In the United States sailing is definitely not a stag thing. There are large numbers of women sailing, but their participation is not across the board. Numbers vary according to the type of sailing being done -- racing or cruising; the type of racing being done -- long-distance or around-the-buoys; and the type of boat.

In monohull racing, for instance, you will see many women participating on boats like the Flying Scot, Thistle, Lightning, Snipe, etc. And you will almost always see women among the crews on the larger monohulls.

There are huge numbers of women who race Sunfish (and that is the largest class in the world as far as numbers of boats). In Florida alone there are a lot of women-only fleets of Sunfish that race regularly.

On the other hand, you will see few women competing on the Laser because most women do not have the weight and strength to handle the boat. Same goes for other very athletic boats like the 49'er and the International 14.

In the beach-cat category, you will see a high participation by women on the Hobie 16, which was designed as a couples boat. And there are a number of excellent two-woman teams that race the Hobie 16. The Formula 18 class is also attracting male-female teams.

However, there are few women participating on the 20-foot beach cats, partly because those boats are so powerful and have such large spinnakers. And you will see very few women participating in long-distance races like the Around Texel and the Worrell 1000.

We always have a large contingent of women at our Hobie Wave Nationals, because it is a small, easy-to-handle, one-person boat.

The A-Class, on the other hand, like the Laser in the monohulls, can be a bit of a handful, even for the men.

There are many women now who have raced around the world, usually as all-female teams or skippering a team or singlehanding, both on monohulls and multihulls.

As far as long-distance cruisers and liveaboards, those are mostly couples or whole families.

There are several very popular and successful women-only sailing schools.

Four of the Olympic sailing events are women-only.

I think that percentagewise in the competitive aspect, probably more women compete in sailing than in most other sports (excluding golf and bowling).

And for all sports, usually you see fewer women than men just because, in general, men have a higher competitive drive than women. It's that testosterone thing.

Interestingly, I am told that at one large junior sailing school in Florida, which has about equal numbers of boys and girls, a lot of the boys drop out when they get old enough to start participating in team sports like football, baseball, basketball, etc., while the girls tend to stay with the sailing.

Unfortunately for the girls, the singlehander boat of choice when kids outgrow the Opti dinghies is the Laser. Works for the boys, who are getting up to about 150-160 lbs. But there does not seem to be a single-hander option for the girls on the racing circuit, so they have to go to a team boat. I imagine they lose a lot of girls, as a result.

Sorry to go on so long about this. That's what happens when a woman answers a question.