Sailing

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married John Rackham and the pair led a pirate life. ... another woman, Mary Read, who joined Anne and John Rackham in piracy. ..... McClintock, Kristan.
International Encyclopedia of Women and Sports Edited by Karen Christensen, Allen Guttman, and Gertrud Pfister This is a sample article, not finalized for publication, and is provided for personal review purposes only. Transmittal or reproduction in any form is not permissible. Enquiries to [email protected]. © Berkshire Publishing Group LLC 2004

By Shirley H. M. Reekie Sailing as a sport developed from a form of transportation that uses the action of the wind on sails to drive a vessel across the water. Superstition and folklore have long held that to have a woman on board ship was to court disaster. Added to the usual arguments against women participating in sport of any type, it is perhaps not surprising that women have faced difficulty gaining acceptance in some branches of the sport, notably among the larger racing yachts. They have nevertheless long participated in sailing. Sailing is a sport of great contrasts. Officially called “yachting” by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), sailing is one of very few sports in which men and women can and do compete together, yet despite having so documented their abilities, women’s sailing has generated various controversies. Club sailboat races often have children competing with adults, and ablebodied sailors alongside those with disabilities, yet true elite competition is indeed a restricted group. On light days, sailing can be very relaxing, providing one is not trying to race, and yet on stormy days, especially under racing conditions, the sport can provide an extremely tough physical challenge. Unlike most other sports, one can truly enjoy sailing without being competitive by taking pleasure in being outside and enjoying the often beautiful nature of the sport and its surroundings. In competition, however, sailing can be deadly earnest. The sport can be a cooperative team activity, with a crew working together, or it can provide the ultimate individual challenge, as lone sailors take on huge expanses of water.

History

The first sailboat was probably a raft-like structure with a simple mast and single sail hanging from it. Such a boat could sail adequately with the wind but neither across nor at an acute angle to it. Most societies living beside water developed their own craft, using local materials. The peoples of the ancient Middle East built reed boats around 3500 BCE, and later built dhows; the Greeks and Romans developed galleys, using sails and slave-powered oars, around 1000 BCE. The Chinese had the distinctive junk rig from approximately 300 BCE, and the Vikings probably used their rigged longboats to reach what is today called North America around 700 CE. The sport of sailing, as distinct from the form of transportation, probably began in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Because the large early racing boats were so costly to buy and maintain, sailing was initially a sport only of the wealthy. In the 1660s, a race was held in London between King Charles II’s boat and one owned by the Duke of York. The first regatta was organized by the Water Club of Cork, Ireland, in 1720. Until the late nineteenth century, when small boats began to be produced, the sport of sailing remained the province of the rich. Before they were mass produced, each was distinctive enough to require that it be rated by a complex formula to permit meaningful racing against dissimilar vessels. Various formulas were used, but the rating system gave rise to the names of some of the early classes - a “Half Rater” or - as a result of the formula - a “6-meter” or “12-meter.” In the last hundred years the sport has developed several branches: racing (both in small, relatively inexpensive, dinghies and large keelboats), speed trialing, and cruising. Sailing became an Olympic sport in the second Olympic Games of 1900. While some boats remain at sea for months or even years at a time, most boats are sailed within sight of land, and are launched each time they sail. Ocean racing, in which the larger boats compete offshore, began in 1866 when three boats raced across the Atlantic. Henrietta beat Vesta and Fleetwing in a close race. The crews of the time were professional seamen. In the 1920s, amateur sailors took over and because the sport was contested in the open sea, often hundreds of miles offshore, it was considered to be

dangerous. Virtually no women were involved in offshore racing at that time. To encourage women in the United States, in 1924 the Mrs. Charles Francis Adams trophy was donated for women in keelboat racing, and this trophy is still raced for today.

The First Women Sailors Among the first women known to have sailed were a few female pirates. Alvilda, a Goth pirate from southern Sweden, went to sea to escape an arranged marriage and took with her an allfemale crew. In the time of the seventeenth century, due to the relative inefficiency of sailing rigs (their mast and sail configuration), boats of all sizes had often to be rowed, making the exclusively female nature of the crew all the more remarkable. Around the same time, off the south west coast of England, it is known that when the men of the villages were press-ganged into King Henry VIII’s navy, the women took over their fishing smacks and continued to make a living for their families. During the eighteenth century, several women disguised themselves as men and ran away to sea for a variety of reasons. The most famous female pirates date also from this time. Anne Bonney, the daughter of a wealthy Irish lawyer who had immigrated to what was then known as Carolina, married a man of whom her father disapproved and was disinherited by him. She and her husband fled to try to make a living in the Bahamas. Following a divorce in 1719, Anne married John Rackham and the pair led a pirate life. On board one of the ships they captured was another woman, Mary Read, who joined Anne and John Rackham in piracy. They were briefly successful but in 1720 their own boat was boarded, Anne and Mary were taken prisoner, tried, and sentenced to death for piracy.

Women Sailors in the America’s Cup The female sailors who have received the greatest recent publicity were those assembled by the America3 Foundation to try out for an all-women’s crew in the America’s Cup of 1995. They were not the first women to participate in this event, however. The America’s Cup, which began life as the Hundred Guinea Cup because that is what it cost to make in 1851, was first raced

around the Isle of Wight, off the coast of southern England. All except one of the competing yachts were British; the exception was the schooner, America. After an all-day race, America won the race and the trophy that later came to bear her name. No women were part of any of these crews, and it was not until 1895 that the first woman participated in an America’s Cup race. Her name was Hope Goddard Iselin and she acted as timekeeper then and also in 1899 and 1903 when the American defender boat was successful every time. In 1934 and 1937, there was a woman on board both the defender and challenger yachts. Phyllis Brodie Gordon Sopwith and Gertrude Vanderbilt were both timekeepers for their respective husbands. During these years, the position of timekeeper was especially crucial because the boats were then so large (around 40 meters compared to today’s boats that measure around 20 meters) that it could take around forty seconds to gybe a boat. In 1934 Sis Morrs Hovey also was a timekeeper on one of the boats in the trials. Christy Crawford was backup navigator on Dennis Conner’s boats in 1980 and 1983, and Dory Vogel was backup navigator in Conner’s 1987-8 campaign. In 1992 Dawn Riley was pitman (sail packer below decks) aboard America3. By this time, the America’s Cup format had become what it remains today: a defender series in which any number of boats from the previously victorious country compete in trials for the right to defend the Cup, and a challenger series in which boats from any other country compete for the right to challenge the defender. Both series are sailed as match races, with only two boats in any race, in a round robin format. Following Bill Koch’s success in winning the America’s Cup in 1992 in America3, he announced that he would put together an all-women’s crew to race for the right to defend the Cup in 1995. His reasoning was that women had traditionally not been given a fair chance to show what they could achieve in big boat racing and he hoped that when an all-women’s crew did well, their accomplishment might help to change that thinking. Some people immediately wrote off the idea and the crew as having no hope because they believed women lacked sufficient strength. They certainly lacked Cup experience, exactly what Koch was trying to reverse. The tryouts

attracted nearly 700 women, however, and most women had either a background in sailing or were either Olympic-level rowers or endurance athletes. From this group, twenty-eight women were selected as the pool to sail aboard Mighty Mary. One of the most notable was Jennifer “J.J.” Isler (1965-), 1992 women’s 470-class Olympic bronze medal winner and former Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year. As well as being the first woman to skipper on the international match racing circuit, she had also formerly been the first woman captain of the Yale University sailing team. Dawn Riley (1965-) had been a member of the 1989-1990 all-women’s team in the Whitbread Round the World Race, skippered the allwomen’s team in the 1993-1994 race, and was the only woman to have had previous America’s Cup experience. Debbie (1970->) and Katie (1973-) Pettibone, sisters, grew up sailing on the Great Lakes, where their mother and grandmother also sailed and raced. Annie Nelson (1960-) held fifteen national and international sailing titles. She also directed national racing clinics and windsurfed seventy miles in one day to cross Peru’s Lake Titicaca. Linda Lindquist (1963-) had been a member of the first all-women’s crew to compete in the Newport-Bermuda race in 1992. Following nine months of twelve-hour-a-day, six day-a-week training, this crew (with the last minute addition, after much soul-searching, of Dave Dellenbaugh as tacticianironically the one position where strength is not a necessity) did well in the defender trials, eventually and somewhat controversially just losing out to Dennis Conner’s boat for the right to defend the Cup against New Zealand.

Women in Long-Distance Sailing There are many notable long-distance sailing firsts. The first woman to sail across the Atlantic single-handed was Anne Davison of Great Britain who left Plymouth, England, in May 1952 in her 7-meter (23 feet) sloop Felicity Ann. Women sailed singled-handed around the world for the first time in 1977 when three women made successful individual efforts: Krystyna ChojnowskaLiskiewwicz of Poland sailed her 9.5-meter Mazurek westward around the world via the Panama Canal from Las Palmas; Naomi James (1949-), a British resident originally of New Zealand,

sailed from Dartmouth, England in her 16-meter Express Crusader around all five southern capes (to the south of New Zealand’s South Cape, Australia’s South East Cape and Cape Leeuwin, South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, and South America’s Cape Horn); and Brigitte Oudry of France circumnavigated via three capes in her 10.5-meter boat, Gea. (Joshua Slocum [18441909], born in Nova Scotia, had been the first man to do so in 1895 aboard his 11.2-meter (36 feet Spray.) His counterclockwise voyage, using the prevailing winds, took three years and was the subject of the famous book, Sailing Alone Around the World. The first woman to sail alone around the world without stopping was Kay Cottee of Australia in her 11.5-meter Blackmore’s First Lady, taking 189 days in 1988. (The nonstop feat had first been accomplished in 1969 by Robin Knox-Johnson who took 313 days.) In 1990, Florence Arthaud, in a 18-meters trimaran, Pierre Premier, set a single-handed west-to-east transAtlantic record. In offshore racing, Clare Francis (1946-) wrote of her adventures in Woman Alone: Sailing Solo Across the Atlantic. In 1976 she had been the first British woman to complete the Observer Singlehanded Transatlantic Race. The race started on 6 June and she finished on 4 July. Prior to this, she had completed the Round Britain Race in 1974, finishing third, and in 19771978 she was the first woman skipper of a boat in the Whitbread Round the World Race. In blue water cruising, as contrasted with racing or record setting, multiple women have helped to popularize the sport. Susan and Eric Hiscock of Great Britain in 1955 completed a three-year round-the-world voyage in their 9-meter Wanderer III, and they later repeated the circumnavigation twice more. Lin and Larry Pardy of Canada have cruised around the world in their 7-meter boat Seraffyn. Between 1968 and 1980 they completed an eastward circumnavigation that they wrote about in Cruising in Seraffyn.

Olympic Competition Sailing was first an event of the Olympic Summer Games in France in 1900. No women participated that year and the event was not held in St. Louis in 1904. In 1908, however, Frances

Rivett-Carnac of Great Britain took part in the only 7-meter class entry, with her husband. While most of the Olympic events took place in London, the yachting was divided between Ryde, on the Isle of Wight (site of the first America’s Cup race in 1851) and the Clyde Estuary in Scotland. She thus became the first Olympic yachtswoman. No other woman participated until 1928 when Virginie Heriot of France won gold in the 8-meter class among a field of eight boats. She was therefore the first woman to win a gold medal in contested Olympic competition. Several women have competed in the open sailing classes since then. For example, in the 1984 Tornado class event, Paul Elvstrom of Denmark made an unprecedented seventh appearance in the Olympic Games. This time, at age fifty-six, he entered with his daughter, Trine, and came fourth. In 1988 they also participated but did not win a medal. In 1988 the first women-only class competed at the Games. This was in the 470-dinghy class, a two-person boat. The event was won by Allison Jolly and Lynn Jewell of the United States, with M. Soderstrom and B. Bengtsson of Sweden in the silver medal position, and L. Moskalenko and I. Tchounikhovskaia of the Soviet Union winning the bronze medal. In 1992 a women’s class was added to the board sailing event, and a single-handed class for women only, the Europe, was also added. The 470 winners were Theresa Zabell and Patricia Guerra of Spain, followed by Leslie Egnot and Janet Shearer of New Zealand in second place and J.J. Isler and Pamela Healy of the United states in third place. The Europe class was won by Linda Andersen of Norway with Natalia via Dufresne of Spain and Julia Trotman of the United States taking second and third respectively. In 1996 the total Olympic sailing events were the Europe (single-handed women), Finn (single-handed men), Laser (open), 470 (women), 470 (men), sailboard (women), sailboard (men), Soling (open keelboat), Star (open keelboat), and Tornado catamaran (open). Thus there are now three events specifically for women, three specifically for men, and four are open to both men and women although the Laser tends to favor people who are taller and heavier than most women. In 1996, in the 470 class, gold went to Theresa Zabell (1965-) and Begona via Dufresne (1971-) of Spain, silver to Yumiko Shige (1965-) and Alicia Kinoshita (1967-) of Japan,

and bronze to Ruslana Taran (1970-) and Olena Pakholchik (1964-) of the Ukraine. The Europe class was won by Kristine Roug (1975-) of Denmark, with Margriet Matthysse (1977-) of the Netherlands second and Courtenay Becker-Dey (1965-) of the United States third.

Women-Only Events A controversial point which women sailors are currently debating is whether the recent increase in the number of sailing events specifically for women helps to encourage women in the sport. Until 1988 all Olympic sailing was open to either gender. In general terms, with most men tending to be taller and heavier than most women, this gave an advantage in some classes to men. In the Laser class, for example, the advantage goes to the sailor who weighs around 165 pounds and is tall enough to exert the leverage needed to keep the boat upright in windy conditions. In the Finn class, even taller and heavier sailors predominate. It was for these reasons that womenonly classes were introduced. In 1988 the 470 class (a two person centerboard dinghy) was split into a men’s and a women’s event. In 1992 a women’s single hander, the Europe, was introduced alongside the men’s single hander, the Finn. The ideal weight for Europe sailors is between 100 and 170 pounds. The different men’s and women’s and combined events listed above for 1996 will remain in effect in 2000, except that the 49er, a high performance (open) dinghy class will replace the Star. Discussions were held about adding a women’s match racing event in which only two boats compete together (similar to the America’s Cup format) rather than fleet racing but this will not be added, at least for 2000. Clearly, however, the trend at the highest level is toward more races segregated by gender. On one side, segregation ensures that the numbers of female competitors grow in comparison to the numbers of male competitors. The fact that greater numbers of women see that there are chances for them in the sport has given women’s sailing a boost. And all-women’s crews such as that of the Mighty Mary in the America’s Cup showed that women are just as capable as men at mounting formidable challenges to male teams. The fact that so few women

had been involved in this race before indicates that Mighty Mary probably did give women greater opportunities to excel, and that there will likely be a trickle down effect to all keelboat racing as the old prejudices against women are discounted. On the other hand, there is a danger that women may begin to evaluate themselves only against other women, and not in open competition. If this happens, instead of raising the level of women’s sailing, if women are content only to race among themselves, then they are not likely to continue to challenge men for the very highest achievements in sailing. Furthermore, in some cases it makes more sense to mix male and female crews. For example, the ideal size for the person steering in the 470 class is between 5’5” and 5’10”, and 125 to 140 lb., and for the crew it is between 5’10” and 6’2”, and 135 to 150 lb. Ironically, this was the first class to be segregated by gender at the Olympic Games. In a 1992 survey conducted by Sailing World magazine, 79 percent of the women respondents indicated they wanted more women-only events. Regarding how women are treated on board, 61 percent of the women said they thought women are treated differently than men, while 59 percent of the men said they thought women are treated equally.

Other Accomplishments Another branch of sailing is the setting of speed records. In 1988, at Les Saintes Maries in France, Bridgette Gimenez of France set the women’s speed record of 37.26 kilometers per hour at a time when the men’s speed record was 40.33 kph. Other sailing-related ventures in which women have excelled include founding and managing sailing schools, and becoming top class photographers of sailing events. Examples include Patience Wales, the editor of Sail magazine, one of North America’s major sailing periodicals, and Elizabeth Meyer who, in 1989, completed a $10 million repair of Endeavour, a J class ex-America’s Cup boat, raced by “Tommie” and Phyllis Sopwith in the 1934 event. Women have also been involved in the design of boats for many years. For example, the oldest centerboard boat in the world that is still racing is the 4-meter clinker/lapstrake (overlapping

plank construction) Water Wag class from Ireland, which was redesigned in 1900 by Mamie Doyle, the daughter of the original designer.

Rules and Play Most boats today have a single mast, with one or more jib sails in front, and a mainsail. Some of the most popular dinghies in the world today are the child’s Optimist (7 feet 6 inches), the Mirror, Sunfish, 420, 5-0-5 (all monohulls), and the various sizes of Hobiecat catamaran, or twin-hulled boat. Each of these latter is between ten and sixteen feet long, and are either trailed to the beach or left on it overnight. Sailboat races are unlike most other races in that all competitors - that is, the boats - are moving about before the start. There is a countdown and all boats vie for the most favorable position at the start, maneuvering to be exactly on the line, going as fast as possible when the starting gun sounds. Thereafter, they race around a predetermined course that usually involves sailing on all the different points of sailing relative to the wind direction. In most club level races, there is no referee on the water. All boats are expected to keep to the rules, and if one thinks another has not done so, either inadvertently or otherwise, the only remedy is to protest (indicated by flying a small flag on board). Where once boats were only able to sail with the wind blowing in the same direction as they wished to go, sailboats may now go effectively anywhere, relative to the wind. Thus they may start on a beat, or close-hauled course, when their sails are pulled in tight to the line of the boat and the wind is at approximately 45 degrees to their heading. By the action of the wind’s forces on the sails, and using the underwater keel or centerboard fin to counteract sideways thrust, a boat is able to make progress upwind by tacking, or zigzagging, back and forth. This is the point of sailing that requires the most skill to do well, because the wind is always changing both its direction and its speed. Because these zigzags take boats on many different courses to a marker buoy, it is very difficult to watch sailboat racing and know who is leading. This may be one reason why the professional sailing circuit gets relatively little coverage on television, although with the use of

microcameras high up the mast, exciting action shots have become possible. When the wind blows across the boat’s heading, she (boats are always referred to as being female) is said to be on a reach and the sails are about halfway out. When the boat sails with the wind, she is said to be running; the sails are all the way out to catch the maximum amount of wind and often a colorful extra sail, a spinnaker, is set at the front, or bow, to make the boat go faster. Boats may turn in one of two directions. If, during the course of the turn, the bow heads into the wind, the boat has tacked or come about; if at some point in the turn the back, or stern of the boat points into the wind, the boat is said to have gybed (jibed), or “worn ship” in the old days. A boat is steered by either a wheel or a tiller that is attached to a fin called a rudder that projects into the water from the stern. To stop, a boat must either be headed into the wind so that the sails no longer contain the wind’s power but flap like a flag, or the sails may be let out to achieve the same result of flapping, or luffing, sails. There are many rules that govern racing, the three most fundamental are: (a) a boat with the wind blowing over her left or port side, being said to be on port tack, must give way to a boat with the wind blowing over her starboard or right side; (b) when boats are on the same tack, the one behind must give way to the one ahead; and (c) when boats are on the same tack, a boat which is to windward, or closer to the source of the wind, must give way to a boat which is to leeward, or downwind, of her. Any boat that hits a buoy on the course must do one 360-degree turn to absolve herself; a boat that acknowledges being in the wrong and hits another boat must do two 360-degree turns before continuing in the race.

Conclusion The days when women were believed to bring bad luck with them when they boarded a vessel are long over. Sailing is one of very few Olympic sports (the others being equestrian and various shooting events) in which men and women can and do compete in open competition. Unlike many other sports, in some classes of sailing it is realistic to have men and women compete

together. On the other hand, many women enjoy women-only events, and have demonstrated that women-only teams can compete against all-male teams and win. Bibliography Doherty, John S. (1985) The Boats They Sailed In. NY: Norton. Francis, Clare. (1977) Woman Alone: Sailing Solo across the Atlantic. NY: McKay. Johnson, Peter. (1989) The Sail Magazine Book OF Sailing. NY: Knopf. Isler, Jennifer (“J.J.”). (1993) “Looking Through the Glass Ceiling.” Sailing World (February): 2426. McClintock, Kristan. (1992) “Survey Results.” Sailing World (November): 28-30. Pardy, Lin, and Larry Pardy. (1976) Cruising in Seraffyn. NY: Seven Seas. Slocum, Joshua. (1901) Sailing Alone around the World. NY: Century. Thrower, Rayner. (1980) The Pirate Picture. London: Phillimore.

This is a sample article, not finalized for publication, and is provided for personal review purposes only. Transmittal or reproduction in any form is not permissible. Enquiries to [email protected]. © Berkshire Publishing Group LLC 2004