Down and Dirty in the Scuppers: WOMEN IN CLASSIC SAILING

TEXT & PHOTOS BY LUCY TULLOCH

The first boat I raced on, just days after I arrived in Antigua in 1990, was Olin Steven’s favourite design, the 1934 yawl Stormy Weather. I was intrigued to learn that whilst her decks had black caulking, her cockpit always had white caulking… in order not to stain the white skirts of the ladies sitting in the cockpit of course.

Jane

One of the co-founders of the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta back in 1987 was our very own Jane Coombs. She has owned her 1937 26ft Harrison Butler cutter Cora for 35 years and skippers Cora in many Classics. She has raced or sailed across the Atlantic on such beauties as Adventuress,Windrose,Vixen II, Vileehi and Lucia and is a chef, seamstress, photographer and writer. One afternoon after a solo evening sail in Falmouth harbour, she was carefully bringing Cora stern-to her usual narrow berth at Antigua Yacht Club and a passing yachtsman turned irritatedly to her and said “Oh for goodness sake, woman, go and wake up your husband!”

Kirsty

One female tour-de-force, cunningly-camouflaged in pink, was Kirsty Morrison. Passing her Yachtmaster in her 20s, she sailed a Nicholson 32 with another girl to Ireland and Scotland. Some Irish fishermen came out to greet such a pretty wooden gaffer and then looked quizzically at the girls and asked…”But where’s everyone else?”

Sailing in Classics in 2007, she fell in love with the Carriacou sloops. Smitten with their style, spirit and tradition, she started looking to acquire one to bring to Antigua and race with an all-female crew. She imagined buying or building one but sailing in the Grenadines, one afternoon, she spotted Pink Lady anchored off Palm Island. Built in Carriacou in 1975, Pink Lady (yes, her hull really was pink) had become the icon of Palm Island following a worthy and colourful fishing career. Kirsty took a year to persuade the owner Rob Barrett that racing in Antigua would be the perfect promotion for the resort and soon, she was hauling her out in Carriacou for a refit.

Arriving in Antigua in April, Kirsty and her pink bikini-clad crew and the pink sloop gathered more attention than almost any other boat in the Regatta. Although the boat was slow and trophies for speed were elusive, photographers & journalists flocked and everyone adored the spirit the Pink Lady brought to the Event. The team graced international magazines for months and Kirsty went on to skipper a Farr 72 and now runs a 76ft modern racing classic, with a strong male crew of mostly America’s Cup sailors. She once described the Regatta as “A floating family of salty souls drawn together by their love of a hand-sawn frame, their lust for a finelyhewn line with a weakness for a rum-fuelled yarn”

Elizabeth Myers

One such lady who appreciated fine lines was the inimitable Elizabeth Meyers. Having grown up with stories of J-Class yachts in her childhood, she was writing an article on the J’s and came across Endeavour. And in 1991 began the epic restoration project that is said to be the cause of the resurgence in interest in the J-Class yachts.

In an interview with CNN, she said it was “an absolute Armageddon battle start to finish to get the boat done”. Criticism is something she has encountered at every crossroads. But in 1999, Velsheda and Shamrock V and the newly-rebuilt Endeavour sliced through the fleet at Antigua Classics to the awe of all the yachts left in their wake.

Clare

Many sailors in Classics know Clare Cupples as our Race Coordinator, she has also been the Vice Commodore of Antigua Yacht Club for 6 years. But probably few know that she has her Merchant ticket and is a Master Mariner. She was 1st mate on Tenacious, the tall ship sailed by a mixed ability crew, including disabled people and later, Captain of the Lord Nelson, the 54m barque for adults with disabilities. It was on an inky black night with a gale howling that Clare was climbing aloft to rescue a ripped topsail, the Bosun shouted up to Clare “Don’t worry Clare, it could be the old days!” To which she replied “If it was the old days, I’d be in the whorehouse!”

Kate

There is a trophy awarded for the Most Photogenic Yacht and a glance through the images from the photographers’ reels must tell all. One such yacht who won my heart year after year was built by the late Philip Walwyn from St Kitts. He built her in a shed with a small team of local wood-workers, outside their hilltop wooden house beneath the volcano, looking out to sea and Statia, and named her after his flamboyant artist wife Kate Spencer. Yacht Kate is an all wood replica of a First Rule gaff-rigged racing Twelve Metre designed by Mylne in

1908. Launched in 2006, she was the star of many Classics in Antigua. Kate the yacht now lives and races in Holland whilst Kate the artist continues to create exquisite artworks at her studios in St Kitts and Sicily.

DAISY

Daisy grew up one of nine children, daughter of Brian D’Isernia, owner of Eastern Shipbuilding Group. She returned from living in Australia to discover her father was building a steelhulled exact replica of the1923 141ft historic fishing schooner Columbia. Daisy was a certified diver at 15, she holds a pilot’s licence and has climbed Kilamanjaro. She now manages the charter bookings, marketing and social media and is the owner’s representative of this glorious and much-admired schooner racing regularly at Classics. Her passion for the schooner is infectious and she brings a humble joy to those who are lucky enough to sail with the Schooner Columbia

SHANAN

The picture I took of one of Columbia’s crew a few years ago has won competitions and has garnered over 5,000 Likes, shares & comments. The interesting thing about the image of Shanan Schooner Girl at the leeward rigging with a wall of water behind her, is not just that she is a girl on deck but that she is a girl in harness on deck meaning the default person to go aloft. Shanan’s skill up the rig is somewhat due to her rockclimbing experience but she really honed her skills working on a square rigger doing everything from furling sails aloft at night to checks at the top of the mast sailing across the Gulf of Mexico. Her enthusiasm and confidence aloft is clear and Columbia’s Captain and Mate had no sexist notions about giving the “dangerous” jobs to the guys just because they were guys and instead recognised that Shanan was the best person for the job. She has done the North West passage on a 50-footer, been mate on a cargo ship in the Pacific, completed an engineering course and obtained her captain’s licence and skippered yachts in Key West and now New York.

Susie

Another daughter whose father was of paramount importance to her love of sailing was Susie Stanhope from Cornwall, England. She had owned and skippered yachts before, but in honour of her father, Susie commissioned a Spirit 56 to be built to her own specs, built in Ipswich, UK and launched in 2008. As owner and skipper of Spirited Lady of Fowey, her fulltime crew consisted of two spaniels and a cat. But reaching Antigua, she gathered a dynamic team of women to make her debut at Classics in 2010, winning trophies in 2011, 12 & 13. This spirited lady has lived onboard for 14 years, currently in Panama and works with gap year students, special schools, orphanages and hurricane or flood-damaged areas being as environmentally protective as possible.

Decked-out in pink or not, these women have had to strive just a little bit harder to reach where they are and I salute them all and their colourful accomplishments.