Creating a culture of the 'Token Bloke' - Part one

by Kathy Macfarlane on 24 Sep 2014 I was blissfully unaware of the existence of a gender divide until I was in my teens, and it was not in the sailing community that I experienced it. It was when I was discouraged from pursuing a career in journalism by a school advisor on the basis that it would be a tough road for a woman unless I wanted to be a weather girl!

Well the ‘could-have-been’ weather girl is Kathy Macfarlane, now a first class keelboat sailor, owner skipper of Elliott 10.5 Children of Phoenix from Royal Yacht Club of Victoria (RYCV) who tirelessly and passionately encourages and trains women to participate in the sport of sailing. Here is her story of building a team of confident women sailors amongst the blokes.

I grew up in a dinghy-sailing family at McCrae, in the 70s and’80s, the youngest of four children with two sisters and one brother. The men in our household were in the minority, but more importantly, the women in my family had been laying the foundations of gender equity for generations. Both my grandmothers worked, my father and mother both worked. Mum’s career as a physiotherapist was just as important as Dad’s in the SEC and when she went back to university to do her Master’s degree and later buy her own practice, we all pulled together to help her. Dad was often first home - many a lamb chop was cooked to leathery toughness under the grill, putting me off lamb for years to come.

We spent plenty of time at McCrae Yacht Club, which is and always has been a family club. Wives, girlfriends, daughters, grandmothers, brothers and sisters all sailed. Men owned boats and so did women. The tower was largely ‘manned’ by sailing wives and the women on patrol boats were not just assisting but were in charge. If anyone had told me that while all this was happening in the southern end of the bay, yacht clubs at the northern end were only just beginning to allow female members and it was a struggle to find women sailors, my jaw would have hit the floor. I would have wondered how these clubs had managed to remain in the stone age for so long.

About this time, my older sister Heather started to sail Fireballs and 470s with husband Chris and quickly figured that to be competitive, weight-height ratios meant Heather would helm and Chris would be on the wire. Along the way they ditched the 470 for a Tasar and started competing against Heather’s childhood school friend Bron Ridgeway crewing with her husband Paul. Thirty years later this has proven a winning combination for both teams. Bron and Paul have dominated the Tasars in Victoria, consistently been at the top in Australia and in recent years have won the World titles. Heather and Chris have consistently finished at the top of the fleet at national and international level in both Fireballs and Tasars, dominated the Victorian Fireball state titles for many years and have won the Fireball nationals.

So when I began keelboat sailing four years ago, I was surprised and a little shocked to discover that it was considered to be ‘a bloke’s sport’ in some circles and that there was a general feeling that we needed to encourage more women to participate. Surely if you want to sail, you just do it? And surely many women would enjoy keelboat sailing just as much as women enjoy dinghy sailing?

Over that first year, the conversations and situations I experienced opened my eyes to how far away keelboat sailing still is from that culture. I discovered that a lot of men need ‘leave passes’ to pursue their passion of sailing as it does not include spouses and children.

I discovered that a lot of girls find it daunting to sail on a boat full of blokes where they are often relegated to positions where opportunities to learn new skills are limited. Some women expressed unwillingness to sail with blokes who yell and swear and are aggressive, but I have heard a fair few women dishing it out on the water when things go pear-shaped. That is one area where the gender divide applies less than some people think.

When I started competing in the women’s regattas, I made a conscious decision to do it with an all-female crew all season. I wanted to give the girls the confidence they could do any job on the boat. I wanted the more experienced girls to teach the new girls. I was often asked why I did not engage good male coaches in the lead-up regattas to the Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta (AWKR). I am as competitive as the next person, especially when I get a sniff of a possible win, but my main priority was to build a team of confident women and I was determined to hold true to that strategy. I also needed to develop my own confidence and skills and I’d come to the conclusion that I was just going to have to do that by doing it – I had crewed all my life and knew the theory of race tactics but never had to make the decisions. As a new boat owner I also had to learn to confidently handle my flighty racing yacht, an Elliott 10.5 which gives us lots of thrills and a few spills.

Winning Division two of the Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta (AWKR) in June 2014 felt like the culmination of four years of determination - the first regatta I had raced my boat with all crew having sailed on the boat in at least one other regatta. The crew of mixed experience had come together over the season as a tight-knit bunch and they partied as hard as they sailed at Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron (RMYS).

In preparation for the event, the boat was renamed to promote the charity Children of Phoenix and adorned with a very noble-looking phoenix in full flight. I had emptied my pockets on a new mainsail, the hull had been cleaned and freshly anti-fouled making us one-two knots faster. As one of the quicker boats assigned to Div two, we did take the gun in five of the six races on the Queen’s Birthday weekend but this did not stop the girls celebrating with gusto. Seeing the looks on their faces when we won Div two for the series justified every cent I had spent on the new mainsail.

Having developed a crew list full of women for the summer sailing, we went back to our mixed crew for the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria’s (ORCV) Winter Series. There was only over a couple of guys on board who now had to fill in around confident and competent girls running the boat.

We do sail with some exceptional blokes and amongst them, my partner Richard is often the only guy filling the spot of ‘token bloke’. From the day he stepped on board, Richard has recognised and supported my endeavours and has consciously avoided taking over or telling the girls what to do.

With the last race of the ORCV Winter Series just run over the weekend of 13-14 Sept 2014, our ‘token bloke’ joined our female crew to compete in the Melbourne to Geelong (M2G) passage race and the return Geelong to Melbourne (G2M) Women Skippers and Navigators Race (WSNR). Unfortunately a ‘glass out’ on Sunday saw Race Director Robyn Brooke signal an early and wise cancellation of the WSNR, sending the flotilla to motor off into the mist to their home clubs.

On our way home, as I listened to the jokes the girls make, giving Richard plenty of cheek, I wondered if a lone woman subjected to the same banter about their private parts on a boat full of men would take it in such good grace. ‘Dickie’ enjoys a good laugh so seems to take it all in his stride, but I guess we all need to be aware that gender equity needs to work both ways.
So to Richard for the final word –

'I enjoy the ethos of Children of Phoenix, the all-women crew, to get all these women out sailing – it is wonderful. We [men] all want to go out there and have our partners and our children enjoying it with us. The more women we get into sailing, the more that can happen. It is so lovely on this boat having all these women who are so competent. Some of them came on as complete novices and within months they have been worked up to a crew capable of winning regattas and taking anything thrown at them. It is so lovely to see. I do love being the ‘dish bitch’ but I don’t get to do any dishes!'

Arriving back at RYCV, the Children of Phoenix crew signed off on Facebook -

'Officially at home safe n sound after a great weekend. Thanks ORCV... Can we have more passage racing inside the bay??? Children of Phoenix crew.'

The Yachting Victoria Strategic Plan for 2017 aims to increase female membership to > 40%. The Women and Girls in Sailing (WGIS) Committee thank the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria for their support in developing the Women Skippers and Navigators Race to provide further opportunities for females to participate at a higher level in keelboat racing and cruising.

In the second part of this article, Kathy interviews her crew to find out exactly what the experience of Children of Phoenix has meant for her team of girls.