KEY POINTS:
The solution to luring more sailors to race on the Hauraki Gulf may be the WOW factor - getting women on the water.
Yachting New Zealand has launched a drive to get more women learning the ropes, which in turn, it hopes, should get more men racing again.
Its nationwide WOW programme (Women on Water), beginning with a sailing weekend in Auckland next month, is run by Mandy Scott-Mackie, the first female director of Yachting New Zealand.
"Increasing the number of women sailing will flow through the ranks. If we can get the women involved, it's likely to get the whole family involved," Scott-Mackie says.
"Female sailors will be useful, too, not just rail weight. And they will have the respect of the men on board."
Scott-Mackie was a "sailing mum", who sat on the beach while her sons perfected the skills of yachting. She understands that women need to be taught differently from men.
"My teenage boys sail by telepathy and a variety of grunts. I'm still pulling on the blue thing when I should be pushing the red thing. When my son yells 'tacking', I'm already falling over the side," she says.
"Women need to be told 'right, in a moment we are going to tack. While I pull that off, you are going to pull this on, and then you're going to move to the other side'.
"Some women go on golfing trips on the weekend, others go to Melbourne shopping. We're giving them a sailing weekend option - stay in a hotel, go out for dinner, and learn to sail."
The first sailing weekend in Auckland will be with veteran Penny Whiting, an unsung hero of women's sailing.
There's no problem getting girls to go sailing. Most dinghy classes are seeing a swell of young female sailors, who are footing it with the boys.
At last month's national championships for Optimists - the elementary sailing dinghy in New Zealand - a third of the 220-strong fleet were girls; the best of the females, 15-year-old Aucklander Alexandra Maloney, came third.
"In the Optis, these girls are giving the boys a run for their money. They're not just making up numbers, they're clever sailors," says YNZ's Ralph Roberts.
Women's keelboat racing is on the rise on Waitemata Harbour, and the Ponsonby Cruising Club's Saturday afternoon fleet has doubled to 21 boats in the past five years. "Now it's a matter of finding enough boats to put our women on," says the club commodore, Colin Sykes. "A lot of women are sailing in our regular crews now, where 10 years ago, you might have seen two or three women in the fleet."
The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron hopes its numbers will be boosted by hosting the women's world matchracing championships next year.
