Offshore Sailing School puts women at the helm




Offshore Sailing School instructor, Barbara Stetson, with Lisa Giarrantana, Adriana Gutierrez, Alison Wisch. They took their course at South Seas Island Resort on Captiva Island.

Offshore Sailing School instructor, Barbara Stetson, with Lisa Giarrantana, Adriana Gutierrez, Alison Wisch. They took their course at South Seas Island Resort on Captiva Island.

Finding a program where she could burnish her sailing skills was a priority for Lori Hodges when she was planning a move to Florida’s Gulf Coast in 2019. She’d become passionate about the sport while living in San Diego and she was interested in training on the waters off the Sunshine State’s coastline.

In researching Florida’s sailing schools, Hodges found one headquar­tered in Fort Myers offering just what she was looking for: Steve and Doris Colgate’s Offshore Sailing School. Especially appealing was the opportu­nity to share the instructional experience in an all-female environment through the school’s Women’s Week Fast Track to Live Aboard Cruising Course.

“I’ve been instructed and been sailing with all men,” explained Hodges, with a chuckle. “Finding women who sail is rare so I thought it would be more fun, less stress and less pressure in a week-long live-aboard; and just to get to know other women.”

The program provides groups of up to four women with the know-how essential to han­dling a large sailboat. The mix of classroom instruction and hands-on learning includes performing all tasks necessary to sail, along with time living aboard the craft. In the process, participants can earn three certifi­cations qualifying them to skipper boats of up to 50 feet from the United States Sailing Association, the country’s governing body for sailing. Offshore Sailing School instructors are all association-certified.

Founded in 1964, Offshore Sailing utilizes six resort-based locations, five of them on Florida’s Gulf Coast and one on Scrub Island in the British Virgin Islands. The Florida sites are the Pink Shell Beach Resort and Marina on Fort Myers Beach, The Westin Cape Coral Resort at Marina Village and Tarpon Point Marina, the South Seas Island Resort on Captiva Island and the Downtown Hampton Inn and Suites in St. Petersburg.

Offshore Sailing offers everything from basic sailing and boating courses, through advanced cruising, racing, navigation and passage making. The courses qualify students to test for eight different levels of US Sailing, or US Powerboating and Coastal Powerboating certification.

Fast Track to Cruising’s slogan entices with the promise of going from the “Couch to the Captain’s Chair in One Week.” The program is suitable for people with just some experience on a small boat as well as those who’ve had basic sailing instruction.

The course is the same one the company has long offered to teach men and women, families, couples and individuals. Doris Colgate, the company’s co-owner, president and CEO, was inspired to devise a female-only version as part of her drive to see the ranks of female sailors expand.

“She realized that there were many women and husbands who sail and stereotypically, the husband may have taken the predominant role of getting into it and always being at the wheel,” explained Offshore Sailing’s marketing director, Beth Oliver. “Stereotypically, the spouse or female companion may have been comfortable or relegated to a crew position and being told what to do. Doris wanted to flip that on its head and get more women to take the helm.”

A St. Petersburg resident, Hodges took the course in 2019 at the Fort Myers Beach location.

“They do a great job,” she said of the course. “It was well-designed and the instructors were fantastic. Women’s classes are a great way to get instruction and to gain confidence in your skills without the complexity of taking classes with men where expectations are quite high and there’s a competence issue. It’s an easier way to cement skills and stretch them with the like-minded people who are in the same place.”

Karen Kendall, her husband, Larry Ross, and their dog, Annabelle, spend summers aboard their sailboat on Lake Michigan, but winter at their home in Naples. Kendall took the course in 2017 after purchasing a bigger boat and desiring to expand her knowledge and skills.

“I researched the possibilities and this seemed clearly to be the best one, and the fact that they offer an all-women’s program sounded fabulous to me,” said Kendall. “There can be a dynamic where men are bigger and stronger and kind of want to help ‘the little woman’ out,” she said with a laugh. “Women need a chance to be totally independent and learn without that dynamic.”

Offshore Sailing Courses

Future course start dates and locations for the Women’s Week Fast Track to Live Aboard Cruising Courses this year:

May 1 at Scrub Island Resort in the British Virgin Islands

Oct. 30 at South Seas Island Resort, Captiva

More information at: www.offshoresailing.com/women-only-sailing-programs/ or call 888-454-7015.