Sailing the ARC – Siri and her All Female Crew

by Nancy Knudsen on 21 Nov 2006 Her warmth is the first thing you notice, her direct gaze, ready smile, brimming confidence. She’s a sailor from Norway, so there’s no suntan here – short blond hair tied back with a scarf, excellent English…

She is telling me a story with great effervescence. ‘The owner of this boat had heard of me in the Norwegian press,’ she is explaining, ‘and how I was teaching women to sail. He phoned out of the blue and said, 'How do you feel about sailing a catamaran with a female crew across the Atlantic?'
‘Well I didn’t have to pause for an instant. 'Sure, of course,' I said. After a moment of thinking however, I added, 'Two things though – I must discuss it with my family first, and I must have my own choice of crew.'

That was eighteen months ago, and Siri Laurendz is now the Skipper of Norwegian flagged Queen of Hearts, a Lagoon 440, which is currently crossing the Atlantic with the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC), which departed on the 26th November. She has a crew of seven Scandinavian women crewing for her, and she is very proud of them.

‘I chose them for their personality and character first, second for their sailing skills, then for their spirit.’ Says Siri as we sit chatting on the deck of the spacious Lagoon. ‘You don’t need to be a top racing sailor to cross the Atlantic – you just have to be game and responsible’.

Siri should know. For the past two years she has given up her career as a dental technician to teach sailing to women, full-time.

‘Women always say, 'I can’t do that!' and then they learn to do it very well’ she smiles, a little whimsical. ‘Men on the other hand usually say 'I can do everything!' and then you find they can’t do anything at all!’

She is passionate about the pleasure she gets from teaching women to sail. ‘First you have to teach them to be confident,’ she explains. ‘Sometimes, if you teach husband and wife together, the husband tries to take over teaching the wife – I have had one husband grab the wheel from his wife in the middle of my lesson.’

The first thing Siri teaches women is how to berth a boat. In her classes they must do it again and again until it ceases to hold any fear for them.

‘But to fear the ocean is a sensible thing,’ she continues. ‘One woman told me 'O I always have butterflies when I go to sea', and I said to her, 'You must have butterflies – that means you respect the sea, and that is healthy. If you don’t respect her, she can be dangerous.’

With a Deck Officer Class 5 licence for pleasure craft, Siri is well qualified, but her sailing didn’t start with qualifications. She owned her first boat at the age of seven. An only child, she was encouraged by both parents as she grew. She started sailing at age 20, married a keen sailor, and now has two children, Julia, 23, and Magnus 27, who have been sailing since birth.

But what makes a woman, whose parents didn’t sail, start to take her sailing so seriously that she will give up a successful career as a dental technician to follow her dream of teaching women sailing?

‘It started with a bad storm once, sailing to Shetland with my husband in our Halberg Rassy.’ She remembers. ‘The weather and waves were so bad we thought we may not survive. I didn’t feel that I had enough control. So I thought if I survived the trip I would take sailing seriously and made a vow that I would enter the overnight Faerder Regatta, the largest (1000 boats) regatta in Norway.

Well, we survived, and I entered that race the same year. Then all I wanted to do was last the distance in that race, finish, and not kill anyone. However, I was delighted as we came second in our class.’

One thing led to another, and, noticing that lots of women only sailed with their husbands, Siri first wrote a book – a simplified book – on how to sail, and then later started to teach. She is now justifiably famous in Norway for her contribution to the teaching of sailing. The business has since developed even further, and now includes boat sales – Hunter, C&C, Tartan and MV Yachts. Her website is www.westmar.no, but you’ll need to read Norwegian to benefit from it!

And what DID her family think of her idea of crossing the Atlantic with an all women crew? ‘They loved the idea – my husband said 'Of course you must do it!' My son thought it was fantastic too, and Julie my daughter said, 'I’m coming with you!'

(Julie has been unable to join her mother for the crossing, as she is currently studying graphic design in faraway Perth in Western Australia.)