6 minute read
FAIR TIDES: Port of calling for these area women
on the WATER
by beth A. KlAhre
T
here is a continuously growing number of women in the marine and boating industry encompassing everything related to the ocean, ships, and navigation in positions as seafarers, retailers and manufacturers, boat dealers, recreational boaters, executives, and many other roles. Right here in Wilmington, three women are making their own waves in the industry.
a rising tide
MICHELE KURELICH is a boat captain for US Powerboat Training. Growing up in Virginia, Kurelich boated with her brothers, promising to clean the boat if she could go along for the entire day.
She introduced her children to boating twenty years later and in 2017 purchased her own boat.
Kurelich attended US Powerboat Training as a student to gain confidence in operating a boat by herself. She now holds a U.S. Coast Guard captain’s license and certification from US Powerboat Training and teaches courses in powerboat handling and search and rescue including courses for couples as well as ones for women.
Students come from along the East Coast and as far away as England. Kurelich also teaches powerboat courses as a member of the nonprofit BoatUS Foundation. When not teaching, she runs a water taxi service between Deep Point Marina and Bald Head Island.
“There has been a tremendous surge in new powerboat owners in the last year,” Kurelich says. “More people are looking for outdoor activities. Our mission is to make training and safety a bigger part of boat sales and marketing for new boat owners.”
Kurelich, whose passion-to-career transformation enables her to spend every day on the water adds, “Meeting new students who don’t have any experience and watching them confidently dock the boat at the end of the day is empowering. For me personally, boating is about living in the moment.
“You are only focused on what is going on around you,” she says. “You aren’t thinking about the past or worrying about tomorrow. You are just living in the present!”
photo by Aris hArdiing
THERE HAS BEEN A TREMENDOUS SURGE IN NEW POWERBOAT OWNERS IN THE LAST YEAR. … OUR MISSION IS TO “
MAKE TRAINING AND SAFETY A BIGGER
PART OF BOAT SALES AND MARKETING FOR
NEW BOAT OWNERS.”
office with a view
DEBORAH CONARD has been the manager of Federal Point Yacht Club in Carolina Beach for the past seven years. She is responsible for managing 110 privately owned boat slips as well as leasing slips to short-term transient boaters.
Conard also oversees the condition of the docks, prepares hurricane evacuation plans, manages accounts payable and receivable, and even does party planning. Logistics is also a large part of her job, placing 25- to 50-foot boats in the slips according to size, arrival and departure dates, and power requirements.
Catering to both slip owners and club members, she says, “I provide customer service to a hundred different personalities on a regular basis.”
She knows most of the members and their dogs by name. Conard, who has a background in sales, learned most of her trade through on-the-job experiences.
Conard and her husband, who is the dockmaster at the club, own two boats and spend their weekends on the water.
“We fish, grill out, read, and scuba,” she says. “It’s a great weekend getaway without really leaving home. The scenery is beautiful. The horizon where the water meets the sky never ceases to amaze me.”
But, it’s the view from her office that can’t be beat.
“I see all kinds of boats all day. Once, dolphins swam right in front of my office window. Not many jobs where you can say that,” she says. “I always try to stop and appreciate the beauty while it’s happening. I try not to take my view for granted. No cubicles or windowless offices for me ever again!”
photo by MAdeline grAy
SCENERY IS BEAUTIFUL. THE HORIZON
WHERE THE WATER MEETS THE SKY NEVER
CEASES TO AMAZE ME.” Deborah Conard Manager, Federal Point Yacht Club
SPEND SUMMER IN
Safe Places: Robert Johnson
On view through August 1, 2021
Elizabeth Bradford: A House of One Room
On view through October 17, 2021
Youth and Adult Classes and Workshops
Virtual and In-Person
CAM Café
Lunch, Brunch, and Dinner with live music Thursdays and Saturdays
CameronArtMuseum.org 3201 S 17th St Wilmington, NC 28412 (910) 395-5999
eye on the prize
KERRY DEWBERRY has been living on her 35foot sailboat, SeaCup, since April 2019.
Retired from her vice president role at PPD, a global contract research organization, she found herself as an empty nester when her son left for the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
“It’s cozy down below. Rocking to sleep with the sounds of the water slapping on the boat is lovely,” Dewberry says. “The best part is sitting in the cockpit watching dolphins, pelicans, and jumping fish, and observing the fishermen and sailors doing their thing on the Intracoastal Waterway.”
Dewberry has a yachtmaster certificate from Royal Yachting Association and is certified by the American Sailing Association.
She completed a survival at sea course, compulsory for her participation as a crew member in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race.
The sailing race, which runs every two years and now in its twentieth year, is an eight-leg international race made up of multiple individual races.
The 2019-20 race started in London in September 2019.
Dewberry boarded in Australia in November and sailed to the Philippines, twenty-seven straight days at sea. The race made it halfway around the world when it was postponed due to COVID-19.
Restarting in February 2022, Dewberry is scheduled to hop on board again in May in Seattle. The eleven ocean yachts will head to New York via the Panama Canal, to Ireland and Scotland, and finish in London in August.
Dewberry’s team is in the overall lead, accumulating points from races last year before the COVID-19 postponement.
“It is a transformational experience,” says Dewberry, who hopes to “make it to the podium,” boating speak for winning.
“It’s crazy and hectic and exhausting and exhilarating. Then, it’s peaceful and relaxing,” she says. “My life just couldn’t be any more different than it was.” W
JUMPING FISH, AND OBSERVING
THE FISHERMEN AND SAILORS
DOING THEIR THING ON THE
INTRACOASTAL WATERWAY.”
Kerry Dewberry Competitive Sailing Racer
photos c/o Kerry Dewberry
