Putting Winds in Their Sails

It may be only the first day of sailing school, but aboard Syrenka, a blue-and-white 33-foot sloop with sails so full that it seems they'll take the boat airborne any minute, Katherine Souka is already having a few revelations.

Number one: "I don't need a man to do this."

Number two: "I may never go powerboating again."

Number three: "That son of a bitch was just showing off!"

Souka is a real-estate broker from Brick, New Jersey, and the SOB in question was her boyfriend -- well, until recently. He made the mistake of taking her out sailing in 26-knot winds and racing the boat almost entirely on one side, like a daredevil motorcyclist leaning into a sharp curve. While he was having the time of his life, Souka was terrified of losing hers. To get over her fear and learn how to handle a sailboat herself, she enrolled at Womanship, a sailing school based in Annapolis, Maryland that is "designed by women for women," as founder and president Suzanne Pogell likes to say.

It's mid-May. The afternoon sun darts through ashen clouds, and the wind dapples the Severn River, at the edge of the Chesapeake Bay, with whitecaps. Suddenly, the wind speed doubles to 22 knots, and Syrenka starts to heel, or tilt to one side. Perched at the stern, where she is manning one of the winches used to crank the ropes that control the main sails, Souka looks uneasy.

"I want to show you how not to be afraid," says instructor Kathy McGraw, known as Captain Kathy by her four-woman crew. With some difficulty, the crew members slowly reef, or reduce, the sail. It works. With less sail exposed to the wind, the boat slows down and tilts less. "Isn't that better?" she says.

Souka looks relieved but annoyed. "So you can control the heel in high winds," she says, shaking her head. "He could have made it heel less!"

The following week, having completed the three-day class, Souka exudes the zeal of a convert. She's shopping for her first sailboat and looking to join a local yacht club. "The whole experience helped me gain confidence in myself," she says. "I can do this. Nothing's mysterious about it anymore." As a divorced woman, she found the independence of sailing intoxicating -- no relying on a noisy engine, or on men. "It was such a good reminder that you're in control of a lot of your destiny," says Souka, who plans to take a Womanship cruise in the Virgin Islands and to teach her 11-year-old daughter how to sail. "You can set your course, adjust your sails to what comes, and keep moving forward."

"We've had women write and tell us that this was the most incredible experience they've had other than the birth of their children."

At Womanship, teaching sailing is only part of the mission. Handling a boat in high wind, problem-solving with other women, overcoming fear -- these experiences instill confidence and a sense of accomplishment. Tacking and jibing are means to a greater end. "We're not a typical sailing school," says Pogell. "We're using sailing to empower women, although I usually don't come out and use that word. I want them to discover the empowerment for themselves." Over the past 19 years, many of them have. "We've had women write and tell us that this was the most incredible experience they've had other than the birth of their children."

Rocking the Boat

When Pogell launched Womanship in 1984, an all-woman sailing school was unheard of. This was years before the United States fielded the first all-female America's Cup team and before the adventure-vacation industry exploded and made women-only hiking, rafting, and rock-climbing excursions as common as Starbucks. It's not that women didn't sail. They just didn't have their hands on the wheel much, if ever. "The men were in charge, and the women were along for the ride," says Pogell.

Few women owned boats, and few yacht clubs allowed women to be members, says sailing historian John Rousmaniere. "What Suzanne recognized is that women wanted to learn how to sail," Rousmaniere says, "and the last people who should be teaching them were their husbands."

If anyone was going to rock the boat, it was Pogell, an outspoken former government consultant, public-affairs manager, and environmentalist. Fiftyish-looking (she declines to give her age), she characterizes herself as an industry outsider, despite the fact that she has built one of the most successful sailing schools in the country. Womanship offers some 400 courses per year at 16 destinations around the globe, including the British Virgin Islands, the Florida Keys, New England, southern California, Vancouver, Greece, New Zealand, and, of course, Annapolis, which bills itself as the U.S. sailing capital. To date, more than 35,000 students have taken Womanship classes, from 2-day daytime courses ($400) to 12-day live-aboard cruises ($3,250 for Greece). This year, Pogell expects some 2,000 students.