It’s one of those days in which Chicago and Lake Michigan shimmer magically, the air is just warm enough, and the breezes are gentle and steady.
On the 37-foot ketch, the crew is pulling out of the harbor. At the helm, the “captain” gives direction. Others work the sails and tend the myriad tasks needed to begin a day of sailing.
The boat, Passage, blends into the other sailboats heading for a day of leisure, with two major exceptions: This is a training cruise. And the crew is entirely women.
B.J. Taylor of Rolling Meadows is the leader of this expedition, but instead of acting as captain, she acts as mentor to the other sailors. She offers guidance to those who are learning to sail through her Passages aux femmes, one of half a dozen sailing schools in the United States aimed at women.
“My first all-women’s sailing experience was out of Baltimore in 1986,” Taylor said. “I was amazed at how different the experience was with all women sailing. Other boaters will still pull up and say, `Where’s the man?’ “
Taylor, 51 and a grandmother, has a day job as executive director of NorthWest Action Against Rape, a rape-crisis organization in Arlington Heights. But since 1996, she has also run the sailing school, from June and extending into September, out of her Rolling Meadows home. Taylor leads one- and two-day trips out of Burnham Harbor for women with all levels of sailing experience, from novices to those working toward captain’s licenses.
In addition, Taylor and her husband, Robert, have taught couples to sail together in private lessons. These sessions focus on helping men and women work together as sailors, something many couples need.
“When my husband and I first started sailing, we had many an argument over who was the captain,” she said.
“We work with couples on assigning tasks based on logic and not gender. And we teach couples to communicate with each other about what they are doing.”
Pat Nolan, who owns the sailing school Sistership operating out the British Virgin Islands, has known Taylor since the two sailed together in the Pacific Northwest in 1991. She said the first women’s sailing school in the U.S. began in 1985, and “sailing for women since that time has really taken off.”
Passage aux femmes, Nolan said, is much like Sistership. “B.J. does exactly the same thing I do but on a different body of water,” she said. “I don’t know of anybody else in her area who is doing quite the same thing.”
Taylor decided to begin the sailing school because of her own experiences. “I saw what an empowering experience it was when I went on women-only sailing trips, and I decided that was something I wanted to share,” she said.
Taylor has taught about 120 students. The classes are never more than five women — that’s all she’ll put on the boat as crew. There are one-day and weekend classes, all of which start with Taylor and her students getting Passage, which Taylor owns, prepared to sail. The preparation can take from three hours to half a day, after which they set sail and begin their drills. with each crewmember taking turns at the helm and at performing different tasks. Cost of the classes is $150 a day, which includes food. On the weekend classes, the students stay overnight on the boat.
On this particular trip, Beth Williams, 40, of River Forest works hard learning how not to be “just another body on the boat.” Williams, an experienced dogsledder, said she has always been athletic, but “my husband is a sailor and is intent on getting his own boat, and I want to make sure it’s something I’ll like.”
Another student, J. Cunyon Gordon, 45, of Chicago, a former litigation partner at a prestigious law firm, began lessons with Taylor after buying her own boat in 1997 and finding out “I could sail less than I thought I could. I had been crew on a boat that was already set up, but I didn’t know how to rig.”
Gordon said finding Taylor was important because Gordon became discouraged after sailing with a male friend. He was trying to help her, but “at any sign from me I didn’t know what to do, he would take the helm and I couldn’t get it back,” she said. “B.J. adds to my skills and gives me the confidence I need. Here, we all get a chance at the helm, and she has us do all the tasks, and she lets us trust one another and work together.”
Taylor is pleased by the praise but notes that teaching women to sail is important to her because “I see sailing as a metaphor for life.” Her technique, she said, is designed to teach women by using their strengths and recognizing that they learn differently than men do.
“Women learn by sharing rather than by direction,” she said. “And they have never been taught how to do physical things in a way to have confidence.”
Taylor helps her students build confidence through the person overboard drill. In the exercise, the women work together using a special harness called the life sling, which allows smaller, weaker crew members to rescue larger people from the water.
The drill — and the equipment — are crucial for women sailors, Taylor said. “Men are often perceived as the saver or the rescuer, and most women are not ever treated as a potential rescuer. They take it very seriously,” Taylor said. “I have had women who have taken lessons with me because they were intent on being sure they could save their husbands in an emergency.”
Another important skill Taylor teaches is use of the boat’s radio. “Most women are not used to using a mike radio, and Lake Michigan gets some really fast bad weather,” she said. “It’s important for everyone on a boat to be able to do that.”
Mishaps happen with beginning sailors, and students say that Taylor’s demeanor in handling those incidents is one of the things that helps them learn. Naomi Davis, 42, a Chicago attorney and aspiring playwright, took her first class last summer and “I was so amazed to find that B.J. was so relaxed and had confidence in our ability.”
Taylor does not, however, underplay the seriousness of sailing. Davis said, “With all the joy, it’s important to remember it’s a life-or-death thing.”
Davis made a 14-hour crossing from Chicago to Saugatuck, Mich., with Taylor and her husband and other experienced sailors during which the boat was caught in a storm. “It was a perfect example of why you have to respect the lake,” she said. “We had 12-foot waves and it was dead black. There were five of us and I was the only dummy. Between them, they had over 100 years of sailing experience and it was amazing to watch them. They were so calm and so seamless and they worked together and knew just what to do. It was a real testament to (Taylor’s) skill, because you could die in a storm like that.”
Taylor believes sailing is a metaphor for life. “I see my overall life goal as making the world a safer place,” she said. “The rape-crisis center creates a safe place, and I hope Passage aux femmes does too. When I begin a group, we talk a lot about expectations and find out if the students are afraid and how much they want to know. Mastering sailing is not going to empower anyone, but it is a step in building confidence.”
Gordon agrees. She recently resigned from the law firm, leaving behind the long hours of a litigation partner. She will teach law in Boston in the fall, after taking the summer off to relax — and to sail.
“Sailing last year helped me get the confidence and courage to leave (the law firm),” she said. “It helped me to know I wanted a life and helped me realize that I’m safer on the open seas than I thought. A career change is like sailing because you can go out and you can’t see land, but you know you can get back.”
