Sistership Sailing School - Learn to Sail in the British Virgin Islands

Captain Pat Nolan

Owner and principal instructor Pat Nolan brings 35 years of sailing experience to Sistership. She has been teaching women, couples, and families to sail for the last nine years in the British Virgin Islands, Puget Sound and Chesapeake Bay. Pat has acquired thousands of offshore sea miles having delivered many boats up and down both U.S. coasts and throughout the Caribbean.

An avid racer she has sailed in everything from Seattle's infamous Duck Dodge to major international Caribbean regattas. Pat holds a 100 ton Master's license from the USCG and is an Instructor Evaluator for the American Sailing Association. She is PADI certified as an advanced open water scuba diver and is trained in CPR.

Pat's degree in education has helped to shape her teaching methods - clear, concise, to the point. Coupled with her unending store of patience, easygoing manner and general unflappability even the greenest of landlubbers will learn to sail under her tutelage.

Captain Judy

Captain Judy James

Judy James has been a sailor for 30 years and an affiliate of ASA for the last 25. Prior to 2003, most of her sailing was on Lake Lanier, near Atlanta, Georgia, and on southeastern Bays - Chesapeake, Tampa, and Mobile. Since that time, she has enjoyed teaching in the British Virgin Islands, participating in offshore deliveries, and racing with Captain Pat in the Caribbean.

Judy holds a 50 ton Master's license from the USCG, is a certified instructor for the American Sailing Association through Coastal Navigation, and is trained in CPR. Addicted to travel, she has sailed in the Leewards and Grenadines, Greece, Corsica, Sardinia, and the Galapagos Islands. She hopes to sail Spain in the coming year, and is looking forward to the Windward Islands as well.

Her degree in psychology is indicative of the enjoyment she derives from people; her charter guests are her favorite part of the business. She spent 15 years homeschooling her children, but now that they are grown, her classroom of choice is the BVI!

Women At the Helm: A new series about top women sailors in the Caribbean
(Reprinted from "All At Sea" - June 2003 issue)

PAT NOLAN - by Nancy Tyrrell

Hailing from four generations of pleasure seafarers on the Great Lakes in America, Pat Nolan is a woman who has always loved the sea. Pat is one of the most professional sailors in the BVI, owning and teaching in her company Sistership.

She told me "My great grandfather had a lovely little wooden sloop on Lake Erie at the turn of the century named "Winifred" after my grandmother, his only daughter. My father sailed all of his life and raised all three of us kids to be sailors. Growing up in Chicago, we spent the summers cruising Lake Michigan where we would sail for several weeks at a time. I have covered that lake from top to bottom. My father was a member of "The Old Goats Club" of the Chicago Yacht Club for having participated in 28 Chicago to Mackinaw races. (For those unfamiliar this race is one of the more famous long distance yacht races in the US).

Pat started racing at Southern Illinois University in her freshman year and raced on the sailing team all four years. After graduating she moved to Long Boat Key in Sarasota, Florida. With a degree in Special Education she found a terrific job bartending at the Hilton. Living on the beach she bought her first boat, a Hobie 14, but finding she missed the seasons, she decided to move to Seattle. There she could both sail and ski year round from her home on Vashon Island in Puget Sound.

Her next boat was a San Juan 21, followed by a Cal 27. With her sister, Pam, she bought a J24 and started racing with the J/24 fleet at the Corinthian yacht Club in Seattle, of which she is still a member. "I have always loved competition and raced from 1983 to 1995 on all kinds of boats - San Juan 24, J/29, J/30, J/35, Olson 30 to name a few". In between races she played serious soccer in the Washington State Women’s Soccer League for twelve years.

"I came to the BVI’s in ’89 after a stint of commercial fishing in Alaska, to teach for the sailing school "Womanship". I loved being able to sail in shorts and a t-shirt - quite a change from Seattle sailing." Pat started her own sailing school ‘Sistership’ in 1995 focusing on teaching women and couples how to sail. In 1996 she purchased J/33 ‘Boomerang’ for sail training and racing. In 2002 she bought a Beneteau 445, ‘Seabiscuit’ on which she now teaches and will race Antigua Race Week 2003.

Pat holds a 100-ton USCG Masters License and is both an instructor and an Instructor Evaluator for the American Sailing Association (ASA). "I teach the curriculum of the ASA which means that all my graduates are ASA certified at the end of their course. I have certified several hundreds of people many of whom have become boat owners, cruisers and racers themselves. Teaching sailing has been very satisfying for me. I enjoy generating excitement for the sport of sailing as well as helping neophytes to become safe and competent sailors".

We’re proud of our women sailors in the BVI. Pat Nolan’s professionalism and competence is the key to her successful training program. I have known many of her graduates and they all highly recommend her.