Luffing Lassies sail into 45th year

In 1972, Lilly Kaighin had a simple idea.

She wanted to form a women’s sailing group in Sarasota.

She borrowed two Optimist prams from the Sarasota Sailing Squadron and used two more owned by herself and her husband. The ladies would follow the school calendar. They would meet on Thursday mornings. They would sail around Sarasota Bay.

Kaighin had sailed with a group in Tampa, but when she moved to Sarasota, she wanted to start a group here. She explained this to five women when she called to introduce herself.

With all of them on board, the Luffing Lassies was formed.

The group met at the Sarasota Sailing Squadron on a hot day. Sue Renfrew, an  original member, recalls the water was calm and glassy. Nevertheless, the group put their boats in the water at City Island and started a tradition.

“We laughed and giggled and piled into the boats and off we went,” Renfrew said.

The group began shortly after the second wave of feminism. At that time, it was mostly men who participated in sailing.

“So, I think there was a liberating thing about that,” Renfrew said. “Women just didn’t do that.”

Their team name even got scoffs from some men — luffing is the term used for a sail that is flapping in the wind, which isn’t a good thing for sailors — but the women didn’t care. They were joining the ranks of other women’s groups, such as the Dinghy Dames of Davis Island, which Kaighin helped form before moving to Sarasota.

“It was formed as an organization to empower women to be able to launch and captain their own boats, and this was done at a time when most boats were sailed by men at the helm, so that meant men were steering boats,” said Lorri Kaighin, Lilly Kaighin’s daughter-in-law.

The Lassies balanced that empowerment with fun. From their annual “Mama’s and Papa’s Regatta,” when the husbands sailed Clearwater Prams to the “Cruise to Sue’s” when members sailed to Renfrew’s house where daiquiris awaited them, it wasn’t all about competing.

Today, the Luffing Lassies has grown to 80 active members, and they’ve formed their own traditions. Their Halloween sail takes them across the bay to Marina Jacks dressed in costumes, and their Poker Runs bring them to different destinations to collect cards for a poker hand.

But their mission is still the same. The group is open to all women. Some join without any sailing experience at all, such as current captain, Tihda Vongkoth.

“For me, I just dove right in and tried my best not to be scared about new experiences, and when I realized that everybody else has made the same mistakes that I am making and that it’s OK, I feel so much more comfortable trying to make mistakes, just to experience and learn from them,” Vongkoth said.

The women race every Thursday from September to May. Occasionally, other groups, like the Dinghy Dames, will come and race or the Luffing Lassies will visit clubs in Venice or St. Petersburg.

From the outside looking in, the Luffing Lassies, which is part of the Florida Women’s Sailing Association, is a group of women who sail around the bay. That’s not inaccurate, but it goes deeper. It brings women together who might not have met otherwise. As Renfrew explains, when you explore the bay with people, you really get to know them. And the lessons they learn reach far beyond their sailing skills.

“It’s like life,” Vongkoth said. “What happens on the water are things that happen. Wind changes, life changes. Figuring out how to maintain balance and move forward and how to brush off mistakes. It’s so cool.”

As Lorri Kaighin puts it, Luffing Lassies are women who tend to be Luffing Lassies for decades. She knows Lilly Kaighin, who died in 1999, and whom the group honors with an annual memorial regatta, would be proud of what the group has accomplished. 

 “She would be very proud of the organization today, and where it’s come from, its humble beginnings and where it continues to grow,” Kaighin said. “And she would be very proud of all the members that are continuing with the Luffing Lassies spirit.”