Len French

Office

Portfolios held – Branch Relations, Safety Officer (North Island)

Immediate Past Chairman of Central Districts Branch, Jet Boating NZ.

Resides:

In Eastern Wairarapa with my wife Sherree. We have five adult children and two grandchildren.

First Boat:

Burling flat bottom, steel hulled boat with Buick V8

Current Boats:

Alexcraft 4.4 with 490HP Chev LS3 and Scott 852 jet unit

About Len:

For me the attraction to jet boating is a combination of the challenge of the shallows on gravel rivers, but then taking on the even bigger challenge of negotiating the large rocks and pressure waves of the white water rivers in the knowledge that at any time you are only about two seconds away from total disaster if you get it wrong.

Having been a farmer in the eastern Wairarapa all my life, I enjoy the outdoors and also really appreciate the amazing scenery that some of our adventures allow us to experience. Along with this, the other bonus of our sport is the huge variety of amazing people we meet along our way.   When on the river, we all let down our guard and we are equal no matter what our background or means.

I enjoy sharing my sport and adventures with my wife Sherree (second mid life crisis) who despite her very limited experience is very capable behind the wheel and also shares the same very aggressive driving style. She has been known to win events, upstaging very experienced competitors although it is somewhat scary being her co-driver.

Passion:

In my term I am keen to help continue the great works of organisation while also investigating how we can communicate better with our members. There are still a lot of jet boaters who aren’t members, whether by choice or ignorance, and don’t understand the important role we play.  To be able to continue the fantastic growth in membership of recent years, we need to continually look at whether we are catering for the needs of all boaters.  A stronger organisation will allow us to better serve our members in working towards guarantee the ability for us to enjoy the rivers, lakes and scenery of our beautiful country.