On the weekend of 12th & 13th of October, the Richmond River Sailing & Rowing Club in Ballina held it's SheSkippers Regatta.
Consisting of six races over two days, this rather unique regatta has a somewhat different approach and objectives to many other women’s events.
It originated from a recognition that our 10 boat twin wire skiff fleet and our 14 boat Trailer Yacht Fleet has something close to a 50/50 demographic of male and female sailors. While two of the skiffs have female owners, and thus regular skippers, most of the women take on the crewing role.
So, rather than having a regatta that tries to simply encourage female sailors to participate, the role of this regatta is to get the skippers to teach their crews to steer in preparation for the regatta. But at the same time, encourage skilled women skippers to participate to support the event and those coming up through the ranks.
Some (but not all)) of the trailer yachts frequently have their female crews on the helm anyway, while the owner/skipper sets and trims spinnakers. So to an extent, a number of Trailer yacht crews had a head start in the learning process. However, none of the women had faced a crowded starting line of nine boats as skippers. As it turned out, the starts were not polite and cautious affairs as some might expect, but every bit as competitive as the usual club starts.
The skiff crews were starting from a lower base. Steering a skiff is challenging enough. Doing it from the wire is a whole new game; perhaps one of the most difficult sailing skills to master. So in preparation for the event, our club coach gave individual instruction and practice to those of the skiff crews who weren’t already skilled in the process.
From the club’s point of view, the regatta was an enormous success, with most of the club's women participating and visitors from as far away as Sydney.
The wind was not entirely cooperative, especially for relative beginners, with fresh winds Saturday afternoon and strong winds all Sunday. Still, we were able to get four races in on Saturday and two on Sunday.
The twin wire skiff Division was won by regular skipper, Clare Southwell, with straight first places, followed tied Kate Stephenson and Julie McGrath, both usually crews, with Kate taking second place on countback.
In the yacht division, where all the skippers are usually crews, Kerrie Shimeld in an Elliot & from RPAYC, and Fiona McCheyne In a Spider 550 from RRSRC scored equal first, with Kerrie winning on countback, and 15 year old Tara Tigner also in a Spider 550, also from RRSRC, coming in third.
In the monohull division, Deb Parkin from Clarence River Sailing Club, in a Laser Radial pipped Leah Singer from Bayview Yacht racing Association, also in a Laser radial.
The event was capped by a Saturday night dinner, with food home cooked, from largely home grown ingredients (this is the country) by two of our fantastic women sailors.
Photo credit - Karla @ Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club
