SOUTHERN SAILING
A Bit of History of Women’s Sailing in the South By Dave Ellis. Photos courtesy Dave Ellis and family. Sailing at Belle Isle, MI, with baby Rita, July 24, 1921.
I
n the days of wooden ships and iron men, there were women. No, really, there were women on the ships. Seamen on some ships were allowed to bring their wives along, so long as they did a day’s work. It seemed that the day’s work was more important than the “wife” part. Only within the past couple hundred years has sailing gone from strictly commercial to being a sport. Until the past hundred it was reserved for the wealthy and their paid hands. But, beginning in the 1920s women were very much a part of the sailing scene. Sailboat racing is only a small part of the sport. Most sailors then, as now, just enjoyed the feeling, the accomplishment, the freedom of using the wind for propulsion. When guys went sailing for fun, they took along wives and girlfriends (not at the same time) and taught many to sail. My grandfather and grandmother took my mother sailing as an infant at Belle Isle,
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March 2004
Southwinds
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