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A sailing podcast for racing sailors everywhere. Exclusive interviews with the sport's top names. Presented by British sailing journalist Justin Chisholm.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're listening to the Yacht Racing Live podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: The show for Racing Sailors Everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: Featuring exclusive stories and interviews from across the world of competitive sailing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hosted by British sailing journalist Justin Chishoff, available wherever you get your pocket.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Yacht Racing Life podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Justin Chisholm, and my guest on this episode is Vicky Low, CEO of the Magenta Project.
[SPEAKER_01]: An organization on a mission to ensure great equity and inclusion for women in the sport of sailing and the wider marine industry.
[SPEAKER_01]: By working to dismantle the barriers that hinder participation and advancement.
[SPEAKER_01]: who better than to quiz about the current state of sailing in regards to all of that, particularly given the fact that Vicki recently masterminded a global survey of the marine industry that has been heralded as the most ambitious equity inclusion review of sailing that has ever been undertaken.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vicki, low welcome to the Yacht Racing Life podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: you, we've known each other for a long time and I've known you in various roles over the years in media roles with further ocean race teams and lots of other things.
[SPEAKER_01]: You now the CEO probably amongst many other things too of the Magenta Project.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm familiar with the Magenta Project.
[SPEAKER_01]: It came out of TMSCA, which you were heavily involved in, but for the benefit of people who were listening who might not be quite as aware, can you give us the kind of potted history of the organization and what it's about?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And thank you, Justin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really nice to be here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, it's scary.
[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't only each other a very long time through various different incarnations.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I now, actually, all I'm doing more or less is is working for the Magenta Project, which as you quite rightly say, came out of TMSCA, end of that race in fact, Genoa boat show.
[SPEAKER_00]: So almost exactly 10 years ago, because I think we've got Genoa boat show in a couple of weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, uh, we were sat down in a container.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, having been told that SIA partner at the time, I suppose at the time wasn't going to renew.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the, the squad was sort of seeing all the, everybody else going off and getting other jobs and not one of the women, uh, on T. Messia had more of the job.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they kind of thought, well, I'm going to amend it the only way to try and fix this is to do something ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: So essentially, when it first started,
[SPEAKER_00]: It was trying to create another initially off shore racing team.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was also an M32 team which you may recall sort of back in the 2016-17, if I'm wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what soon transpired was that whenever you create this team, you're only actually doing it for a sort of small number of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you need a lot of investment to create those pathways to make it much wider.
[SPEAKER_00]: with much, no, lots of words, with sort of with great opportunities as it were.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the thing that came out more than anything else is the critical need for mentoring, so for aspiring female sailors at the time to find someone that could mentor them and support them through that.
[SPEAKER_00]: very rugged, difficult journey, and really that has become since the back end of 2018, the sort of the icing, the cherry on the cake, if you like, it's a jewel in the crown, as far as magenta products concerned.
[SPEAKER_00]: And from a mentoring program, we then spawned grew a whole lot of different pathways.
[SPEAKER_00]: Essentially, they were based around offshore,
[SPEAKER_00]: And I joined the Magenta Project in my earlier this year, so February March time this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the important thing is that whole period that we've had, the growth of this organization, has been based purely and utterly on volunteers, and it's been, I think, incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I sit down and I look at,
[SPEAKER_00]: the work that they've achieved and what they've done, it's basically all be done on the voluntary basis with scant, scant negligible, almost non-existent budgets, other than some incredibly generous donors over the years.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've kind of, I think, I think probably off that when we got to the end of TMECA, we knew that there was definitely a feeling that there was an opportunity here and
[SPEAKER_00]: sky rocketed over the last, more definitely the last 10 years and albeit in our own little way within our sailing world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully we're sort of beginning to start to emulate some of some of the amazing successes we're seeing elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so yeah, so that kind of brings you a little bit up to date, um, and, like, as you, you know me well, it's it's why, why, when it's, what do they say?
[SPEAKER_00]: If it ain't broke, if it don't, don't fix it all, if it ain't, whatever that phrase is, but, um, I kind of felt when I came in, we'd have a long hard look.
[SPEAKER_00]: with the support of the board in terms of what we were doing and we've sort of made a number of changes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think our key change really is not to focus solely on water roles in that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a massive industry out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have some incredibly talented women that want to break into that industry, so actually we've sort of expanded if you like, and if you kind of think of a bit like a triangle, the elite high performance amazing female sailors and all sailors doesn't matter whether you're male or female.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're actually an elite minority as it were, but there's a huge amount of work that goes into the marine industry as a whole.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've expanded our pathways to also look much more broadly at STEM and STEM careers within the marine industry and also around race management and support.
[SPEAKER_00]: and sort of divided up media and management, which was kind of all lumped in together as one, and kept a completely separate media role and developing a new female leadership program.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, we sort of had a little bit of a, had a bit of a gear change if you like, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm super excited about what's coming out.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got some really exciting things coming up
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, that sounds like you've got a lot going on with the organisation.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot more there, I'm glad I asked you to do that because there's a lot more going on than I was aware of.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to just go back to TMSCA, maybe for people who don't remember, I'm sure most people listening to the podcast do remember TMSCA was an an old woman
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember that very clearly I came out through the training camp in the Canary Islands a couple of times just to see what was going on and just trying to understand what how the whole thing was going to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you say,
[SPEAKER_01]: women's sport has moved on an awful lot since in that ten years we're talking about since then.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there was a little cynicism still from perhaps the media and the mail end of the sport about how that whole thing was going to work, but it really was a paradigm shift, I thought,
[SPEAKER_01]: of those women, and we're talking about people like Sam Davies and Steve Metro, Decafari, all of them, yeah, LED.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: It gave them, it gave them their end into the Volvo, which they simply wouldn't have got.
[SPEAKER_01]: And your sponsor at that point, I felt was totally engaged in the whole thing, driven a lot by you and your knowledge of the sports,
[SPEAKER_01]: How did they end up not taking that for a second campaign?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it came at, I mean, I don't want to get this wrong, but I think it came at an interesting time for them as an organisation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for those of you that were following SCA shortly after that, they actually changed their name to SCT, which is more focused on their feminine hygiene brands.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're sort of paper brands, kind of paper, et cetera, et cetera, and kitchen towels, and it doesn't know what else.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it sort of came at a time where it did the job it needed to do for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think sponsorship in Aspo is super interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you look at the French market and you sort of see a lot of returning sponsors whereas outside of that,
[SPEAKER_00]: are there a lot of returners, people sort of do one campaign and throw everything in the kitchen sink at it and then sort of ride off over into the sunset.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I think the other part of it is that what there had to be, you know, you sort of said there's been this massive, definitely a shift ham during that campaign, but we mustn't figure, you know, you go back to Tracy Edwards and Maiden who was the sort of the trailblazer as far as the whip red race as was then.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, they didn't come back in a second time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was fortunate enough to be involved in the Heinrichen campaign, which was in 1993, Art Recall, which started off as a different campaign.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then kind of lost a bit lost of its way and kind of constept in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then shortly after that, we had the two boat, you remember, Team EF campaign, where we had an all-female team.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then ABN AMR, so there's been a lot of sort of precedent, if you like, before SCA came, but not, and in all of those all female campaigns, the sponsor didn't come back, but then I would probably say the majority, I don't know, I have the my history knowledge of the
[SPEAKER_00]: Ocean Race, stroke, whip, bread, Volvo, whatever restoration, want to say isn't probably good enough to know how many of those are repeating ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's kind of the way it goes, but from a specific perspective from, as yeah, there was huge support from senior management, but just the business was refocusing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a bit like the conversation you have sort of, I was fortunate enough to work on the winning Ericsson campaign.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you do next?
[SPEAKER_00]: how do you better that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of what we did during that was around empowering women.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had this big global campaign, amazing women everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: And really it was as a result of all of that that magenta project came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we got to the end of this campaign and we had sort of over a hundred thousand followers which
[SPEAKER_00]: very nice 10 years ago was quite a lot, maybe even more across our social media channels.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what do we do with these people that we've taken on this incredible journey?
[SPEAKER_00]: Paint that word, but you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we've taken them on this, we've taken them around the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had some incredible characters have come out the boat that they've had.
[SPEAKER_00]: off the squad that they've identified with and you couldn't just drop them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this was as much as the crew of T-Messia and that squad of T-Messia turning around and going, actually, you know, we want to give something back.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, the foundation, if you like a magenta project, is every single one of those women that was involved in that campaign.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm delighted some of them are still involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: People like Annie still on the board.
[SPEAKER_00]: um, Libby Greenhouse, Abbiela, Carolyn, you know, they all have, they're all hugely supportive of the work that we're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, um, yeah, it's, it's good, and it's payless and, but if there are any other sponsors out there, always interested sort of, I'm sure there's a whole lot of female offshore campaigns that would be very interested as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, is it as hard as ever to get people interested in sponsoring female lead campaigns?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I've always thought it would be a no-brainer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember with TMS, yeah, you guys used to dominate the stopovers with your marketing and your business to business activities.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like a sea of magenta, I used to call it, hey, can you use to slap me, so say in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, you really did dominate.
[SPEAKER_01]: to me that in such a male-dominated sport to have a female lead or an old female campaign, just gives you a massive advantage when it comes to activation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, and you would think so, but I think again, one just lost the comparisons with female sport in general, until recently it has struggled hugely and we still have some sort of fairly cringy, hideous stories of what happens, particularly for going to football, etc, etc.
[SPEAKER_00]: and what
[SPEAKER_00]: certain, you know, owners of certain football clubs, not investing in their female teams, but yeah, their female teams are, you know, a successful in their own mind having full stadiums.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, as he said, we are on this shift.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also I suppose, I am not the best person to talk on this, but it's the interesting thing is, you know, does it, do you benefit more by having an or female team or do just the small benefit more by going mixed and there in Lyathia age-old question, you know, as to, as to what proves,
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think that that TMSCA campaign helped to trigger the positive discrimination from the ocean race going forwards to include, you know, to mandate female sailors?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because, again, I thought that was a...
[SPEAKER_01]: a super smart move that got quite a lot of resistance, maybe not publicly, but from the teams and from the male sailors who just weren't really that keen on doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was so much, that the crew was was so much more interesting once you included female sailors in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And from a media point of view, it really changed it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, and now you'd struggle with you to run an event that was just all male.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think if you go as far as some full version of it, I mean, that's the sort of the vision of Mark Turner back in the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was when he was, that was that next campaign, that next race wasn't it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the job I had was that 17, 18 race.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, credit to him for for for standing for standing by his guns by seeing exactly as you pointed out, you know, that what the benefits there are.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also just how you broaden your audience.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the other part of this, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, this sport is an amazing sport.
[SPEAKER_00]: It delivers on so many different levels.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but we've got to be reflective of the society in which we live.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and if you see, you know, again compared to other sports, you've obviously tennis is slightly different, but you've got.
[SPEAKER_00]: say tennis and rugby and all of these other sports that are traditional male sports rugby golf football, you know, they're again they're all shifting hugely and sailing needs to catch up to be frank.
[SPEAKER_00]: But equally I think we have an incredible opportunity with
[SPEAKER_00]: saving and the marine industry in general and that we are a small industry.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're probably one of the most innovative industries globally.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a massive test bed for technology and all sorts of different things and we're hugely flexible because you know that the very thing that makes our passport are individuals who pump
[SPEAKER_00]: a huge amount of money in, there aren't a huge massive number of large organizations, monolithic organizations.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think, you know, we're flexible, we are innovative and we have an incredible opportunity to lead the field.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think in this space or start beginning to lead the or start to lead the field in this space.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because as you say, especially now looking at different types of boats and the way boats are and how you sail them, you know, push button technologies is derega, really going forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an interesting one, though, it's definitely an interesting one, and I'd like to think that with opportunity, and I think that's the key thing that we, the key issue, the key, one of the key issues on the key elements that have held everybody, have held us back a bit, is this whole thing around opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we did the 2019 strategic review into women in sailing,
[SPEAKER_00]: And the word most repeated in the thousands of responses we had to that was opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And lack of in that particular case.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that was five nearly six years ago now and we are in a different space.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know when I had hit pair on the podcast a couple of years now, a couple of years ago now, but, you know, I asked her about her experiences of, you know, I was a sailing instructor who then wanted to get in and do some racing just local stuff in the channel and, you know, she, she did get opportunities, but they were,
[SPEAKER_01]: It was harder for her to do that and quite a lot of the time she was just turned down because without being asked about her experience, it was clear that they just these were boats that just didn't want a woman as part of the crew.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you feel like the landscape has changed now with with things like salg p.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting, we're doing the majority of projects currently doing a new piece of research.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're still an update on the 2019 strategic review, so we're calling it's called the two times 25, which is live and it's still open until the middle of October.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the questions that we've asked in that is, how do you think the landscape has changed or had, sorry, we'll have,
[SPEAKER_00]: do you think there's been an improvement or are there more opportunities now for women in saving and without shadow of the doubt the positive it's really positive response to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like something like a very T2% last time I looked of respondents today to say yes there are more opportunities.
[SPEAKER_00]: but, and here in life, the big but, the same old issues around discrimination, lack of opportunity, all of those things still exist and still persist.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think maybe that the shift isn't so much in these events like SLGPR, providing opportunities that provide role models.
[SPEAKER_00]: You look at some of the amazing women.
[SPEAKER_00]: and incredibly talented female sailors that have been part of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, this is a conversation that I've had a number of times with various people at cell GP, and if you kind of go back to years ago when we, with the ocean race and that we used to ride into town on our horses and we'd have all of this amazing stopover and then we'd all leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: and there'd been nothing but tumbleweoted.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the key thing here and I've said this quite a lot of quite a lot online is that we have got to stop focusing on making an Instagram moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we've got a pretty, you know, we've got a fantastic poster around, let's do stuff around women's day and all of this sort of, we need to, then there needs to be a lot more depth in what we're doing and consistency in what we're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are those programs that can take
[SPEAKER_00]: young talented sailors and not just women, young talented sailors will stop from whatever environment they started sailing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's not let them drop out the age of 17 and then maybe come back in in 10, 20, 30 years time when a friend says come out on a boat didn't use to sail.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's making sure we are super consistent all the way through and provide that pathway.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the key thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, things like CELGP are brilliant, but it got to be more than a fantastic picture on social media.
[SPEAKER_01]: Talk a bit about the discrimination problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I can imagine what you're talking about, but without obviously naming any names, there's some kind of case studies that you can share with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to read the report, and that's a couple of months away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, nothing, nothing, nothing, I think the, and I, again, spoken, spoken probably about the America's Cup, I mean, I salute what Grant and the team has done there, and I really look forward to seeing how that evolves.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there has to be a pathway behind it and I've been assured it no uncertain terms that that is very much in the cards.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of the issue, again, going back to the sort of initial results from this two by 25 study that we're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And not of the issue is isn't at the big event level.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of the issues are more at your job club and your events.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of the data is showing a massive sense of...
[SPEAKER_00]: women or people from underrepresented minorities just not feeling welcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then if, you know, I'm not going to spend my hard and free time to not feel welcome to something.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think I think the issue isn't so much at the top end of the elite end.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we've got a huge amount of work to do at sort of grassroots plus level, I would say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Having said that, there are some amazing initiatives that cross routes, but if we go to the yacht clubs, you know, I still remember when the squadron I had to go into a through another door.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, obviously that isn't the case now, but we do suffer a little bit of, there is a bit of sort of what we call golf club, status kicking around and that does need to change.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that's where it has to start changing from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hear you, and I have a massive problem with sailing clubs and yoc clubs generally.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a member of a yoc club.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a member of a sailing club.
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to be a member of several at the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the problems I've always had, and you know, I'm talking, growing up in the UK, was whenever you pulled up to a sailing club for an album meeting, on the gate was a massive sign that said members only.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not exactly the most welcoming way of presenting yourself to new members and every one of those clubs was struggling for new members.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, in art club, I was ended up on a committee at some point and I said, well, let's take the bloody sign off the gate.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's probably put it off at least 50% of people who get to the gates who think, oh, it's not even allowed to come and part my goal here to ask about joining.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, true.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll be interesting when we analyse this data, which will be later on this year, so we're releasing it in early November, but we've got this sort of whole section around supported
[SPEAKER_00]: through the work that our Francesca clamped it, she's doing through the belief belonging to you, which people may roll their eyes, but actually it's a really important piece of research that they're doing and it's a really important strategy that they have or that they're pursuing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because unless you, you know, it's it's set in those in those three words, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't believe you can be part of it, you're not going to belong, and therefore you're not going to retrieve them with, yeah, I think people are...
[SPEAKER_00]: being turned away, although people don't realize, I don't think anybody is doing it deliberately, if I would be bluntly honest, it's just a culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a massive culture shift that we have to have in the same way that tennis has, in the same way that golf has and football, and not that there aren't existing issues still inherent in those in those sports as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't think we've ever really addressed it at that level.
[SPEAKER_01]: Frankie told me a great story about her local sailing club when she was on the podcast that she used to climb over the fence so she could go and practice during the week and she didn't realize there were video cameras.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the club officials came to her and said you've been climbing over the fence and she's just like, oh my god, I'm going to get thrown out of the club.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, his response fortunately was, well, what do you just tell us you wanted to do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: We could have given you a key, you know, we could have made sure that there was somebody here when you want to come and practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and what a difference that that approach makes.
[SPEAKER_01]: as opposed to, you know, she could have ended up with somebody super-officious and, you know, who might have put her off completely from a Olympic career and have, you know, plans to race around the world, single-handed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you're right.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's grassroots stuff, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it is grassroots and we've got, so this weekend coming up, we're doing some work with rock and we've got a rock magenta offshore racing weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're basically trying to get from their perspective, trying to get more women interested and involved in offshore savings.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've got 31 women coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had a sort of quite a decent turnout, 31 women and I went through all of the
[SPEAKER_00]: all of the sort of application forms, and the word again go back to what I was saying earlier on about is when we looked at the the 2019 strategic review, the word was opportunity, the word is now changed to confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And about how, you know, they would go and walk the dogs, they'd go and see if they could get a place on a boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: but we have so many knockbacks because, you know, to Pip's point, you know, and she's spoken incredibly, you know, very strongly about the amount of knockbacks she had, but she's a force of nature, you know, she was absolutely determined.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there aren't many pip hares.
[SPEAKER_00]: There aren't many people with maybe her drive.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are a lot of, say, we've got these 30 odd women turning up of which I would say 18, 68% of them so that they felt they lacked confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: They knew they had the skill set, but they felt they lacked confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it'll be a really confident...
[SPEAKER_01]: Did they like that?
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't pick you or did it get kind of smacked out of them by, I guess, I mean, to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they didn't feel they were confident.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I've said that room yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't feel they were confident enough to sort of really to push as hard as Pepper's done to get to where she's got to.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a big psychological, you know, that the way women work as a competitor, when men work, I've just been doing some reading on that, for I came on the court in terms of preparing for this weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it's all of what other of the mitigating factors that are involved that make a female stand in front of a skipper and go, no, I am capable of doing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got more miles than anybody on the boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done this and done the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why, what is it that's stopping them, taking it, making that step?
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, there's a very interesting bit of psychiatry involved in all of this as well, which I am not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I need to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now for people listening to the podcast and hearing what you're saying about that, maybe people who are on boats or running crews or just influential in their sailing club,
[SPEAKER_01]: What can they do?
[SPEAKER_01]: What can people actually do about this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I love a good survey and I love a good report.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I sometimes feel like we just wait for the next report, you know, the next survey and the next report to see whether or anything's changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: absolutely right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So from a magenta product perspective, beginning of October, we're launching a mighty magenta hub.
[SPEAKER_00]: And part of that will be, and it's basically a global community platform, anybody can join, you can become a friend of magenta.
[SPEAKER_00]: you can join and we will have a resources and opportunities area within that so if you're a skipper and you think actually yeah maybe I could take somebody or take somebody out next week and or whatever it is or we've got a rate or I just need somebody who comes support help prep the boat you'll be able to post that on join our community and post that on on my team agenda
[SPEAKER_00]: In that network, we also don't mean networking, but if you're a skipper of about you probably have your go-to crew and who do you turn away?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you turn away the chat you've sailed with for donkeys years to say well I've got to leave a bit of space or I want to give somebody else an opportunity and yes I think that's
[SPEAKER_00]: what's got to start happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we're going to see this, this, see change.
[SPEAKER_00]: Having said that, I've been supremely impressed by rope members that have stepped up and provided boats all the boats this weekend, coming around for being provided by rope members who want to give people an opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but beyond that, as I say, in a month's time, we'll have this platform
[SPEAKER_00]: post any opportunities like that that they might have.
[SPEAKER_00]: I use it as a crusher, just type of pre-search.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so you think, okay, I've got a boat in Guatemala and I need to try and find someone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, as eggs as eggs we can probably find.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can probably find a female sailor that would love to be part of a campaign.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or a project.
[SPEAKER_01]: You make a good point because...
[SPEAKER_01]: The Gens of Project is a global project, if I'm right, just talk a bit about the scale of it, the scope of how many people are involved in the organization.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, well, in New York now, we have an amazing board, so, so, we're just led by Holly Cova and Soko Nounyeth, who are the co-chairs, so have an incredible board of including them 11 people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I said earlier on, we also have an amazing community of people that have been part, either have come through the mentoring program.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then their payback has been right, I'm going to, you know, was it that phrase passed the shirt on, passing the shirt on to someone else and bringing more people in.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have had over 120 mentors that have been part of the mentoring program and these are from men and women from across the sport.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some, you know, some really good names in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's the community itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: So basically, that is people, those are people that have either come through
[SPEAKER_00]: or have been part of one of our pathways and what we're now doing is we're actually opening that up much wider in that there is a huge community of people that maybe don't want to go into a foiling clinic or don't don't need to go and do a mentoring program but want to support in some way.
[SPEAKER_00]: which is why we're sort of open up this friends of magenta, sort of membership if you like all sorts of exciting things will come your way if you become a friend of magenta.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what sort of people are you looking for in those mentoring roles?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean typically who of the mentors been up to now what kind of level of experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, we've had some, you know, stellar round the world sailors, both male and female, we've had some stellar mattresses, again, both male and female, as well as people from industry.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're going to put me on the spot now and ask me to roll out, do a role of names of, I haven't got that file, if in so I can't do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not the names, but that gives me a good
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and I was actually, it was good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in Kiel for the Ocean Race Europe stop over and managed to bag a few other sort of golden oldies if you like, gentlemen, to commit to being mentors as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's super important.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it so mentors for us are really important, whether it's a pairing that we do through our mentoring program, and applications close to our mentoring program, yes or day before.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had more applications this year than any other, any other year, which is great.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we will be doubling normally, you've only had about 35 women straight.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm looking at definitely having a minimum of 50.
[SPEAKER_00]: to come through the mentoring program this year.
[SPEAKER_00]: All matched with mentors as I say from across industry normally focused on pathway.
[SPEAKER_00]: But a lot of interest in STEM this year and a lot of interest in female leadership pathways as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and of course, offshore and ensure still and foiling still feature, but sort of a big ground surge of support for STEM and theme a leadership, which is good.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and we've got some really exciting new mentors that have now joined the fold to put into the programme.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I'm really excited about what we'll see in nine months of time, actually, from that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_01]: You said early on in the conversation that it's not all about people necessarily wanted to come in as sailors, but to come in looking for a career on the support side of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, maybe sure crew and the sports expanded so much now with, you know, hydraulic engineers weren't really a massive thing, a while back, mechatronics wasn't even a thing in sailing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you, are you that far advanced with Magenta Project that you, you have things into all of that sort of stuff?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so we're with the sort of stem focus, so we've run a couple of good stem clinics actually which is a really good one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was a really good one in Barcelona alongside the Americas Cup, where we had some amazing workshops within sort of three days that we were there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just had another one in Portsmouth to coincide with the Oceanary Stopover in Portsmouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And definitely that desire for women in particular to find careers within the stem area, if you like, within the marine industry, not just the sailing industry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just in the sort of the sports side, if we take that French word, the sports side of the industry, but in the wide marine industry as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And equally the desire for the marine industry itself to become to sort of be a better reflection of society.
[SPEAKER_00]: The CEO of, I kind of use him as a bit of an example of a fairly well-known organisation within the marine industry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sort of said, but if I wanted to have 50, 50 in my senior leadership team in 10 years' time, I have no idea how I'm going to get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is much as showing, there is a pool of women, there are, there are, there are a pool of women, all of which were really, really keen to work within the marine industry, but they, they're maybe not looking for jobs in this place is that you're advertising for jobs.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're sort of looking at how as much we can support the industry through a bit of what we could, what I'm calling reverse engineering.
[SPEAKER_00]: to be better employers of women, so to encourage that leadership.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to that end, we'll be working at Met's trade, we're collaborating on their young professionals club as part of Met's trade.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm super excited about what the opportunities, the opportunities that will come out for the community from that as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of put this front and center with the thousands of exhibitors or the hundreds and hundreds of exhibitors that they have there.
[SPEAKER_01]: events like the Women's America's Cup got a great response last time around.
[SPEAKER_01]: First time we've really seen women in the America's Cup in numbers for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your position on those sort of events?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are they good for what you're trying to do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or would you prefer to see more of
[SPEAKER_01]: a good question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think they are good because they just show, they show case it and show case talent and give a lot of women.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, how many teams do we have for a group, correct me if I write it?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was 16, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, they allowed a whole load of women to actually get out and do proper racing.
[SPEAKER_00]: as you quite rightly say in an America's cut context.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I fully support the the new protocol with getting women on board, but at the end of the day that's only going to be a small number.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, if we want to try and go, go back to what I was saying earlier on about creating those pathways.
[SPEAKER_00]: is that we need events like the Women's America's Cup to start driving that pathway so that we get the best talent and we're not just filling that role because it's part of a mandate with somebody who's yeah okay you're quite good so you might as well go and do it and I think that's what we've got to get away from it's not just putting a female in a position because she's female it's you're putting a person in a position because they are the best person for the job
[SPEAKER_00]: and giving women the opportunity to train themselves up to be the best person for the job.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think is really important and I'm really interested to see how that evolves over the coming months.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: couldn't agree more and I think there's a potential for a massive missed opportunity if the teams regard it as a as a quota as you know where we've got to have one woman so like what are we going to get them to do?
[SPEAKER_01]: The sale GP strategy just roll
[SPEAKER_01]: thing doesn't set comfortably with me, particularly, um, I'd like to see certainly in America's cup, I'd like to see women flying about as absolutely no reason why you couldn't have a talented female who outperforms the males.
[SPEAKER_01]: in a role that involves pushing buttons and in eight-scale and feel and, you know, I've written about this, and, you know, Ellie Aldridge talks about controlling her board at 30, 40 knots using, you know, using a toes to control the ride heights and the direction.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, surely to God, if you've got those skills, then you must be a candidate for
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I tell it sort of had a really interesting conversation with a gentleman who it was team director of an E1 sports boat motor racing, as in sports motor racing team.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shortly after I began so there's a much earlier this year and he'd been given my contact number by I think it was
[SPEAKER_00]: a female that can foil, that knows all around meteorology and reading waves, etc.
[SPEAKER_00]: The can foil, if they can do them, if they've had experience of parboats, then brilliant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and yet can they please be female.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I thought, right, okay, I love a challenge and we put two women for a now, sadly, so we had two women, both of which were absolutely superb candidates for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was just a chance conversation that this team principal had for an E1 racing team with, I think it was Annie.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, well, let's give them a call and it's, it's those trans conversations to find those women that can plug in or that can be put into the system, you know, to your early ordridge analogy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we, there are loads.
[SPEAKER_00]: They might be untapped and unspotted at the moment, but, you know, I just look at some of the amazing, I've been to foiling week for the last three years, purely because I think there's something about that event, I absolutely love part of the fact it's an a beautiful part of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's something really refreshing about seeing these slightly cookie mad people doing
[SPEAKER_00]: breathtaking things on the most bizarre bits of carbon fiber kit, whatever you want to call it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a lot of lessons that we can learn that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a lot of women taking part there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're just, they're sending us hard as a lad.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no gender difference with here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I suppose my point as far as my gender project is concerned,
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want Magellan to project to be here forever because we've got to do our job and I'd love to think that in 10 years time we won't be necessary and I think if we can get to that point then okay I can I can go and buy my slippers I won't smoke a pint but you know but me so
[SPEAKER_00]: I come and see them in a little island of the city, but I think that has to be the ambition and unless we have those pathways that can take women and give them those opportunities to build up on their conferences, those two words that are so often put into this space.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that has to be a, that has to be something that we do collaboratively.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was referring to a document I was
[SPEAKER_00]: And she referred to her York club, I think it was not self-notz, York club or something, as a village, you know that sort of analogy that it takes a village to bring up a child.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, her analogy was it took the village of her York club to give her the confidence and to give her the opportunity to to do the things that she's now that she's now doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we just need a few more villages.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some very optimistic.
[SPEAKER_00]: But.
[SPEAKER_01]: A few more villages as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a few more villages.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, and there are some incredible advocates for everything in this space, particularly male advocates.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that is so important.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the more male advocacy we can have and the more support we can have then, then our mission may be hopefully it won't even take 10 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it will, but I'd like to think it might not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, I love your confidence and I really, really help you put yourself out of a job as quickly as possible, so it's because my chance of product isn't needed.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can people who are listening to this and want to get involved either as a candidate, as a mentor, as a supporter, as a sponsor, how can they engage with you?
[SPEAKER_00]: So they can eat, it just drop us an email, either at contact at the magentaproject.org.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you go on to our website, there aren't, I think at the bottom of every page, there's a contact us one.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're starting doing, when we launch Mighty Magenta, Friends of Magenta, tool as a safe beginning of October, that'll be all over the place.
[SPEAKER_00]: So join, come and join us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need as many people to support us as we can.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if there's anybody out there sitting on some some euros dollars pounds, I'm not fussy on currency, then we're always, we're always keen to see how we can, we can use that in a positive way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, well that sounds fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully you'll be flooded with inquiries from our listeners.
[SPEAKER_01]: People listen all around the world to this podcast that you never know who might be just who might be listening.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: This has been great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for taking the time to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been really interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've learned quite a lot and I hope other people have too.
[SPEAKER_01]: And good luck.
[SPEAKER_01]: And let's check in down the line and see what progress you're making.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brilliant, thank you so much, really appreciate it, and thanks to everyone for listening.
[SPEAKER_02]: We will be back soon with another top name interview, but in the meantime, check out YachtRacingLife.com for more great content from across the sailing world.