(R)evolution of Women’s Sailing on the Gulf Coast By Troy Gilbert Winners of the Commodore Bernard L. Knost Championship Regatta in 1963. The regatta is in honor of a commodore of Pass Christian Yacht Club who was a major proponent of women’s sailing, Commodore Bernard L. Knost. It is still sailed today. Photo courtesy of Pass Christian Yacht Club.
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December 2012
SOUTHWINDS
egatta parties are legendary on the Gulf Coast, and at one renowned event in Point Clear, AL, two sailors were vying for the affections of the same woman. As the evening wore on and the rivalry became heated, one of the sailors felt that the other was behaving impertinently towards the young lady and an altercation ensued. At dawn the next morning under grand oaks, the two sailors along with their seconds standing by, drew pistols and marched off 15 paces between themselves, turned and then fired. The incident ended bloodlessly with a misfire and a poorly aimed shot, but according to both parties, honor had been restored for all involved. The year was 1853, and the woman whose honor was the subject of this duel had certainly not sailed in the regatta, what was then considered a gentleman’s sport only. At a time when a newspaper editor would be challenged to his own duel for simply printing the name of an unmarried woman in the paper, sail was transitioning from one of transportation and utility to one of sport and recreation. Yacht clubs were organizing all along the Gulf Coast, and with them, formal regattas; it should not be a surprise given the time period that women were not included in these activities, let alone inside the clubs themselves. However, change does come, sometimes slowly, but it does happen, and the story of women and sailing on the Gulf Coast mirrors in many ways the larger battle for women’s equality. It is understood that with war comes inevitable societal change, and at the time of the resumption of regattas after the Civil War in the Deep South, big changes were occurring everywhere. Young men returning from war were already daringly pushing the envelope for the inclusion of women at club parties, and against what they viewed as “boresome stag parties.” This left the “old salts” increasingly disturbed by the interest and growing active participation in yachting events by the “gentler sex.” It was remarked that, “to the utter dismay of the old regime, the gentler sex now were actually learning to sail boats. In the estimation of the flustered old gentlemen of the ‘rocking chair fleet,’ this was nothing short of scandalous.” There were already documented examples of women competing in regattas, and oddly enough, several came from the early America’s Cup races. In one example, in 1886, an Englishwoman, Mrs. William Henn, raced aboard her husband’s yacht, the Galatea. It is recorded that she was below in the “pit, ” which was then a “plush facsimile of a
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