Woman trouble for Dylan Winter

MY ENGLISH FRIEND Dylan Winter is in trouble with women sailors. He has been shot down in flames by angry women readers of Small Craft Advisor magazine. He roused their ire by writing a humorous article in which he tried to figure out what male boat owners should do to make their wives and girl friends more interested in sailing. Sailing with men, that is.

Perhaps he didn’t deserve all the flak that came his way. He is a gentle, educated soul who sails small boats quite peaceably with his wife, Jill, and his family. And he produces some of the most artistically meritorious sailing videos I have ever seen as he wends his way slowly around Great Britain in a small sailboat.*

All the same, he should have known better. I, for one, could have told him that American women sailors are very sensitive to being treated with condescension or superciliousness by men, even in jest. They know their pintles from their gudgeons, and they demand respect. I must say I’m all for it. Respect is good.

Nevertheless, we need to face the facts. And the real question is, do women like sailing?

I voiced my views on this subject several years ago in a column on this blog, and it might help to repeat it here now. Of course, there’s also a chance it might not help after all; but what the heck. Faint  heart ne’er won fair lady, so here goes:   

DELICATE SUBJECT THIS: Do women really like sailing? It’s a question that occurred to me during a recent meeting of a little committee whose members write and edit articles for our local yacht club’s newsletter.

The editor wanted to know: Are we having enough articles of interest to women members? Recipes, for instance. Or: Where can they get nice nautical fabric for settee cushions? Or: What’s the best detergent for washing up in salt water?

Then it occurred to me that these questions are condescending. Women sailors are no different from men sailors, except they smell better and seem to stay cleaner longer. Sailors are sailors, and if women are interested in sailing they’ll be learning all the same stuff that men learn.

The truth is that most people don’t like sailing. It’s a minority sport. But those who do sail aren’t divided into categories by gender. We all know women who have sailed around the world singlehanded and non-stop. Perhaps they weren’t the first to do it, but there’s no reason now to think women aren’t the equal of men as sailors.

What may be confusing is that there are probably fewer women than men whose ambition is to sail a boat. And that’s probably very wise of them, considering that sailing a small boat is the slowest, most uncomfortable, and most expensive method of travel known to mankind and womankind.

However, the fact that there are still special sailing schools run by women, only for women, seems to me to smack of discrimination. I don’t know of any sailing schools for men only. I think the women-only schools sprang up because of a nasty rumor that men are prone to shout at women who can’t perform a simple action on a boat after being shown how to do it a hundred times, for goodness’ sake.

Women don’t shout at other women, apparently. I presume that whatever needs to be done, the teacher just does it for the pupil and keeps the peace. But what worries me is that when they have graduated, those women will have to sail with men again, so they might as well have got shouted at in the first place and have it all over and done with. (If it’s true about men shouting, of course, which I’ve never seen proven.)

But, anyway, to presume that women sailors want special articles in the club newsletter about how to butter parsnips at anchor, or sauté mangel-wurzels under way, seems demeaning. Women who like sailing want to know how to tell the difference between variation and deviation and where the deepest chord of the mainsail should lie in heavy weather. And if nice nautical fabric is needed for new cushions, why shouldn’t it be a man who searches for it, rather than a woman? Come to think of it, maybe it’s time for a woman editor for the club newsletter. Then the questions wouldn’t even be asked.

*http://www.keepturningleft.co.uk/

Today’s Thought If men are always more or less deceived on the subject of women, it is because they forget that they and women do not speak altogether the same language.

—Amiel, Journal, 26 Dec 1868

Tailpiece “Did you visit that spiritualist last night?”

Yeah.”

“Was she a good one?”

“Not really, just a medium.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Women who go to sea

NOT ALL WOMEN believe they were meant to go to sea. That’s the view of Karen Larson, founder and editor of Good Old Boat magazine. In her editorial article in the January/February 2011 issue she adds: “I’m convinced, in fact, that the vast majority are sure that women are not meant to travel on boats of any kind. Historically, it hasn’t been our role.”

Well, er, I’m sorry. Karen, but I have to disagree. I have just been dipping into Gavin Menzies’ book, 1421, the Year China Discovered America. And he details the interesting historical role that woman played on the 15th-century treasure fleets that China sent around the world.

Aboard all of these ships were hundreds of concubines, recruited from the floating brothels of Canton. They were not allowed to go ashore at any port of call, and they were not allowed to marry Chinese men. It was their job to attend grand banquets aboard the treasure ships, where they ate and drank with ambassadors and envoys, and thereafter satisfied some other appetites. They were well educated, played cards and chess, sang, acted, and danced.

They were “not viewed with contempt because of their profession; they were regarded as a long-established, legitimate and necessary part of society,” Menzies argues.

Well, the world has changed a lot since those days, I guess, and not always for the better. I don’t recall seeing any concubines tucked away on today’s round-the-world yachts, and I’m not sure they would be received with joy and loud handclaps by today’s puritanical society in any case.

Nevertheless, it just shows that you have to be careful when you talk about women’s historical roles on ships and boats. There are many women serving in the U.S. Navy these days in all kinds of capacities, and just recently they started appearing aboard submarines. I know a woman master mariner who pilots big ships across the bar where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean at Astoria, and another who captains large passenger/vehicle ferries in the Pacific Northwest. And let’s not forget the dozens of documented women pirates like Anne Bonny and Mary Read who struck terror into men’s hearts between 600 BC and the 19th century. And the women who still race small sailboats non-stop around the world. Women are out there carving roles for themselves if you look for them, lots and lots of them, and always have been. And while it’s true that the vast majority prefer to keep their feet firmly planted on shore, that’s also true for men. And if you say, well, what I really mean is that many more men than women go to sea on small boats, that can only be because the women have more sense.

Today’s Thought
Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.
— Charlotte Whitton, Mayor of Ottawa

Boaters’ Rules of Thumb, #136
No matter what the professionals say, celestial navigation is neither difficult nor mysterious. As three-time circumnavigator Eric Hiscock put it: “Setting the course, keeping the dead reckoning up to date, and fixing the position by observations of the celestial bodies, call for nothing more than simple arithmetic, a little geometry, and some dexterity in handling a sextant.”

Tailpiece
A lady is a woman who never shows her underwear unintentionally.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Do women like sailing?

Mainly About Boats: Check back here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a new column by John Vigor.

DELICATE SUBJECT THIS: Do women really like sailing? It’s a question that occurred to me during a recent meeting of a little committee whose members write and edit articles for our local yacht club’s newsletter.

The editor wanted to know: Are we having enough articles of interest to women members? Recipes, for instance. Or: Where can they get nice nautical fabric for settee cushions? Or: What’s the best detergent for washing up in salt water?

Then it occurred to me that these questions are nonsense. Women sailors are no different from men sailors, except they smell better and seem to stay cleaner longer. Sailors are sailors, and if women are interested in sailing they’ll be learning all the same stuff that men learn.

The truth is that most people don’t like sailing. It’s a minority sport. But those who do sail aren’t divided into categories by gender. We all know women who have sailed around the world singlehanded and non-stop. Perhaps they weren’t the first to do it because they had a lot of catching up to do after Ms Pankhurst and her women warriors first managed to start the equality ball rolling, but there’s no reason now to think women aren’t the equal of men as sailors.

What may be confusing is that there are probably fewer women than men whose ambition is to sail a boat. And that’s probably very wise of them, considering that sailing a small boat is the slowest, most uncomfortable, and most expensive method of travel known to mankind.

The fact that there are still special sailing schools run by women for women seems to me to be an anachronism. I think they sprang up because of a nasty rumor that men are prone to shout at women who can’t perform a simple action after being shown how to do it a hundred times. Women don’t shout at women, apparently. The teacher just does it for the pupil and keeps the peace. But what worries me is that when they have graduated, those women will have to sail with men again, so they might as well have got shouted at in the first place and have it all over and done with. If it’s true about men shouting, of course, which I’ve never seen proven.

But, anyway, to presume that women sailors want special articles in the club newsletter about how to butter parsnips or sauté mangel-wurzels seems demeaning. Women who like sailing want to know how to tell the difference between variation and deviation and where the deepest chord of the mainsail should lie in heavy weather. And if nice nautical fabric is needed for new cushions, why shouldn’t it be a man who searches for it, rather than a woman? Come to think of it, maybe it’s time for a woman editor for the club newsletter. Then the questions wouldn’t even be asked.

Today’s Thought
If men are always more or less deceived on the subject of women, it is because they forget that they and women do not speak altogether the same language.
—Amiel, Journal, 26 Dec 1868

Tailpiece
“Did you visit that spiritualist last night?”
“Yeah.”
“Was she a good one?”
“Not really, just a medium.”