Sailing presentation and statistics on women sailboat owners

[Dody]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

That thing above: "sailing is about DYI, isn't it?".

Well, it is not. When you look at ARC participants it is clearly about 'take it to the garage and pay the bill'.

Nothing to do with what is considered more male or female style of sorting out things. More to do with boats becoming just another object to own in the ever growing catalog of tokens that any Westerner ought to display to his/her (less affluent) neighbours.

b.

So true what you say. And it gets worse every year with even more electronic gadgets available helping out with missing navigational or whatever skills. Is it the false "security" of an "organized" Group-thing? Do we need to book an around-the-world trip nowadays and pay for it, instead of just slipping the lines and doing the real thing in our own time and with our own schedule? Will there be a time in the future where we will be denied entry to a country if we don't arrive in a fleet of other sailing-boats with a big organisation smoothing things with the authorities?

Out there, when things turn nasty, the checkbook does not help them out.

The last couple of years a few funny sailors came past here. People who didn't know anything about sailing before. They bought brand new sailing-boats and had them fitted out by people they thought that they would know what they might need as they themselves didn't have the time and clue to figure it all out but were planned to go on a 5-year or so sailing around the world trip. Having made it to here they were seriously struggling with some of their toys and were desperate to get some helpful hints and explanations. I must confess, I was shocked. And being a sailor and some of them even with kids on board I was not capable to turn around and let them be.

But, there is also others. Young couples with a dream and the willpower. Some of them have never sailed before, bought an old 7 m or so boat, did some repairs and left their homecountries to learn once under way, together, how to handle the boat and sort out whatever problem comes along. The majority of them is really doing fine, they are happy to learn and enjoy and they are getting better with each day to fix things. I love to see that and I'm really happy for them!

Cheers & fair winds
Dody

[barnakiel]

Perhaps a subject for another presentation another day to the cruising and would be cruising crowd: 'about the beauty of splicing your mooring lines rather than buying the pre-spliced kit' ;-)

b.

[Dody]

! One day ....

Still, the thing with the younger cruisers successfully setting off without experience could be something of interest for Gamayun and her speech.

Cheers & fair winds
Dody

[gamayun]

Originally Posted by Dody

! One day ....

Still, the thing with the younger cruisers successfully setting off without experience could be something of interest for Gamayun and her speech.

Cheers & fair winds
Dody

Right now, I'm just a weekend cruiser and don't feel I can credibly talk about full-time cruising or the rationality of setting off with no experience. I'm actually in the camp who thinks that if you have taken "adequate precautions" about the capabilities of your boat, and if everyone understands the risks involved, then go for it and figure it out as you go along. But also be prepared for a smack down from time to time; the school of hard knocks can give a vicious punch. For me though, I want a boat that I know can handle anything that comes along, so it needs to be tested under duress in small doses to see what breaks. And the skipper needs to be tested under duress in small doses to see what she needs to learn before taking off yonder. Different approaches for different folks. Neither one is wrong.

[Greenhand]

Originally Posted by gamayun

Right now, I'm just a weekend cruiser and don't feel I can credibly talk about full-time cruising or the rationality of setting off with no experience. I'm actually in the camp who thinks that if you have taken "adequate precautions" about the capabilities of your boat, and if everyone understands the risks involved, then go for it and figure it out as you go along. But also be prepared for a smack down from time to time; the school of hard knocks can give a vicious punch. For me though, I want a boat that I know can handle anything that comes along, so it needs to be tested under duress in small doses to see what breaks. And the skipper needs to be tested under duress in small doses to see what she needs to learn before taking off yonder. Different approaches for different folks. Neither one is wrong.

This might even be appropriate to your presentation: if you are prone to motion sickness, but not always the first one to get sick, anxiety can be a contributing factor. In such cases, working up to "duress in small doses," can be key to slowly expanding your comfort level, and hence protecting you from sea sickness.

[Sandero]

Originally Posted by gamayun

Right now, I'm just a weekend cruiser and don't feel I can credibly talk about full-time cruising or the rationality of setting off with no experience. I'm actually in the camp who thinks that if you have taken "adequate precautions" about the capabilities of your boat, and if everyone understands the risks involved, then go for it and figure it out as you go along. But also be prepared for a smack down from time to time; the school of hard knocks can give a vicious punch. For me though, I want a boat that I know can handle anything that comes along, so it needs to be tested under duress in small doses to see what breaks. And the skipper needs to be tested under duress in small doses to see what she needs to learn before taking off yonder. Different approaches for different folks. Neither one is wrong.

There are analogies between full time cruising in "foreign" waters and coastal cruising. Obviously it makes sense to crawl before you walk and walk before you run. You can learn from books too. Yet being separated from "resources" such as parts, mechanics, sailmakers, even docks, familiar language and so on impose a whole different mindset and set of skills. Those you mostly pick up by doing.

What you can prepare for is getting a boat that is well found, had spares and tools for repairs, skill at navigation and boat handling, including anchoring in all sorts of conditions, experience with radio communications and weather forecasting.

The notion that you can find out what is going to "break" on your boat, fix it and then have confidence that the vessel is ready to sail the ocean is a very weird concept... to me. Fixing something that breaks will... break again under similar circumstances unless you IMPROVE the component or system. Most "systems" have safety factors engineered into them. If you have a boat with systems which break in "coastal" conditions... and they too can be hell... then the boat's systems are not suitable for the more demanding ones you can see in the ocean. This may mean you have the wrong boat.... for long distance ocean passages.

just sayin'

[Doug Brown]

I'm not sure why you would want to mention statistics or how many women sail a boat - seems to me they are either on a boat or not and interested in sailing or not.

When I have taught women to sail or operate a boat - sizes ranging from 29-ft to 300-ft - the first thing to stress is that you really can't do anything horribly wrong (assuming you are in open water and nothing is around to smash into!). It may not be neat and tidy at first, but you learn from your "mistakes" and things get better on a second or third try.

The very best way that I have found to give them an incredible amount of confidence in the shortest period of time is to give them the very basics of how the boat works (5-minutes or less of instruction) and then thrown something overboard out in open waters and tell them to go and get it.

You can give them guidance and tips in how to do this - push this, pull that, steer there - but just letting them basically figure it out on their own while being supportive of their efforts is what I have found works best.

Once they know that they can retrieve something or someone out of the water, everything else that has to do with "learning to sail" becomes far more relaxing - and even fun!

[gamayun]

Originally Posted by Doug Brown

...The very best way that I have found to give them an incredible amount of confidence in the shortest period of time is to give them the very basics of how the boat works (5-minutes or less of instruction) and then thrown something overboard out in open waters and tell them to go and get it.

You can give them guidance and tips in how to do this - push this, pull that, steer there - but just letting them basically figure it out on their own while being supportive of their efforts is what I have found works best.

Once they know that they can retrieve something or someone out of the water, everything else that has to do with "learning to sail" becomes far more relaxing - and even fun!

Thank you for this. I just sent it to our event organizers. The whole day before my presentation involves a sailing workshop with skills that include Zen Skipper (blindfolded sailing), tacking downwind to a mark and jibing upwind to a mark (can't remember what that's called - it's certainly zany sailing!) and 'Man Over Board' (any volunteers? For MOB on our Cal20s, we generally teach Figure 8 and that is what we had thought they would do, but there are other methods and this suggestion to just let them figure it out is much better. I am also now recommending a time component to create a little stress to it, which it would be if a real person were involved. We have lots of great prizes so I am going to suggest that the facilitators take everyone's time and give an award to the fastest one. Keep these ideas coming It'll be an even better and greater event next year.

[gamayun]

Originally Posted by Sandero

T...The notion that you can find out what is going to "break" on your boat, fix it and then have confidence that the vessel is ready to sail the ocean is a very weird concept... to me. Fixing something that breaks will... break again under similar circumstances unless you IMPROVE the component or system. Most "systems" have safety factors engineered into them. If you have a boat with systems which break in "coastal" conditions... and they too can be hell... then the boat's systems are not suitable for the more demanding ones you can see in the ocean. This may mean you have the wrong boat.... for long distance ocean passages.

just sayin'

YMMV, right? My boat is 28 years old, but it is well built. Not a true "blue water" vessel, but a model that has been around the world. However, the POs did very few upgrades over the years. For one, the gooseneck broke on me last year. Now that I've had time to see this component (it has been replaced), I plan to work with a friend to machine a much more robust piece. Perhaps this new piece will work for another 28 years, but I don't trust it right now. My old AP has been giving me trouble. I plan to upgrade and test the new one soon. I have a different spinnaker set up than was originally envisioned on the boat. The cambarspar in the jib has come loose a couple of times, once when I was over-powered and sailing single-hand in 32 knots, and it's flailing around like a jousting pole. I plan to install an SSB, but I've heard from others who have done something similar just before a large race, that funny things can happen if you haven't already tested it under different scenarios. These are all things that need to be tested near shore before I'm a 1500 miles off shore. This is also giving me confidence that if something does happen offshore, I have in my toolbox (both the physical and mental one) the means to keep on sailing.

[Sandero]

Old things break, and they may do so without showing wear... or you can't see it. I recently had a pump on the engine go after a mere 30 years of working perfectly... nothing was visibly wrong.

There are things on boats that were perhaps not designed for the abuse of offshore... and weird things DO happen. I was on the same tack for 600 miles and a lee shroud failed... one of the wires of the 16 cracked... probably from not being too tight... but from being loose and "moving about".

You can sail a row boat to China... but if you are going to be prudent you try to have your systems as bullet proof as possible and have spares and tools and the skills to deal with it and fixes when they go south on you.

I do think you can learn a lot about your boat and your own seaworthiness in coastal waters... especially if you sail in heavy weather... even close to shore. How else are you going to do it?

Hard to know when you are ready... but you find that out once you leave ;-)

[sck5]

I am now on my second boat. I know a whole lot more now than when I first started out - and most of it I learned because I had to when something broke. I didnt always have the skills to fix things the first time they broke but I always watched everything that was done and now, the second time around, I am able to do most of it myself. Sailing is a "learning by doing" kind of thing and that goes not just for the sails and lines but also for all the mechanical crap attached to the boat.

As for fear, I have always thought that it has a close relationship with familiarity and experience. If you have never been on a boat before they seem alien and scary. After a while sailing around on a calm lake they seem very familiar and safe. The ocean seems scary too after that but after a while you get used to the motion. Gradually you get used to heavier and heavier conditions until finally you feel OK with whatever happens.

The important thing is not to push people too far outside their comfort zone too fast. I, like many people, had a wife who had never sailed but she was willing to try. I made very sure that she never went out in conditions that would scare her until she was perfectly happy to do it. That meant quite a few days sitting at the dock in one port or another but eventually she started asking if we couldn't "make it go a bit faster". As time goes on she learns more and more about what it takes to sail the boat. Without really setting out to do it she has become a competent cruiser. Patience. Thats the key.

[JPA Cate]

^^^^"As time goes on she learns more and more about what it takes to sail the boat. Without really setting out to do it she has become a competent cruiser. Patience. Thats the key."

I'm sure this is true for both men and women.

How's this for non-gender specificity: make space for your sailing partner to learn at his or her own rate: simply support their efforts and natural interest in what you are doing.

If the "teacher" expresses their impatience, it usually makes the student feel bad, concentrate on the bad feeling instead of learning. Not a good deal. The teacher needs to have space for different learning styles.

Ann

[Dody]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

How's this for non-gender specificity: make space for your sailing partner to learn at his or her own rate: simply support their efforts and natural interest in what you are doing.

If the "teacher" expresses their impatience, it usually makes the student feel bad, concentrate on the bad feeling instead of learning. Not a good deal. The teacher needs to have space for different learning styles.

Ann

Ann, thank you, you are brilliant! And what you say counts for so many things in life. I've messed up my diving course. I absolutely wanted to get confident with my bottle and respirator and stuff so I could happily sort it out if my anchor should mess up and things like this. We were 4 pupils and 1 instructor. The first open-water-dive, 1 m visibility. Somehow things were on a time-schedule. We went deeper and deeper along the anchorchain, I didn't manage to get my ears equilibrated, gave signs, but short afterwards the instructor forgot and went further down. I didn't want to loose the group with this terrible visibility, the pain in my ears got unbearable till some time later slowly we moved up again. On our instruments we found out we've been down to 15 m. It took me weeks to sort out my ears. Now I'm still convinced I've got to learn about the diving-bit, but certainly not with time-pressure behind it.

Cheers & fair winds
Dody

[Pelagic]

Sorry to hear about damaging your ears Dody...
As a cold water dive instructor I can tell you that ..... this should not have happened !

Your instructor lost control which is even more critical in such bad Viz. and if it was cold water, you could have suffered serious disorientation and got lost.

Lesson learned which as Ann mentioned.... Is to have the confidence to go at your own pace and comfort level, don't let others rush you.

A training method to equalize ears is to first make sure are weighted enough to sink feet first when you purge your BC

First gently equalize on the surface while shifting lower jaw from side to side, then as you slowly sink, pinch and keep gentle equalization pressure and jaw movement as you get down below 15 to 20 ft.

If ears are slow and you feel pain ...STOP and slowly go up doing jaw motion till pain is off then keep trying slowly again and again until your ears finally equalize (which you will hear)

It may take a few up and down tries to get over that initial block, so just focus on your buoyancy and breathing... Be patient and relaxed.

Once you get the first pop, the ones deeper are usually easier if you descend slowly..(same solution if it hurts).

The good news is with repeated dives your ears get more exercised in clearing until it becomes automatic.

Do get a doctor to check your ears for a wax plug after that first dive problem and don't despair... I used to teach this method to students with serious hay-fever problems..never had a failure.

Good luck...diving is the best water sport for sailors.

[gamayun]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Sorry to hear about damaging your ears Dody...
As a cold water dive instructor I can tell you that ..... this should not have happened !

Your instructor lost control which is even more critical in such bad Viz. and if it was cold water, you could have suffered serious disorientation and got lost.

I've met a lot of people who quit learning to dive because of a bad instructor. The industry wonders why they can't keep new divers. The 'go slow' approach is absolutely critical to both diving and sailing. Recently, someone at my club turned down a sail on a beautiful day because he had had " a bad sailing experience once." We all learn in different ways and different paces!

For those who wonder why I'd want to put any data in such a presentation, below is the beginning text, which represents the first 7 slides though I have some more interesting things to say than to just read this to them. The other 24 slides, however, are all pictures, in which I have a lot of stories about lessons learned. Further thoughts....?

Boating Statistics and Rough Estimates
--12 million boats are registered in the United States
--Only 7% are 26 feet or longer
--1.5 million (~9%) are sailboats
--~87 million adults participate in recreational boating, probably 90% of which are male
--Extrapolating from that suggests there are 8.7 million women who boat recreationally, but perhaps only 800,000 who sail
--Anecdotally, probably less than 5% (maybe 40,000?) are women who have their own sailboat

Why So Few Women Sailors?
Why So Few Women Boat Owners?

Gender Differences Toward Risk
--Risk perception is a combination of:
Belief (“how likely is it that something bad will happen?”)
Subjective valuation of the outcome (“how bad could it be?”)
--It varies depending on gender
Male risk perception is based on severity of injury
Female risk perception is based on their vulnerability to any type of injury
--Women consider risky behavior will have:
A higher probability that injury will occur
Less enjoyment even if the outcome is not negative

Transition Away From Sports As Teenagers
--Girls are six times more likely to drop out of sports than boys
--Greater desire for relationships and connectedness, not competition
--During adolescence, girls suffer a severe crisis in confidence and a larger drop in self-esteem than boys
--Sometimes girls don’t receive the support they need
--There aren’t enough role models

Cultural Conditioning
--No one is born with bias
--We are conditioned to think the way we do
--There are “rules” about how women should behave
--Research shows that women are just as likely as men to show bias against women in hiring, salaries and mentorship:
Young job applicants were willing to give up as much as $3,500 a year in salary to get a male boss
Men and women are twice as likely to hire a man for a math task – even when both genders had been shown to perform equally well at it