The hunger driving Kiwi great

New Zealand yachting great Jo Aleh keeps taking her skills to a new level, yet she still wants more.

The 36-year-old took an Olympics cycle off after winning gold and silver at the London and Rio Games in the 470 class with Polly Powrie who she also shared five world championship medals with.

But Aleh is back having a crack at the 2024 Paris Olympics, switching to the 49erfx with Molly Meech.

Aleh’s insatiable appetite also has her in the thick of the foiling action where opportunities keep opening for women sailors.

Adept on a Moth or a wing foil board, Aleh is part of the Live Ocean women’s team run by

Peter Burling and Blair Tuke that sail in the EFT26 foiling catamaran circuit in Europe.

She’s also been added to the New Zealand Sailgp squad, also run by Burling and Tuke, where she had instant success, getting on board as strategist for the breakthrough win in Plymouth and helping them to a podium effort at the last regatta in St Tropez.

Aleh also has her sights set on the 2024 women’s America’s Cup in Barcelona.

For now, her focus is Sailgp with New Zealand looking to continue a successful European campaign in Cadiz, Spain, this weekend.

It’s been a year since Sailgp implemented the start of their gender equality programme, insisting teams had one female crew member. The global league has pledged to increase training and racing opportunities for women to give ‘‘the best athletes equal opportunity to compete on the F50’’.

Aleh is loving Sailgp, but you can also sense a frustration that more chances aren’t available. Time is crucial to getting familiar with these complicated foiling catamarans and training time is severely limited for all teams, which adds to the struggles to get the eager women sailors up to speed.

New Zealand Sailgp also have a large and talented women’s group – Aleh is in the mix with Liv Mackay and Erica Dawson as they get rotated through regattas. This weekend the wider squad also includes Meech and Alex Maloney.

‘‘I’m loving it,’’ Aleh says from Cadiz. ‘‘The good thing with Plymouth and St Tropez is I’ve tried all the equipment now . . . the big wing, the small wing, the fast foils, the slow foils. I’ve tried everything once.

‘‘But it’s just really hard to get the hours up because we are so limited for time.

‘‘It’s still early steps in the process. I’ve done a lot of other sailing . . . there hasn’t been these sorts of opportunities in the past.

‘‘Sailgp are opening the door a little bit, but obviously it is still pretty limited. You have one girl on the boat and there are not many opportunities to get on the boat.

‘‘It’s a really good step in the right direction. It’s just a little bit hard at the moment to see how it is going to translate into enough time to getting the experience for what we want, which is being able to sail these boats as well as any of the guys.

‘‘That’s the hard part. These are such unique boats, you just need time in those roles, and we just don’t have it.

‘‘Even the guys and the team itself, they don’t have enough time in the boat. So there is no real way to start bringing in new people or to start training us up.

‘‘They do a good job of trying, we definitely get some time in those positions. But it’s pretty hard until there is some other way to really close that gap.’’

Aleh insists women are capable of filling the three roles outside of the two grinding positions in Sailgp and believes that is applicable to other foiling boats.

‘‘The way the boats are going is a much lower physical element which is better for us, it takes away one of those barriers, now it’s just experience and time,’’ she said.

But every regatta is a learning process in other areas. Aleh isn’t likely to be on the Kiwi Sailgp boat this weekend, but she will be helping from the sidelines, and soaking up everything around her.

She loves the team’s philosophy as she mixes it up with multiple America’s Cup winners and Olympic stars, most of whom she has been in New

Zealand teams with from her dinghy days.

‘‘Knowing these guys for a long time now, it’s still pretty cool . . . it’s not just about winning or the result, it’s about the process. There is always more to work on. I think they’ve done some really good work over the last six months building to where we are now. You can see the learning curve.’’

The New Zealand progression, especially over the last three or four regattas, has pushed the team up to second behind Australia on a tight points table.

Aleh has a lot to juggle but still wants more.

‘‘Yeah, I’m busy, but I like being busy.’’

With the AC40 launched and tested successfully by Team New Zealand this week, Aleh is eager to be part of the historic women’s America’s Cup that will be sailed in those half-scale foiling monohulls in Barcelona.

‘‘The women’s America’s Cup regatta would be a bit of a dream come true,’’ she admits.

‘‘The AC40 just looks incredible. To spread that around a few of us who never thought it was possible . . . to figure how to sail them and keep progressing our own sailing knowledge into those sorts of boats. I think it’s incredible, really awesome, what they’ve done and what they are going to do.’’

With just four women on board and a small sailing squad, places will be tight. It would be hard to see Aleh, with all her skills and experience, not involved. It’s why she is so determined to improve her foiling skills whenever and wherever she can.

‘‘If I’m on the top of my game, I would hope to be in there, I definitely want to be involved,’’ she said with the sort of confidence and determination that have made her a champion sailor.