Women Crush Wednesday With #SheSailorBWS in Marina del Rey

When we received Kaz Adams’ photos for our October Sailagram page, we were inspired to find out why these women were smiling so much. As it turns out, it was because they were loving the experience of learning to sail with a new women-identifying sailing program, #SheSailorBWS. The program was initiated by Capt. Kaz Adams at Marina del Rey’s Bluewater Sailing. #SheSailorBWS is designed to help women-identifying persons to find a place of community and camaraderie out on the water through first learning to sail as competent crew, and then moving on to become confident skippers.

“I want to empower women on the water to command the respect they deserve at any level of sailing experience and make it FUN,” Kaz explains. “There is a real need in the maritime industry. There is a very established history of men in the sailing world, and I am looking to expand the same experience for women-identifying persons.”

Capt. Kaz began sailing at age 17 after accepting a dare. She started on the Finger Lakes of New York, and then later sailed in Boston. Over the following years she raced, taught in several schools across North America, conducted over 60 charters worldwide, and ran an owner delivery service (with her sailing dog Lola aboard) from Florida to Pacific Costa Rica, including a Panama Canal transit.

Using her experience as an adjunct professor, teaching leadership and communication at two universities, Kaz puts her skills into practice when approaching students’ learning styles for sailing, fine-tuning it for communication styles more dominant in women.

“Also, I have a deep love of the ocean, and teaching allows me to share and inspire others to follow a similar, more environmentally-friendly practice in life,” she adds.

Currently, Kaz is the only female dock personnel and is therefore doing all the instruction. The program is structured in alignment with the American Sailing standards and the extended Bluewater Sailing programs aboard Catalina 22s and Capris, and larger Catalinas for the more advanced students.

The first #SheSailorBWS event, BK1, took place in mid-October, and the next one, BK2, is scheduled for November 19-20. Further classes are scheduled for this year and next, including a multi-certification class in the Caribbean that is in the works for next May — “women only!”

If you’d like to know more, you can email [email protected], or call (310) 823-5545.