Kendall was born in Papakura on 30 August 1967, the daughter of Tony and Peggy Kendall.[1] She was raised in the Auckland suburb of Bucklands Beach and attended Macleans College. She won a gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, a silver medal in 1996 (in Atlanta, Georgia), and a bronze medal in 2000 (in Sydney). Kendall finished 5th at the 2004 Games in Athens and sixth at the 2008 Games in Beijing. She was the first, and as of 2008, the only woman from New Zealand to compete at five Olympic Games.

In 1998, she had founded Gulf Harbour School on the coast of Auckland. In 2008, she returned and created a mural for the school.

Kendall was the Oceania athletes' representative on the International Olympic Committee from 2005 to 2008, having replaced Susie O'Neill who resigned in 2005 (Kendall was the athlete from the same continent who had received the next highest number of votes for the commission), and was on the New Zealand Olympic Committee Athletes Commission until 2008. In July 2011, she was elected as a member of the International Olympic Committee and the IOC Athletes' Commission and sat on the Women and Sport Commission and Sport and the Environment Commission until August 2016.

Kendall's brother Bruce is also an Olympic Gold medallist. They are the first brother and sisters to have achieved this feat for New Zealand.

Kendall officially retired from competitive board sailing in May 2010.