Cowes portraits

We catch up with some of the individuals taking part in Skandia Cowes Week

Ellen MacArthur, Emma Richards, Miranda Merron, Tracy Edwards, Shirley Robertson... women's sailing in the UK is riding the crest of the wave at the moment, but, maintains Annie O'Sullivan Managing Director of Girls for Sale Ltd, it is still hard for girls to get to go sailing on boys' boats.

"I got really frustrated with the fact that I love to sail and whenever I asked people if I could sail on their boats they would let me either make their sandwiches or I would have to sit at the back," says O'Sullivan. "And I wanted to run around and do everything and I just think sailing’s awesome. So I set it up because I wanted to sail and I wanted to encourage women to sail because I don’t think it’s a very female-friendly sport at the moment."

To counter this situation O'Sullivan (below right) set up Girls For Sale who today celebrate their third birthday. At Cowes Week Girls For Sale have four boats chartered, all of them with female crews. O'Sullivan's Southampton-based company (that is shortly to move to Gosport) charters the boat and leases them on with a skipper to all-girls teams.

Three of Girls for Sail's four boats this year are sponsored by champagne companies and have team names such as the Bolly Dollies, the Cliquet Chics and the Mumm Minxs. The fourth boat is called the Cowes Kittens, sponsored by Dana Bena's new restaurant and bar, The Kitten Club (formerly the Alamo) on Cowes High Street.

While the other three boats have crews of individual sailors they have brought together, the arrangement is different with The Bolly Dollies. "I arranged all the sponsorship and I got all the girls together," says Dollies spokeswoman Sam Thornton. "We used to all be in Asia together, so this is a reunion. This is a group of my friends. Three girls still live in Asia and they've flown over to sail with us." This is the second year they have sailed at Skandia Cowes Week and this year they have Antonia Gripper as their skipper. "Girls for Sail - basically it is a company to introduce girls to sailing and make it fun and try to compete with the boys and show them we can do as well as they can. I went on to the website and I saw 'girls for sail' and I thought it sounds great."

Thornton was also responsible for the champagne sponsorship. "There are however many people here and it is an ideal time to show off and it is a great product/company and there are a lot of men here so the girls tend to get noticed..." says Thornton. "Having Bollinger written across your back and ‘The Bolly Dollies’… it certainly does the trick."

There is just one downside: "Girls for sail… we often get asked how much we cost…"

Aside from Cowes Week, Girls For Sail put female-crewed boats together for many top regattas, including most of the Caribbean circuit. They have a boat in the ARC and are just starting to hold RYA courses, again just for women. Mostly they use chartered boats but they have their own Swan 36 in Antigua and are looking to get another yacht, something like a Beneteau 30 something to use in the UK. "I want to do one design racing when we have lots of ladies because otherwise no one really understands what the racing’s all about. So I like to choose one design fleets… but this is still quite a competitive fleet," says O'Sullivan.

The formula seems to be working for O'Sullivan who says there are a lot of like-minded women who have found there to be a shortage of space on the mens' boats. "It’s a bit like going to an all girls school. It's not that you don’t like sailing with the guys… I absolutely love sailing with them, but sometimes you just want to learn without feeling embarrassed. We all have such a giggle - it's really good fun on the boats."

In fact the concept of Girls for Sail is not original. In the States there is a company called Woman's Ship. "They seem quite different from us," says O'Sullivan. "I think we are much more focused on sailing… I think they are quite anti-men and nobody yells… well we just wanna go and have a bit of fun."

You want to yell? "No we don’t shout on boats… its actually one of our rules..."