Women on the Water – Arizona regatta
Presented by Tumbleweed Sailing in co-operation with National Women’s Sailing Association
NOVEMBER 3–5, 2023 LAKE PLEASANT, AZ
WOWaZR! — Regatta & learning experience includes: * all classroom workshops and seminars * racing on boats with a team and a coach * race fees * Lake Pleasant Park entrance fees * 2 nights shared lodging at the Desert Outdoor Center from Friday, Nov 3 – Sunday, Nov 5 * Friday dinner, Saturday breakfast, lunch and dinner, Sunday breakfast and lunch (6 meals) * WOWaZR! event shirt * awards ceremony and prizes
General Registration $450.00
No refunds will be made after October 8, 2023. Any refunds before Oct 8 will be less $25 (for credit card processing + donation to sailing scholarship fund).
2023 WOWZ official SIs
2023 WOWZR official NOR
official Lake Chart for WOWAZ Regatta
WOWAZR! REGISTRATION
General Registration — $450
August 16–Oct. 7
Late Registraion — $475
October 8 through Nov 1
WOWAZR! TENTATIVE SCHEDULE
Friday, November 3
1700: Lake Pleasant welcome, orientation
1830: dinner / “Getting to the Start”
1915: social networking
Saturday, November 4
0800–1145: breakfast, race seminars
1200–1250: lunch
1330–1700: on-the-water coaching, practice, race(s)
1800–2000: dinner, recap
Sunday, November 5
0630–0730: grab and go breakfast
0900: races begin / no starts after 1300
immediately followed by lunch and awards
2023 COACHES & PRESENTERS
Betsy started sailing at age seven, because her father insisted. Grumpy at first, soon Betsy was singing with her pals as they slipped happily over Barnegat Bay. In 1977 she found herself at Tufts University, which happened to have the best sailing team in the country. When her father died during her freshman year, a friend persuaded her to go sailing on Upper Mystic Lake. It was then Alison realized her natural aptitude for the sport. A self-described seat-of-the-pants sailor, she learned the technical side from talented Tuft’s teammates. She credits numerous mentors, like Dave Perry who told her to buy a Laser, then told her how to sail it in heavy air: “pull everything tight and hike” (she did, winning her first, full-rig Laser regatta); her coach Joe Duplin, who pushed her to do more than she thought possible; and fellow collegians like Ken Read, Tommy Lihan, Morgan Rieser, and Lynn Jewell Shore. An Honorable Mention for All-American at Tufts in 1981, Alison has a unique ability to quickly apply what she learns. Ken Read told her how to sail a J-24 over lunch, after which she won the first of her five Women’s Keel Boat Championships. Voted Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year a record five times, Alison says she never felt discriminated against on the water: “When you get the job done on the race course, you develop respect.” In 1998, Allison was asked to coach the USA team in the World Disabled Sailing Championship. Today she is the US Sailing Team Sperry Top-Sider Paralympic Coach. Alison is the 2000 BoatUS/National Women’s Sailing Association Leadership in Women’s Sailing honoree.
Louise Bienvenu lives in New Orleans, and is lucky enough to sail year round on Lake Pontchartrain. Louise was a latecomer to sailboat racing, crewing in her first regatta at age 28. She caught the bug, and bought a J22 LOLA. Louise regularly races J22s, J80s, Vipers, and in PHRF. She’s a member of New Orleans Yacht Club, Corinthian Sailing Association and Lake Pontchartrain Women’s Sailing Association, which she founded in 2003 and served as the first commodore. Louise is also the skipper of TEAM NEW ORLEANS, a women’s match racing team that has sailed in regional/ national/ international events. Louise is also a cruiser. In 2021 she crewed with Guenevere Rae on her Cal29, double-handed, to the Florida Keys from New Orleans. In March 2020, Bienvenu created the Single/Double Handed Sailing Association, racing Sundays with staggered starts during the first year of the Pandemic (No “club racing” was allowed during shutdown. The series was nicknamed Lulu’s Outlaw Sailing Club.) In recognition of leadership, the Corinthian Sailing Association honored her as 2020 Sportswoman of the Year.
Debby Grimm began sailing at Girl Scout camp in Indiana. She now competes in New Orleans regattas often skippering their family boat, Hot Chocolate a J30. Grimm is a six-time Gulf Yachting Association Women’s PHRF Champion and multiple winner of the Coco Seemann Regatta (one design keelboat women’s regatta). She took honors multiple times for both the Race for the Roses and Women’s Trilogy on the Gulf Coast. Debby Grimm was female sailor of the year at New Orleans Yacht Club in 2001 and Southern Yacht Club’s outstanding woman sailor in 2012 and 2021. Grimm was a founding member and currently serves as Commodore of the Lake Pontchartrain Women’s Sailing Association. Dr. Grimm is a research scientist at Tulane’s Coordinated Instrumentation Facility. She is married to Casey Grimm, and they have a daughter, Kaylor. Grimm joined the National Women’s Sailing Association board in 2021. She currently serves as President.
Haley King Lhamon loves cruising but also is a notable racer. Haley won the 2007 Thistle Women’s Nationals. She also co-skippered/navigated Team Sail Like a Girl’s Melges 32 to victory in the 2018 Race to Alaska. It was the first monohull and first all-female team to win the race. A former elementary and learning support teacher, Haley currently works as coordinator of the Park & Rec sailing program on Bainbridge Island, west of Seattle. She is also a coach for the high school sailing team. Haley serves on the board of The Sailing Foundation where she works with the youth committee and volunteers for Safety at Sea seminars. At Port Madison Yacht Club, where Haley is membership chair and a recent past commodore, she and the rear commodore, Lindsey Lind, started a monthly women’s group to engage more women in sailing in a low-key program that is both educational and social. They now have 80 women signed up! Haley is passionate about giving back to sailing through skill and safety instruction, building community, and promoting stewardship of the oceans.
Prioleau enjoys buoy racing as a past time, and has often competed in Newport – Bermuda Races. She has extensive offshore sail experience and training. Karen has spent the better part of her adult life teaching and developing better ways to get people on the water. Karen has taught women sailing for close to 30 years. She was a captain for many years on Alaska Eagle, a Swan 65, owned by Orange Coast College School of Sailing and Seamanship (OCC-SSS) in Newport Beach, CA. She skippered two all-women cruises between Honolulu and Tahiti. There were nine adult women each time as student crew. She has also taught incoming US Naval Academy midshipmen to sail during plebe summer. Not only is she a role model for women, but a model for men, demonstrating women can be fully competent and in charge on the water. Ashore she does the same in her presentations at safety at sea courses and professionally teaching maritime licensing and credential courses at the Professional Mariner Program at Orange Coast College at Newport Beach, CA.
Emily grew up sailing on the estuary and San Francisco Bay on her grandfather’s Tartan 30, Lelo Too. In her twenties she turned her passion for sailing into a career by earning her Coast Guard Merchant Mariner License, and instructing at the Alameda Community Sailing Center (ACSC) and Club Med in Florida. Emily later inherited Lelo Too (and her crew!) and they continue to race on the Oakland-Alameda Estuary weekly. Emily is currently the Program Director at Alameda Community Sailing Center and an instructor at Club Nautique.
Wendy Larsen has been sailing for almost 50 years, having learned in her early teens on Lake Erie and Hoover Reservoir in Ohio.Over the years she has sailed many types of boats from a Sunfish to a Beneteau 42. She has cruised and/or raced out of ports in North America & the Caribbean from the Great Lakes and Antigua and along all three US coastlines.Wendy began racing in 2003 with the Arizona Yacht Club on a J/24. She and her husband, Dave, built a Mini-Transat 650m and they sail it on Lake Pleasant.Wendy is certified by US Sailing as a Principal Race Officer and is an International Yacht Training Worldwide certified instructor. She is also an instructor/leader with Sea Scout Ship 3500, based in Phoenix.
Charlie was born in Newport, RI into a Navy family that moved often. The family moved to San Diego where Charlie learned to sail and began racing. After college Charlie returned to San Diego. She became an active member of the Women’s Yacht Racing Fleet. She won the US Women’s Double-handed Championship in 1998 and was an avid match racer for 10 years. She retired as the Director of Sailing for the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo, CA after 16 years which included two College National Offshore Championships leading to racing in the Student World Yachting Cup. Settling in Annapolis MD, Charlie Arms works as the Executive Director of the Brendan Sailing Program, building self-confidence in children with Learning Differences through sailing. She also teaches Instructor Training courses in Keelboat, Powerboat and Small Boat. Arms is an International Umpire and enjoys giving back to the sport umpiring, judging and through race management.
Naomi Emmerson inherited her love of sailing from her Dad learning on the family’s Mistral 16 and at camp on lasers on lakes in Quebec, Ontario, then cruising the Gulf Islands (B.C) on a Hughes 31. Currently, her sailing playground is Lake Mead, NV where she races with the Nevada Yacht Club on various keelboats both as skipper and crew and has raced Hobie Waves with Hobie Fleet 51. Emmerson is certified to teach ASA101 and the USPS curriculum (Las Vegas Squadron) She teaches students on Lake Mead on a Catalina 27 and a Catalina 38. She holds a Captain’s Level V Certification from NauticEd and an USCG OUPV 6-pack. She has skippered bareboat charters (with her husband as first mate) in the BVI, Antigua and B.C. She completed an Atlantic Passage from Norfolk to Bermuda on an Island Packet 40 with the Maryland School of Sailing. She currently serves proudly as Secretary on the Board of NWSA. Naomi is the creator of the YouTube Channel The Desert Sailor from boatLUV and Founder and creator of www.boatluv.com.
Jen Lee is a sailor from Portsmouth, RI. She grew up sailing in Newport, RI. Jen raced in high school and college before moving to Arizona. During college, she held her US Sailing Level 1 certification and taught beginner sailing. In Arizona, Jen races her sunfish in Tempe. She recently won the Arizona Yacht Club Championship for the second year running. Jen is the current US Sunfish Class West representative. She is one of the founders of Women of Arizona Yacht Club, WAYC (pronounced “wake”). Professionally she is an audiologist in Flagstaff AZ.
Ellie wrote, “In my mid 40s I took a sailing class because I thought sailing would be a cheap way to see the world. Haha. I learned that if you don’t own a sailboat, you could get on a raceboat. Racers were always looking for people.” McCulloch joined sailing clubs and was fortunate to sail with experienced sailors in all kinds of weather and conditions. Eventually she became bare-boat certified with US Sailing and a Navigator with US Power Squadron. She chartered bareboats cruising in Italy, British Virgins Islands, Florida, and Croatia. Her first boat was a Cape Dory. (Not a race boat!) She raced it anyway discovering a love for figuring out how to skipper. She enthusiastically participated on her Cape Dory club racing for about 10 years. In her late 60’s she moved up to a true sport boat, a J80, and started one design racing. Ellie loves the challenges with every race. It’s training for cruising (fast) building trimming and adjusting course skills.
A 2021 Summer Solstice Sailing Ambassador and life-long sailor Gail is an active Sunfish and offshore sailboat racer. A member of the Gull Lake and Greater Detroit Sunfish Clubs, Lake Michigan Sail Racing Federation, DN Ice Yacht Racing Association and Gull Lake Ice Yacht Club, Gail is a veteran of 45 (or is it now 46) Chicago-Mackinac Races, 18 (or is it 19) Port-Huron Mackinac Races, a Conch-Republic Cup, over 25 Queen’s Cups. Turluck has won the Midwest Collegiate Freshman Championship and raced in over 30 classes winning seven Sunfish World Championships.
WOWazR! regatta chair, Debbie Huntsman began sailing as an adult. After she turned fifty, she became helmsperson with an all women’s race crew on Lake Pleasant. Since then, she has raced regularly both on Lake Pleasant, Lake Pontchartrain and along the Gulf Coast. In 2017 she crewed in the Pensacola a la Habana race finishing third overall and first in class. Since 2019 she has been honing her doublehanding skills on her 37′ sloop, NOW in San Diego. Huntsman has instructed for Lake Pontchartrain Women’s Sailing Association, National Women’s Sailing Association, Gail Hine Presents Sailing Convention for Women, US Sailing, US Coast Guard Auxiliary, National Safe Boating Council, as well as several states. She brings with her local knowledge of Lake Pleasant as her home sailing grounds. Huntsman joined the National Women’s Sailing Association in 2017. She has served on Women’s Sailing Foundation’s executive board since 2019.
WATCH ONE OF OUR PARTICIPANT’S EXPERIENCE AT WOWAZR 2019
THE DESERT OUTDOOR CENTER
Lake Pleasant Regional park covers a total of over 23,000 acres (93 km²) of mountainous desert landscape, including the lake, and boasts a number of other recreational activities, such as mountain biking, camping, and hiking, and sailing!
Overlooking the lake is the Desert Outdoor Center (DOC), a visitor’s educational destination featuring a modern bunkhouse (where sailors can stay). In addition to lodging, the DOC provides information regarding desert flora, fauna, history of the lake, the construction of the Waddell Dam and facts of the surrounding areas, and there is a spectacular view!
We’ll be sailing out of Pleasant Harbor Marina
40202 N 87th Ave, Peoria, AZ 85383
MEET RUTH BEALS:
ARIZONA’S SAILOR BARBIE
It was a Barbie-like woman born in 1918 who first organized sailing in Phoenix in the 1950s. Ruth Beals staked out a vacant lot in Tempe and called it Sails Ahoy. From there using a corner pay phone she sold sailboats, then fostered new sailors, then founded Arizona Yacht Club (AYC). She once said, “… as far as we knew there wasn’t a sailboat in the entire state.” During a Mexican vacation her family learned to sail the boat she bought aided with a thin instruction booklet. “In blissful ignorance we bobbed about the bay having a great time capsizing and learning everything the hard way, and then found out the bay was alive with sharks!” Much to her delight, people in Phoenix were interested in sailing — in 1958 Ruth Beale started a ridiculously improbable yacht club with three boats and 15 people. The three hundred member Arizona Yacht Club honors Ruth’s crazy idea of sailing in the desert annually with the Ruth Beals Cup regatta.
Sailing on Lake Pleasant was a woman’s idea!
ABOUT LAKE PLEASANT
Housing is included in the registration fee if you choose to stay at The Desert Outdoor Center The D.O.C features modern bunkhouse accommodations (sorry, no outhouses!) with breathtaking views from the amphitheater. Enjoy, the virtual hike below to see the walk up the hill from the marina and then the rewarding view, the tidy bunks, the sparkling showers and the center’s desert landscape. The bunks will be ready with new bedrolls. Feel free to bring your robe, shower shoes, towel and wash cloth, but leave your blow-dryer at home. The dry desert air will do that job in quick order.
Desert Outdoor Center at Lake Pleasant
41402 N. 87th Avenue, Peoria, AZ 85383
(602) 372-7470
