 boats, and then we'd have to try and corral all those orders together. So, this model with one person handling a whole fleet is much more efficient and less error-prone. It won’t extend to everything, but I think applying this same model to the Club Swan classes is part of the reason for our success at the Swan Worlds this year. We won each of the classes, the 36, the 42, and the 50. I think it's the first time we've had a clean sweep.
“Production and shipping logistics is a challenge for a global business like ours now, with the 30,000 plus sails that we sell a year,” continued Westlake. “We have to get them all around the planet from our various manufacturing sites. It's a real challenge. And Matt has this unique ability to be able to deal with these complexities for the top pros in the industry. They listen to him, they respect him, and he can sort their problems out for them.”
Matt Kelway’s latest project is the Wally 100 V (originally called Tango), he was in Mexico at a friend’s wedding when he got the call from Ken Read. Kelway was soon in France, putting the boat together for their first regatta. “We put some new sails on and basically that was the start of V racing, the V 100. And that has pretty much consumed my life for the last two years.” A busy 2024 season included a win in Maxi 1 Class at the IMA Maxi European Championships in Sorrento, Italy.
📸 Loro Piana / Studio Borlenghi
“He was always a well-respected bowman,” commented Magnus Doole, “but from a project management point of view, both within and outside North Sails, he’s become a very well- respected professional being for what he does and what he achieves.”
Looking ahead, Matt Kelway still has ambitions, “I haven't done a Fastnet Race yet. I want to do a Transpac… I want to chip away on those things when the opportunities come… The other thing I'd really like to get into is trying to help a lot of the other Kiwi guys, the young guys coming through, to get opportunities… help them onto the world stage.”
And professionally? “Maybe down the track… switch out of the sales side, and eventually come full circle and back to the operations side… I think about how that could work, or what that picture might look like because it's been a huge company for me. I've been with them 17 years now.” And judging by the views of his colleagues, managers and peers, Matt Kelway will be with North Sails for many, many more.
