Just my 2 cents..

for the Lasers part, I think Bill Roberts is right. The sailarea is to large for the average woman to be competitive.

I have seen some mixed teams in the 49'ers, but not many, and none at the highest levels. Altough the 49'ers have a weight equalizing system, allowing larger 'wings' for lighter teams.

The Tornado also has few mixed teams, but there has been (and are) some great teams there (the Scaceys come to mind, altough there probably are several others). For a pure female team, a T is very heavy to handle on the ground. We weight in at 170Kg's, and sometimes have to struggle to get it up the ramp. Ours is a lousy ramp, with a 10 cm step at the bottom on low tide and lots of slime, but anyway..

My sister crewed for me at the swedish championship this year. She was a international top level wrestler in the 68Kg class up til some years ago. While sailing, her biggest problem was sheeting in the chute, she needed some help there from time to time. We also had to make an effort to get the boat up the ramp in Malmø after sailing.
I would guess that she is a bit stronger than the average female.

She had never sailed before, but absolutely loved it, and would love to do some more T sailing. She was attracted to the general speed and excitement of the Tornado, and of course she loves to compete.

We also got lots of positive comments for sailing as a mixed crew!

In my experience females likes to compete as much, or more, then us males. But for some reason they dont come out racing if they has to sail as skipper ? It also seems to me like they want to be reasonably sure that they will do good before they race against men ?
I have heard some say that sailing is a very technical sport, and that males enjoy technical stuff more than women. I dont think that is the reason..
Sailing can be quite testosterone packed at times (starting, protest situations etc) and some are perhaps deterred by this ?
I dont *know* all this, it's just some impressions I have got! As females are getting more and more agressive, I guess this will spread to sailing as well. Hopefully this will be positive for the sport of sailing.


I would like to hear your toughts Mary, as I would love to see more girls racing at our club!

If you have answers to some other great mysteries as well..

1: Why dont more women sail ?
2: Why is sailing dominated by white people ?
3: Why is sailing percieved as a 'closed' sport to outsiders ?
4: Why are multihulls not regarded as proper sailboats ?

(Dont get me wrong here, I'm not making a point. I really want to hear some opinions)