WORLD Our recent Good Jibes podcast (#109) with Jan Pehrson of the Richmond Yacht Club highlighted many of her sailing adventures over the past 50 years. It also called attention to her recent Moorings charter, out of Marsh Harbour in Abaco, with three other accomplished sailing women. In the long evolution of women in sailing, it feels as though women have done and do just about anything in sailing, though, as Jan relayed, all-female charters remain uncommon. We wanted to hear more about the charter and the women aboard. Jan shared their story after collecting the crew's extensive and impressive sailing résumés. Anyone would sail anywhere with these women. Charter of the Un-Maidens — Who Needs a Captain? We Are a Team The instigator was Stanford professor Dr. Kim Bullock. Kim was 3 or 4 years old when she started sailing on her family's ketch, a 30-ft Cheoy Lee Bermuda named Adelante, out of Sausalito. The family's sailing took a serious turn when they sold everything with the hope of buying a boat in the Mediterranean and sailing around the world. Fate had intervened, but adventuring on a sailboat became locked in Kim's DNA and multiplied through future sailing adventures with her dad until school, career and family interrupted. After her kids were off to college, the sailing bug returned, and Kim jumped into ASA classes to refresh her skills and gain confidence for a family that was less enamored. Observing there were men in the same classes, but with less skill, heading off to charter, she thought it was well past time to just do it. Kim connected with three RYC sailing women who, like her, are more than qualified to captain a bareboat charter. She invited Jan Pehrson, Nancy Ibison, and Michele Logan to join her on an allfemale charter.
Michele started sailing as a kid on Folsom Lake, near Sacramento. Her dad, a former Air Force jet pilot, bought a 16-ft Lone Star and taught himself to sail by reading Royce's Sailing Illustrated. The family spent summers sailing with friends, kids, and a dog; barbecuing on the hibachi; and swimming from the boat when the wind died. This became a lifelong relationship with sailing, and when her family bought a 25-ft keelboat on the Estuary, 16-year-old Michele took up dinghy sailing, windsurfing, racing aboard Bytes and Express 27s, and much more. She later developed a women's singlehanded dinghy racing program at RYC along with other sailing charters, and now sails her own Sabre 36. Nancy Ibison grew up in Long Beach, looking out at the sea and sailing aboard a trimaran owned by friends of her parents. It wasn't long before she wanted her own boat. Her father said if she read Chapman Piloting & Seamanship, he'd help her with a Lido 14. The hook was set and her sailing continued, though with the common interruptions of kids, family and career. Stories from Nancy's merchant marine grandfather,
KIM BULLOCK
Team Un-Maidens. Michele, climbing on top, Jan, Kim and Nancy below. Who needs a captain? We were a team!
and more recently the Baja Ha-Ha, inspired her to keep sailing. Thus she has now bought Jan Pehrson's Islander 36 Hurulu, and scored a crew position for the 2023 Baja Ha-Ha at the recent Latitude 38 Crew Party. Jan, who was a recent guest on the Good Jibes podcast and is profiled in this month's Sightings section, made up the fourth crew member. She brought thousands of miles of sailing experience and years of boat ownership to the charter crew. Kim had arranged a luxurious Moorings 400 catamaran out of Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas' Abacos Islands. The Abacos are a quick cross-country flight, and one more hop to the east, from Florida. There are endless islands to visit and reefs to dive after sailing over crystal-clear, blue- and aqua-colored waters. The challenge was how to organize four qualified captains. Someone should be in charge. The women quickly decided to abandon sailing tradition and instead share the responsibilities. There would be no designated captain