The 12 women of the Tall Ship Three-Day Challenge set sail on the Seaward, an 82-foot long schooner, Thursday night from Pier 40 in the San Francisco Bay. A captain, three crew members and two educators were along for the journey. They anchored in San Francisco Bay for the night and on Friday made their way North under the Golden Gate Bridge to Point Reyes.

The Challenge is put on by the Tall Ship Education Academy (TSEA) at SF State. It is a $950 adventure trip for women ages 18 and over to help raise funds for the TSEA’s Tall Ship Semester for Girls program. The TSEA started this program as a way to get women involved in the sailing community and help them to gain leadership, communication, and teamwork skills.

Along with these skills, Joanne Fedeyko, a participant, said she is excited about stepping out of her comfort zone.

“(This trip) is going to be one of those life-changing events for me,” said Fedeyko, an assistant to the vice president at the University of San Francisco and board member of the TSEA.

Most of the participants have minimal or no sailing background, but the TSEA gave them homework assignments that included reading about sailing to help them prepare for the trip.

“We had to read pages from the book, ‘The Complete Sailor,’” said Rebecca Goodman, a homemaker with no sailing experience. “But all of that is just a piece of paper until we’re out there.”

Part of this experience involves teaching the women how things work on a ship through short lessons, then applying it in real situations.

“We’re trying to accomplish getting to a point where they can sail comfortably by themselves without our help,” said Carter Cassel, a first deckhand mate on the trip who has ten years of experience on sail vessels.

On the trip, the women will be broken up into two “watches,” which in sailing terms explains how the boat operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Watches are the crew members who cover all the needs of the ship on a constant basis, which means that while some people are up, others are sleeping.

The two watches will serve as teams, in which the women will be presented challenges. These challenges include everything from who can raise the sails the fastest to who can pick up an overboard buoy the quickest to identifying the ropes on the ship.

“It’s not heavy competition, it’s really just for fun,” said Marcos Cortez, the lead instructor at the TSEA. “It’s going to be information that hopefully develops into a nice volume to have a working knowledge of how a ship works.”

The TSEA hopes to give women a realization of what they are capable of beyond sailing.

“(This kind of experience) often translates to their normal lives,” said Nettie Kelly, the executive director of TSEA and an educator aboard this trip. “They think, ‘If I can sail a boat, I can do anything.’”

The Challenge is also run to fill the need for an all women’s sailing experience.

“I like the idea that it’s sort of a women’s empowerment thing,” said Jennifer Eubank, an assistive technology assistant who has spent a lot of time on the water fishing in Alaska. “It’s a great way to learn things in a non-threatening way.”

The Seaward is steel with two 80-foot high masts, which are poles to hold up the sails, and 21 bunks below deck. This is its first overnight trip.

“(The Seaward) is a schooner for learning,” said Ken Neal-Boyd, the captain on this trip with 15 years experience and the director of Call of the Sea, a nonprofit organization. “The way she is a set up, is all around connecting people with the sea.”

The Seaward and those aboard return to Pier 40 on Sunday, October 23 at about 5 p.m. with a three-day sailing experience under their belt.

“It takes a lot of skill to sail and sail well,” said Cortez. “When they come back, they should feel a pretty solid sense of accomplishment.”