Twelve Tasmanian women took part in the first SheSails networking event and hailed it a success.

The SheSails initiative being rolled out across Australia has hit the ground, or more appropriately water in Tasmania. Twelve women all around Tasmania from Wynyard to Cygnet represented seven clubs discussing women’s participation in sailing and how it the sport is run.

After hearing how the She Sails program is structured and how it aims to help clubs, a few on the call suggested what they could do to grow involvement. And it wasn’t all good news. One of the issues raised is that a key barrier to women pursuing leadership roles in committees is the communication styles and behaviour of some men.

Whilst most clubs have women on committees now, it is rarely a balanced spreadsheet with the network’s discussion indicating often she is the only woman amongst many men.

The discussion recognised a need for women to adjust how they respond to the common styles of discussion, or presence men bring to the table, but in many cases that style or presence needs to be more respectful as it’s not the men’s change room from the 80s any more. Men need to lead change if improvement is to be achieved.

And the improvement is worth pursuing. Most clubs in Tasmania have around 30% women in their membership. If a club pursues higher or ideally balanced female membership the club would be tapping into a market that currently isn’t buying in.

Different ways of attracting more women to sailing were kicked around. Having women’s only ‘’Discover Sailing Days’ were suggested, women’s only races, or offering handicap and rating advantages to boats with more women on board. But the most interesting suggestion was to offer courses for women on the more mechanical aspects of running sailing clubs and handling the equipment. This might be powerboat courses, basic motor maintenance or rope work.

The clubs’ representatives agreed to discuss the possible and probably opportunities with their clubs and bring those back for the next network webinar on 1 July.

Clubs interested in having a representative on the network should register for the next one; She Sails 2 on the Australian Sailing or SheSails websites.