A new resource for would-be offshore women sailors
by Laurence Roberts and Mary Anne Unrau 1 Jul 2019 19:41 AEST
Blue Water Women by Gina DeVere © Laurence Roberts and Mary Anne Unrau
Blue Water Women by Gina de Vere (ISBN: 978-1-68157-148-5) on Amazon
We have met many men who would really like to involve their women-folk in offshore travel and I feel this book would be a great assist.
I have been really impressed with the work Bluewater Cruising Association (BCA) does to help boat-owners who are contemplating their first long offshore voyage. I wish I had known about it over 25 years ago, before Larry and I started on our first trip to Hawaii. It's a wonderful organization and it offers all the right services and educational opportunities for people to learn what they need to know to get going.
To add to the great value BCA offers offshore sailors, now there's a resource focused on offshore women. Gina de Vere interviewed many women sailors, including Beth Cooper and myself from BCA, to write a book based on practical advice for women planning to go offshore sailing. On the book website you can read about all the women who were interviewed.
Blue Water Women provides a trustworthy foundation to start life at sea, drawn from shared experiences from other woman-sailors. The book proves that there are as many ways to be a "Cruising Woman" as there are individual women, as it covers basic facts about all the things you need to know, highlighting your freedom to make the adventure your own in your own way. You can enjoy the variety and excitement of ever-changing destinations... learning a language and making new friends here and there. Or you can settle in and enjoy being 'at home' in a new country while sharing the experiences with other like-minded cruisers. The experience will be what you make of it.
As the famous Lin Pardey says in her preface to the book:
"As willing as men are to encourage women afloat, they have different concerns, different ways of handling stress, different strengths and weaknesses, different ways of teaching, and most had father-and-mentor-instilled mechanical skills to draw on as they learned to handle and maintain a boat."
This book is a valuable resource in the BCA 'toolkit' and it should be shared with newcomers to our group.