Race Girl Talk | Racing Sailboats | Sailing Clothes and Gear

Eco-Armour . . . Products You Never Knew You Needed

During the Annapolis Sailboat show, I came across a product that I didn’t know I needed. Eco-Armour makes a line of botanical products using natural and organic ingredients. The one that caught my eye was the mosquito repelling body spray & moisturizer. Eco-Armour founder Robert Benzinger was sharing a sample of the product and also letting visitors know that it repels black flies, as well as, mosquitos. I’ve spent many hot summer days racing or cruising when black flies […]

For a Great Shower, Start Here……

I remember being surprised as I prepared to take a shower during my first ocean charter. A boat mate handed me a bottle of dish soap and wished me well. I didn’t have any idea that regular soap would not foam in salt water. I also didn’t have any idea what the implications were for me, the boat, or the environment if I was showering with dish soap. Anyhow, I was pleasantly surprised to discover Savon de Mer; a shampoo […]

Watch Your Hands! …Winch & Line Control

One of the first things I was taught when I stepped onto a race boat was to protect my hands — especially when trimming sails and working around winches. From my experience, effective trimming and sail control is dependent on knowing how to quickly and strongly handle the lines and winches. The picture below shows a sailor getting leverage by standing over a winch. Trimming Sails at Winch I’m a 5’6″ tall sailor with pretty wimpy arms. However, one of the […]

SailFast — Gotta Love It!

During my visit to the Annapolis Sailboat show in October, I stopped at the SailFast booth and purchased a couple of products that I’ve fallen in love with. First, I got the SailFast Sailcloth Tote. It’s ruggedly made out of sailcloth remnants that have been rescued from the sail loft instead of being sent to the trash. The size is perfect — I can fill it to the gills and the heavy duty zipper still reliably zips. It’s large enough […]

Points of Sail

If you’re new to sailing, some of the words used to describe wind can be a bit confusing at first. Hopefully, this will help. True Wind – This is just what it sounds like. True wind is the actual wind in the direction that it is coming from. Apparent Wind — This is the wind that’s apparent to you. It’s the combination of the true wind with the boat’s velocity. That results in what the wind feels like on […]

Everyone’s a Fourth Grader

I had a lot of doubts about starting this blog. For a while, I was thinking that I didn’t know enough about racing sailboats to write about it. There were many lapses in my confidence and repeated instances of questioning my rationale. Then, I listened to the audiobook “The Barefoot Executive.” Honestly, I just happened upon the download as a special from audible.com. I wasn’t sure what I would find, but the title enticed the tropic loving sailor in me […]

Got Bruises? — Eat Pineapple

When I started racing, most of my time was spent as rail meat — moveable human ballast that let me hang off of the side of the boat in order to help keep it upright. My enthusiasm for being out on the water lead to bruises from crossing the cabin top to stay on the high side of the boat. Of course, bruises aren’t flattering at all…and they can even lead to unusual comments from friends and co-workers. […]

Hello World!

Hopefully, you can gather from the pictures on this page that I’m a girl and I love to race sailboats. My family bought a 20’ Matilda sloop when I was 13 years old; and I spent many summers trying to convince my parents to sail as much as possible. But, they loved to cruise and I always wanted to race. I fell out of sailing during college. However, my early thirties brought me to the Annapolis area. From a friend, […]