Women On The Water: Breakwater Invests In Gender Equity

They ranged in age from 14 to over 60, and there is just as much variation in their experience and ability level, too. But the women who came to an open house at the Breakwater Yacht Club in Sag Harbor in mid-April had one common desire in mind: They want to belong to an organization that not only trusts their prowess and potential as sailors but wants to encourage them to take the helm.

Breakwater is trying its best to be that place.

The community sailing center is a nonprofit founded in 1988 to promote the sport of sailing and sailboat racing in the waters off Sag Harbor. The club hosts weekly racing on Wednesdays and Sundays, offers lessons and charters to members, and operates a summer camp for junior sailors.

The mission of the organization, especially in recent years, has been to make sailing, a sport traditionally reserved for elites, more open and accessible to everyone in the community. Its latest effort in that realm is the introduction of a women’s sailing initiative that is kicking off this summer.

Several of the women who have been in charge of this effort, including longtime Breakwater members and experienced sailors Joan Butler and Sara Nightingale, said the strong attendance at the open house on April 12 was an indication of the high degree of interest within the community for this sort of outreach program.

The intent of the initiative is to build skills and camaraderie among female sailors, by hosting clinics for both beginner and intermediate sailors, set to start in June, and other programming throughout the summer. It is an extension of what has always been a priority at Breakwater, which, for more than a decade, has hosted several women’s sailing events, including the annual WOOD (Women’s Open One-Design) Regatta, and the Oz Race, both of which require women to helm the competing sailboats.

In an article published on SailingWorld.com in early March, writer Kelly McGlynn explored the reasons many women have been driven away from the sport, what role the larger culture of competitive sailing has played in that retreat, and how to fix the problem.

McGlynn makes the argument that men tend to underestimate the strength and ability of women when it comes to what jobs and tasks they can perform on a sailboat, which too frequently leaves them with a diminished role on a crew.

The article cited discouraging statistics: Information posted on the widely used regatta registration platform Yachtscoring from August 2020 to September 2021 revealed that only 16 percent of competitors across all regattas were women, and that in several specific classes, the disparity was even wider: 11 percent of the classes had less than 5 percent female participation, while only 12 percent of the classes had more than 30 percent female participation, and less than 1 percent of the classes had an even gender split.

All told, nearly 80 percent of sailors are competing in classes that have less than 20 percent women, and the trend worsens in the professional ranks, where only 5 percent of professional sailors competing at regattas were women.

Nightingale, who crews on Big Boat during races at Breakwater, knows this world. She’s one of several highly experienced female sailors at the club and regularly competes in races off Long Island as well. She was part of the crew aboard “Big Boat,” owned by Breakwater YC commodore Bud Rogers, competing at a weekend regatta at the American Yacht Club in Rye, New York, at the end of April. Butler, who is also a well-respected and highly experienced sailor, also serves on the board at Breakwater.

She gave credit to Nightingale for hosting an informal information session at her Sag Harbor gallery earlier in the year as a catalyst for driving interest and getting the word out about creating a women’s sailing initiative, and said that Rogers and sailing director Sean Elliott have been “150 percent behind it” as well.

“We have a very supportive board, so the timing was just right,” she added.

Butler said that creating a system for promoting women’s sailing was one of the first things she wanted to work on when she became a board member earlier this year, and she said Nightingale, Sarah Alford and Hamish McGowin have been working with her to get the new programming off the ground.

While some details of what the initiative would look like this summer were still being worked out, Butler said the effort was off to an even greater than expected start. “Interest was so high that we’re going to devote two days a week to it, because of the volume,” she said.

She described the initiative as, essentially, a pilot program for women who have either never sailed and are interested in learning, those who sailed as a child and want to get back into it, or for novice and intermediate sailors who have some experience but want to hone their skills, for both racing and leisure sailing.

“Joining the club would be great — that’s not our first intention,” Butler said. “We want to offer an opportunity for women in the community.”

Butler said that Breakwater will commission an inaugural “Women on the Water” perpetual trophy for the Wednesday night races, which will recognize any boat that has at least a 50 percent female crew for the entirety of the season.

For Butler and the rest of the organizers of the initiative, it’s all about creating a level playing field.

“Women can get instruction and have the safety of a women’s-only group,” she said. “Because boats are pretty much dominated by men. And edging your way onto that boat can be intimidating.”

Part of the problem is that, even in modern times, where so much has changed, the patriarchy still has its tenterhooks lodged tightly into certain aspects of society. Sailboat owners have the most access when it comes to sailing, and because boats are expensive and a gender wealth gap stubbornly persists, most boats are owned by men.

Breakwater has several club-owned boats in its fleets, which will be made available to the women in the program, allowing them the most important thing in their efforts toward parity — more time on the water, and more time at the wheel, specifically.

“Women have to work 50 times harder for respect, and the same thing applies in sailing,” Butler said. “But we’re going to level that playing field.”

Butler said that experienced instructors already working at Breakwater will be part of the effort, and she added that she was thrilled to see several of the more experienced female sailors who attended the April open house event volunteer their time to serve as instructors and help female newcomers as well. “We’re trying to create a culture of support,” she said.

The promise of that kind of support, camaraderie and access is what attracted Lynn Arthur to the open house, and has her excited to be part of the initiative this summer. The North Sea resident works as a subcontractor to the Town of Southampton, running its renewable energy program. When she’s not working, her idea of recharging is to get out on the water.

Arthur, 65, said she sailed a lot roughly 15 years ago but has not spent much time on the water since then. She’s ready to get back into it, but acknowledged how doing so can be an uphill battle for many women.

“As a woman, sailing on these beautiful sailboats with the men who own the boats, it’s hard for them to hand the wheel over to you,” she said, adding that even though she’d taken many sailing lessons and had a considerable amount of experience, the opportunities to be captain were “random occurrences,” and were “few and far between.”

The fact that Breakwater has its own fleet, including a few smaller, faster boats like J24s, was appealing to her, Arthur said. “I thought, what a great thing — women sailing with other women,” she said. “And the fact that they own the boats and maintain them, I can give them my money and can use the boats whenever I want after I get certified.”

The fact that so many other women have signed up is a bonus for Arthur as well. “I’m confident that after a week of lessons, I will learn enough to certify and can take any boat of their fleet out, and I’ll have women to sail with,” she said. “I never want to go sailing alone. Now I’ll have a network of people who all want to sail, and it’s a great way to make new friends.”

Like Arthur, Alford is another woman who had experience sailing, took time off from the sport, and was happy and eager to get back into it. She started sailing as a child, picked it up again after finishing college in Boston, and then continued sailing when she moved to Manhattan, joining a club that raced off the southern tip of the city near Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty and the Staten Island Ferry.

There were several reasons why she moved east to Sag Harbor, her current home, but said the ability to keep sailing, and with an enthusiastic group of women and a supportive community sailing center like Breakwater, has played a big role.

“I moved to Sag Harbor for the sailing, plus the creative energy in the community,” she said. “Breakwater has Wednesday night racing for adults as well as a kids’ summer program, but the opportunity to get out on the water as an adult and enjoy our breathtaking coastline is special.”

Alford added that she was “blown away” by the degree of interest in the women’s sailing initiative.

“I am thrilled that so many women wanted to get back to sailing, or try sailing for the first time,” she said, adding that being out on a boat provides a new vantage point from which to view the village. “I’m excited to share that. Seeing the rooftops of our historic sailing village offers perspective, and a sense of distance from our modern lives.”

Cordelia Boise has experienced a perspective shift in recent years, transitioning from splitting her time between a home in the city and one in Southampton to spending nearly 100 percent of her time out east since the pandemic started. She recently retired, and is ready to spend a lot of her extra time at Breakwater.

Her story follows the same very similar refrain as many female sailors. She started sailing at age 4, when her father bought a day sailer, a “sturdy little boat just big enough to accommodate a family of four,” she said.

“At first I was terrified of sailing, especially heeling, but my father got me over it and then it was ‘rails in the water’ for me,” she said. “I would use any excuse to go sailing with him.”

As a teenager, Boise spent her allowance on a Sunfish that she admitted “spent more time capsized, because that’s what you do with a Sunfish.”

She sailed through college, but then work and life got in the way. She started thinking about sailing again around 2017 and signed up for classes at Sag Harbor Sailing. She earned her ASA103 certification last year, enabling her to take out boats without a licensed captain, and is currently working on revamping a pair of Sunfish in need of some TLC.

She’s also signed up to crew on a larger boat in Rhode Island, and expects to do some sailing around Narragansett Bay this summer.

Boise describes herself as an intermediate sailor, comfortable on a boat, with understanding of rigging, optimizing sail trim and basic navigation, but she said she has never been on an extensive cruise or raced.

A friend referred her to Breakwater. She attended the April open house — and is now a member. Her goals are to meet people “passionate about spending time on the water,” and who are also looking for crew members for Wednesday night races.

“I really like the idea that membership is open to all and that they are making sailing accessible to anyone,” she said. “It’s a great way for children and adults to get exposed to sailing and boating and to spend time on the water.”

That kind of experience is precisely what Butler and the other organizers of the initiative hope the women they bring into the fold have this summer. And they’re eager to learn as well, so they can make the program the best it can be, and further enhance its impact on the community, and on the overall effort of making the sailing world a more welcoming place for women of all ages and ability levels.

“Because this is a pilot program in its inauguration, we will learn a lot,” Butler said. “Our expectation is to offer a great program, and we’ll modify as we need to as we go along.

“I’m just so impressed by the enthusiasm,” she added. “I had no idea we’d get so many women of all ages, some with no experience, some with experience. It’s really exciting.”