Twins in a 29er!

“We just got into the 29er,” says Lilly, the eldest (by about ten minutes).

The have been sailing the boat for two months and recognise it is a difficult class to get skilled at. Particularly as next year is the final year of high school. Lilly wants to study medicine, Matilda psychology.

We all get the deal with twins, right? The look the same, have similar personalities, hobbies and passions. Right?

Wrong. “We started (sailing) at the same time but I hated it,” Lily explains. So she boycotted it. “Dad kept shoving me back in my Opti until … I wasn’t so scared.

“I think I got a little bit jealous of Tilda sailing and I wasn’t there.”

Their father no longer sails. “He just likes to come out and watch us.”

Which leads to the obvious question. Who is in charge? Sailing involves a leader and a follower but with the Richardson twins seniority doesn’t always win out.

“I crewed the 420 and now I steer the 29er,” Lilly explains. Veterans of two youth worlds, they are thinking ahead to 49ers. “It definitely been planned out,” Lilly says.

But the duo are not afraid to mix it up. Originally, Matilda crewed the 420. “I just got a bit sick of Lilly being in control all the time. So it was decided that I would take over.”

Matilda says they are probably more competitive against each other.

“We have had to learn to use our competitiveness and put it together to have a greater outcome.”

And it is here, when things go wrong out on the water, that the twins admit that there are differences between them.

“That’s were we have really learnt where we are different,” Matilda says.” We handle pressured situations differently. We have had to recognise each other’s differences and how we like to approach situations.”

Lilly agrees. “When things go wrong as they often do when you are racing we do turn into opposites.

“We take different approaches most of the time in how we deal with things but we have learnt to use that in a constructive way.”

“We can use our opposites to form one pretty good whole.”