8th Annual Women's Sailing Conference

After much debate, I took the plunge (well, not literally) and signed up for the 8th Annual Women's Sailing Conference in Marblehead. Never having done anything like this before, I was a bit intimidated by doing something so different than what I'm used to.


Justin drove me up on Friday night and we stayed at our very kind friend Nicola's house. Saturday morning, we drove over to Corinthian Yacht Club and stopped to explore a little bit because we were a bit early. Willie loved being a mountain goat on the rocks, as did Justin, apparently.

When I got to the yacht club (wow, what a fancy little place they have!) I wandered around until I came upon a table covered in knots. Bowlines, square knots, fisherman's knots (or maybe fisherwoman's, in this case). I was approached by a woman who I later found out was teaching the knots workshop (which I did not sign up for). We talked for awhile about knots and how cool they are (I am a big dork....I know). Anyway, my tension eased a bit as I realized that if I met no one else that day, I would be pleased to have at least talked to one person.

The breakfast was great, and I wandered around on the front deck watching the huge rolling swells lift under the many boats in the mooring field. It was cold, windy, and those waves were huge!

I'll cut to the chase. I took 3 workshops: man overboard, understanding the wind, and suddenly singlehanded.

I was instantly impressed when we did our man overboard drills on a 36' Robin Hood. I was thinking we'd be practicing on a sunfish. A woman actually jumped into the water, and I helped hoist her back up. This was only at the docks, but it was still a great experience, especially knowing that with the right gear, she was very easy to pull up.

All of the workshops were fantastic and it seemed as though the instructors all spent a lot of time making sure that the beginner and the advanced sailors all took something away from things. I feel that I'm right in the middle so I was very well informed.

I quite hope that their workshops are different enough next year, because I'd love to go again if there are new things to learn.

Afterwards, I made my way back to Nicola's and spent a lovely evening with her and our friend Melissa.