How do we get more women racing Lasers?

Old Geezer

Old Geezer

Member
In another thread Merrily said "Rock Steady, I don't understand how a device that's intended to help Race Committee will increase solidarity and bring more women into racing Lasers. Do you think that women are deterred from racing because of the mixed fleets? Just for the record, I am a woman and I am not Fred."

So how do we bring more women into racing Lasers? Do the mixed fleets deter them?

Just for the record, I am not a woman and I am not Fred. (Or Ribecca).
 
Old Geezer said:
So how do we bring more women into racing Lasers? Do the mixed fleets deter them?
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When you say "Lasers" are you using the term generically or do you mean Laser Standard (as opposed to Radial)?

I think if you look at the major Radial events you will see a two very interesting trends: 1) Female participation is a significant fraction of the fleet (half the fleet at some events), 2) the top ten at these events are often pretty evenly mixed.

In addition, at the events where the top Olympic hopefuls show up they tend to dominate.

For example, check out the results of the 2007 MWE.

As an added bonus, these events are providing female role models (like Anna Tunnicliffe) for potential young sailors. I don't have statistics, but I think Opti fleets are pretty evenly mixed and hopefully these new role models will serve to encourage female Opti sailors to move to 4.7s and then to the Radial.
 
One of the best and inexpensive ways to encourage female participation would be to encourage and welcome the laser two fleet.

IN the good old days of CORK and MIdwinters when the laser two was still being promoted and sold by teh builder and supported by the NA laser Class...

Wew had a phenomenon.

The old farts ( like me) would go home or to hotels after the races to lick their wounds. The kids at the campsite would balance out near fifty / fifty on the boy girl split. The parties would be super and the friendships would be lifelong.

We need a fleet where the girls can have a great time and where they do NOT need to compete physically with their teenage boy friends.
Laser twos did that very well. Girl boy, girl girl and boy boy teams were about evenly mixed by number. Neither sex dominated in the results.

Also, the female fleet is generally driven away from Radial and Laser sailing when the regattas are planted in windy loactions. If you want to have fewer women, schedule major events in Corpus, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz
 
A girlfriend in my fleet and I have decided to grow to try to grow the fleet by increasing female participation. We are focusing on sailing Radials ourselves, and we are asking some of the experienced women sailors to come out and give it a try with our boats. If they get into it, it may be only part time with our Wednesday evening tune ups and short races, or if their crew or skippers don't show for their other boats, they will have a back up boat to sail in the Sunday afternoon club series.

We are not likely to sail beyond regional events, at least not me until I get better. Yup, I'm not always going to be at the back of the fleet!
 
[/QUOTE]Also, the female fleet is generally driven away from Radial and Laser sailing when the regattas are planted in windy loactions. If you want to have fewer women, schedule major events in Corpus, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz[/QUOTE]

Am I the only chick on the planet who likes huge breeze?
 
Also, the female fleet is generally driven away from Radial and Laser sailing when the regattas are planted in windy loactions. If you want to have fewer women, schedule major events in Corpus, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz[/quote]

Am I the only chick on the planet who likes huge breeze?[/quote]


Not at all.

However, there are a huge number of women who love to sail, sail very well, and simply are not in any way built adequately to win a fist fight with a Radial or a Laser in anything over about 8 knots.
 
That is true. I forget sometimes that I am freakishly large for a chick therefore I can fullrig with the boys (the old ones at least) in 20 knots. The Sunfish fleet here in Florida has a lot more women (especially Masters age women) than the Laser fleet, because it is a more forgiving boat, I guess. My friend Cindy (who also posts here) races both Sunfish and Radial, although she thinks the Radial is actually easier to depower than the S-fish, because of the controls.

I always want to know where the Masters women are. Maybe if the Radial fleets increase at Masters events, more women will come. Has the rig-changing rule led to more women participating? It seems like it would.

I am a woman, I am not Fred, and I approve this message.
 
gouvernail said:
Also, the female fleet is generally driven away from Radial and Laser sailing when the regattas are planted in windy loactions. If you want to have fewer women, schedule major events in Corpus, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz
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Perhaps the above explains why "only" 7 of 29 pre-registered sailors for the PCC's, to be sailed in San Francisco Bay, are female? With one in the 16 entries in the fuill rig fleet!

I'd not discount ability either.. we race every other Thursday evening on the City Front in front of the St Francis Yacht Club at precisely the time the boards and kites are hitting the water (ie the windiest time of the day). When she is not globe trotting following her Olympic dream, Katie Maxim sails her Radial and has no problem showing us how it is supposed to be done.

We generally don't get large turnouts for events in San Francisco because people think it will be much windier than it turns out being. But in my experience its universal and I would NOT say that "the female fleet is driven away" since a good fraction of the local male competitors won't race in the "windy" areas either.

I think we should focus on the positive here: particularly since going Olympic the Radial all over the world is becoming a male/female competition success story. I think this is attracting and encouraging young female sailors to continue on in a sport they might otherwise drop out of.
 
Michelle said:
I always want to know where the Masters women are.
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I think Master's Committee would love to know where they are as well. There are certainly more Women Masters than have sailed at the three major Master's events this year.

Michelle said:
Maybe if the Radial fleets increase at Masters events, more women will come. Has the rig-changing rule led to more women participating? It seems like it would.
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The rig swapping rule does not appear to have helped in this regard, sadly. It has been very successful in other ways but that is outside the scope of this thread.
 
SFBayLaser said:
Where is Steve Orosz when you need him?

Come to the Laser PCC's in San Francisco Bay!

Go to the PCC's web page and sign up now!
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Ha! The one day I actually do some work and I miss my cue! Don't forget that Friday (7/20) is the early entry deadline for the PCCs! That's ok if you register late since Treasure Island Sailing Center is a non-profit and can use they $35 extra to help bring some more young girls into sailing. . .

We're expecting a few more women at least to sign up -- how about you Michelle? I'm sure it won't be quite like the Masters at Richmond but there will still be plenty of big breeze to go around.
 
My original answer was totallymmeant to be positive.

We absolutely need to team up our Laser and radial fleets with some sort of fleet of boats where young medium sized and small women can honestly, and fairly compete.
If we cannot revive the Laser Two fleet, we should be looking for some other interesting craft.
It seems rather foolish to me that we sailors of the world let the Laser Two fleet die when we knew it was bolstering the Laser fleet if by no other way than improving the regatta social scene.
Girls need a boat they can sail at the very top level or they will not waster their time. Girls want to steer. Girls want to play just as much as the boys do. The problem which we must solve is "on what?"

Or we can let the girls wander off to another sport and hope there are enough young fellows who aren't all that interested in spending time with girls to adequately populate our fleets.
 
gouvernail said:
Girls want to play just as much as the boys do. The problem which we must solve is "on what?"
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At my club the Radial is a new concept, so I'm hoping that it will still be the boat. And what about the 4.7 for smaller women and girls?
 
Merrily said:
At my club the Radial is a new concept, so I'm hoping that it will still be the boat. And what about the 4.7 for smaller women and girls?
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It depends on whether smaller women and girls would be satisfied with their lot in teh community where they are offered to participate providing they do their sailing in underpowered slow and less responsive versions of the much better boats larger women and boys and men sail.....

Perhaps I am too much of a wome's libber. Doesn't it seem that it is way past time for somebody to build toys FOR THE GIRLS??
 
gouvernail said:
It depends on whether smaller women and girls would be satisfied with their lot in teh community where they are offered to participate providing they do their sailing in underpowered slow and less responsive versions of the much better boats larger women and boys and men sail.....

Perhaps I am too much of a wome's libber. Doesn't it seem that it is way past time for somebody to build toys FOR THE GIRLS??
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I'm not real familiar with the 4.7. I thought the idea was to have less power for lighter sailors?

Hope that Ribecca chick doesn't chime in on your latter statement.

Actually, there is already a great boat for women and I own one, the Europe Dinghy. It only weighs 100 lbs, so it is much easier to launch. It has a carbon mast and each mast is designed for the weight of the sailor. The boat is a dream in waves. With it's functioning traveler, it can point amazingly well. There are a couple of downsides to the boat, one its expense, $8000 or more, and two, the boom is so low when cleated that most sailors have to tack backwards to get under it. This is something I've tried only once. It gave me vertigo.
 
I like big breeze in a Radial, but I refuse to sail a 4.7. I do not have a lot of experience with big ocean waves though, I sail mostly in a protected lagoon.

As far as Master events, I would sail my Radial with the Full Rigs; in fact I prefer that. I've learned my lesson trying to sail a Full Rig when the winds were predicted to be light and they turned out not to be. The Master Midwinters has been held out of Clearwater, FL for several years and the only year I attended I almost lost my boat trying to get back to the inlet. That has made me avoid sailing that event but maybe next year when it is in Melbourne, FL I will attend if it fits my schedule.
 
I wish I could go to PCC's (you have no idea how much) but I'm double-booked that weekend with the Natls in VT. I had a great time out there for Masters Natls in 06 and maybe I can make the next big thing out there.
 
Merrily said:
Actually, there is already a great boat for women and I own one, the Europe Dinghy. It only weighs 100 lbs, so it is much easier to launch. It has a carbon mast and each mast is designed for the weight of the sailor. The boat is a dream in waves. With it's functioning traveler, it can point amazingly well. There are a couple of downsides to the boat, one its expense, $8000 or more, and two, the boom is so low when cleated that most sailors have to tack backwards to get under it. This is something I've tried only once. It gave me vertigo.
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I agree Merrily, the Europe is such a sweet boat, I've never sailed one, but I'm dying to, they look so much fun!!! I still think they look like a mini-Finn, and I still wish they kept them in the Olympics
 
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