Captain Pat Nolan likes to tell her students that they are preparing for their next Virgin Islands vacation. In their week’s stay on the 45-foot sailing yacht Seabiscuit, her charter guests learn the basics of boat safety, boat handling, and navigation from Ms. Nolan, and they leave with an American Sailing Association certification to prove what they’ve learned.
“I would say 80 percent of those people come back and charter in the BVI,” she said. “One couple has been coming here for 13 years. They charter every year.”
Sistership Sailing School specialises in teaching charters for women, families and couples, Ms. Nolan said. In the past, most of her clients were women travelling alone or with female friends, but since the 2008 recession a majority have been couples or families.
“Women do better at a lot of different things when they learn from other women,” Ms. Nolan said. “I very much enjoy working with women. The reason I branched out to working with couples was because many of the women that came to me said they had a partner or spouse that would also benefit from this.”
See the May 22, 2014 edition for full coverage.
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