There are many possible ways to encourage women to try out and continue to participate in the sport of sailing.

The Richmond River Sailing and Rowing Club, in the small Northern NSW town of Ballina has discovered a unique and highly successful way to do that. And not to just introduce women into the sport of sailing and keep them there, but in the process, coach them to participate at the highest and most exciting levels of the sport. Read on to hear all the clubs insights of how they got it going and what obstacles they overcame.

How Does it work?

Participants – many of whom have never been on a sailing boat before - are coached to sail as forward hands in Formula Fifteen twin trapeze skiffs. These boats have a working sail area just a little less than a 49erFX and a spinnaker about the same size. But they have a traditional cockpit and flared topsides instead of wings.

Basically, after a 20-minute shore drill, and discussion of risks and safety issues, participants are taken out for one-on-one coaching in a twin trapeze skiff. Almost as soon as they leave the beach, they find themselves out sailing, on the wire, playing the mainsheet and, as the boat turns around and runs downwind, setting, trimming, gybing and dousing the kite. All on their first sail.

Additional weekly (sometimes twice weekly) one-on -one coaching continues until they are, what you might call, race worthy, and even well beyond that.

Then it’s a matter of getting them positioned in a boat for a race.

Above: Three of the Fifteens in a race. One woman skippering and three crewing

Up until about 2019, the output of the program more or less matched the additional demand for crews. A virtuous circle was established where the availability of keen crews encouraged existing sailors to buy skiffs, which offered placement for the graduates of the course.

But then we found ourselves running out of boats and thus placement positions. Part of this was because there were only a limited number of Formula Fifteens available for sale, so we started to look for other classes of boat we could use in the program.

Is it successful?

As far as the club is concerned, it is very successful.

The twin wire skiff fleet has grown to 9 boats; 7 Formula Fifteens and two 49erFX’s. There are very few clubs in Australia that can boast of a twin wire skiff fleet of that size. And (rather sadly), as far as we can tell from our research, the two FX’s are the largest club racing fleet of that class in Australia.

It has transformed the demographics of the club; made it younger and more female.

There are seven women who skipper or crew in the 9 boats. To give our graduates (all of whom to date have been women) and trainees some idea of size of their achievements, we researched the position of other clubs sailing twin wire skiffs (by tracing back from national title and other events to search the results sheets of their home clubs). Our research indicated we have about twice as many women racing them at our club as any other club in Australia.

And, at least until COVID struck, we seemed to have more women graduates and trainees combined than the sum total of all other women twin wire skiff sailors in Australia (or close to it).

It provides the club with an impressive and unique line up of women sailors in an area that is possible the very pinnacle of dinghy and skiff sailing.

Above: Just some of our female crews and trainees (plus one ring in daughter)

The trainee group also provide emergency (and sometimes permanent) crews for other boats in the club in the trailer yachts, mono and cat divisions – although the trainees are keen not to close out their skiff ambitions.

And not satisfied with resting on their laurels, the leading women in the group, have transitioned to steering a skiff and some have been inspired to go much further. Both Laura Stoltenberg and Clare Southwell have put themselves through the sea safety course and got themselves the experience to earn a position on an offshore yacht to participate in the Sydney Hobart race.

Plus, Clare earned herself a crew position on the Eighteen Foot Skiff that won the Queensland State Titles in 2020. While recognising they might not be the most prestigious 18ft skiff event, as far as we’ve been able to determine, she is perhaps the first woman to be part of a winning crew in a State, Australian or World title in the long 120-year history of these exciting skiffs.

And Laura now has her own 49erFX, in which she competed in the recent Nationals.

The program has an incredibly high retention rate compared with any other training program. Before COVID, it was something like 70% of those who came back after their initial first day introduction (and that was most of them) stayed active within the program, and all of the graduates are still with us.

Finally, it has produced a remarkably diverse group of women. Mothers and single mothers are as keen as younger, single women. The women participants have come from Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland or have Dutch/ Danish parentage and have grown up in the Philippines and Fiji while those of Sikh, Tunisian or recognised as having Aboriginal or Māori heritage are or have also been part of the group.

How did it start?

It all started with a notice put up at the local University many years ago in the hope that visiting students with a sailing background might provide crews for a pair of Formula Fifteen twin wire skiffs that were having trouble finding them in a club that, like many of its ilk, was predominately mature age males.

Instead of well-trained sailors, what the club soon found itself with were a few keen young women with at most the equivalent of a summer sailing camp background in sailing, if that. They came from both that notice and by referrals from the club’s basic learn to sail program. From there, mostly, indeed, almost entirely at first, the participants were women.

And so, a program was developed where adult non sailors are coached to crew, and then race, in twin trapeze skiffs as their initial introduction to sailing.

And it was quickly found that women in their 20’s and 30’s were the keenest, most reliable and fastest learners.

Most join the group as a result of word of mouth through the local surfing community and some after enquiring about the club’s general learn to sail classes.

What else did you do?

The initial graduates observed, after a season racing, that they knew what to do, but didn’t fully understand why. This was a function of the on water, one-on-one training not really offering an opportunity for detailed explanations.

So a winter lecture series was introduced, starting with the basics of sailing but going much further into the science of what was happening on the boat and why things were important, then progressing to rules, tactics and even weather patterns; all backed up by copious notes distributed after each lecture.

But critical to the success was also an emphasis on the social side of sailing. Frequent BBQ’s and get togethers supplemented the tight, friendly and inclusive social scene at the club on race days. And the attendance of as many boats at the Fifteen Nationals as possible was as much to create a nice, collective, social environment at an away venue as to worry about places at the titles.

Finally our volunteer coach has a second boat, used by him for the training, but also lent to skipper/crew combinations of graduates to further their development

Why women?

From the outset, the program has been completely dominated by women.

It’s not entirely clear why. About eighty percent of the trainees and all of those who have graduated from the course to become part of the twin wire skiff race skippers and crews are women, even though the club didn’t initially set out to achieve that result.

What can be said is that the approach to training on what otherwise might seem rather intimidating boats is women friendly. Although the use of high-performance boats makes it challenging, the training is delivered at a pace and in a manner which lets beginners cope with what could otherwise be a frightening confusion of events and demands upon them.

Having found it popular with women, we have strongly encouraged that outcome, although men are not precluded.

Are there any problems with the program?

The main problems we ran into were almost those that were good to have.

The first was simply we started to run out of boats for those ready to take on racing. Our skiffs are privately owned, but the supply of second-hand Formula Fifteens was exhausted.

And related to that was the fact that a pair of 50kg women (who dominated our graduate stream) were too light for the design weight of a Formula Fifteen (more like 140kg) and were prone to getting blow about.

So we needed to find other classes suitable for our purpose; something the club could have a sample of, both for training and for use by graduate trainees until they could buy their own.

The 49erFX was considered but, apart from cost, it was thought it didn’t really give us what we needed, since we wanted more a starting boat. As noted above, the club has a pair of FX’s in it’s racing fleet, but it is more suited to sailors with a few years under their belt than just starting out.

We looked at single wire classes, designed for heavier crews, where an additional second wire for club racing by lighter women might work. 

The club has been lucky enough to have donated to it a 59er with both a 29erXX (twin wire) rig and a 29erXS (junior) rig and has separately purchased a 13ft skiff; both of which will be launched for the upcoming season.

Above: The club’s new 13ft skiff with some of our race fleet women.

And again, in the ‘good problem to have’ category is the problem with the new boats is that most trainees want to be part of the Fifteen Fleet, especially because of the opportunity to go away to the Nationals.

The only other problem – that time will fix – is that two years of COVID lockdowns, immediately followed by catastrophic floods that destroyed the local towns and city, killed business and polluted the river and made it unusable for sailing for something like four months, has lost us a number of trainees.

Here the very diversity of the group counted against us as those from overseas had to retreat home as they had no employment here, to avoid being locked out of their native lands or to see to sick parents. And even many of our Australian participants had to move away to get work or had to work hours that were not sailing friendly. Plus one got pregnant; as happens.

Already we’ve had a healthy number of fresh faces join our group, but the skill base is obviously starting from a lower point than it was at for the start of 2020.

The training group’s Facebook page can be found here https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Athlete/Mr-Bond-The-Ballina-Skiff-Sail-Training-Group-110226546310465/