STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

One approach to the growth of women in the sport is the creation and support of women's keelboat events, where sailors young and old, experienced or not, have the opportunity to experience and excel at all positions.

- MOLLY HUGHES WILMER

AT a recent coed Grandmasters Team Race Regatta, a teammate told me he didn't understand why there were women-only sailboat races as if to say, what's the point? His comment was a brave one in today's "woke" world, but it's something that men and women alike probably think about a lot more than they talk about. Yet it raises a valid conundrum as our predominantly male sport pushes toward wider female inclusion: Why isolate women to their own sideshows when the long-term goal is organic integration across the sport?

As I listened to his comments, many of which I've heard before, I thought about the fact that several signature women's events, like the International Women's Keelboat Regatta and the Santa Maria Cup, are either dead or not as popular as they once were. And later, as I reflected on our discussion, I took stock of our competitors at the Newport Harbor YC Palmer Trophy. Eight of the 54 sailors-15 percent were women.

"It's important to have this dialogue," says Nicole Breault, the first woman to earn St. Francis YC's Yachtsman of the Year. Breault is a one-design champion and currently competing in the revived Women's World Match Racing Tour. "Segregation," she says, "is part of the process of developing a deeper talent pool among women."

And in a coed environment, she adds, women may defer to men to take leadership roles or are simply pushed aside. "When you remove men from a group, women assert themselves more, show more initiative, and don't step back to allow the role to be filled by a man."

Women's racing also offers opportunities that don't always happen on coed teams, says Kim Ganley, rear commodore at New York's Rochester YC and a veteran of the club's women's racing program. "When all women are on a boat, every position is open to a woman," she says. "And when a women's regatta encourages female race officials, the opportunities expand even further."