The second day or "Women's Day" of the Open Belgian Sailing Week will also find place at the Royal North Sea Yacht Club. Enjoy this beautiful race followed by an après-voile.
Thursday is Women's Day at the Open Belgian Sailing Week which celebrates the contribution and achievement of women in sailing. Sailing is a sport where gender equity is often maintained amongst the youth, and more so in the world of Dinghy sailing. However with age and growing boat size a lot of women seem to drop out, resulting in poor participation rates during yachting events (around 10-15% in Belgian regatta’s).
During the entire week and more specifically on Thursday we are aiming for a 20% female participation rate within the crews/organisation. We want to encourage women of all ages to enjoy our fabulous sport - be they sailing, organising, or managing a racecourse.
We invite mixed crews, as well as female-only crews, and while fortunately the number of women out there racing, is slowly increasing, it is less common for women to skipper, take the helm, lead the foredeck or determine the tactics. Therefore on Women’s day in OBSW we look to specifically celebrate those positions and we will nominate a few exceptional female performances and select one for a best female performance Trophy.
Women’s day at OBSW is following the example of the Cowes week Women’s day organized since 2006, where the Trophy has included some big names from the world of sailing as Pip Hare and Dee Caffari. During OBSW our goal is to be as inclusive as possible, there won’t be any separate ranking according to gender, however we believe celebrating women already in sailing, setting examples, might lead to increasing the overall female participation rate.
Women’s day at OBSW will be held Thursday 14th of August in Ostend, wall and social program will be accordingly, more information to follow in time.