If a girl can do it? it’s probably not that hard right?
When Yang Wei-Chen told me she wanted to be the first Taiwanese sailor to participate in the Mini Transat Regatta I got super excited. Yang and I go back for more than five years. She has worked with me in the sailing schools for a couple of summers, and we have done many sailing trips together, in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and of course on the Pacific Ocean, our home. We met several years ago on the Taiwan Regatta Circuit, where we were on the same sailing team Freybe. We sailed for a couple of seasons in Penghu, Kaohsiung and all the way to Japan on the Taiwan-Ryukyu Regatta. After each race, I would go back to Taitung to carry on teaching my young students, and Yang would go back to wherever she was needed. At that time she was working as a boat manager. We spent together more than 40 days at sea sailing a Taiwanese flag boat from the north of France to my home in Barcelona and the famous sailing race of Les Voiles de Saint Tropez. That was our last race together in the team, but the beginning of a great friendship.
A couple of years ago, Yang was involved in a sailing accident that almost cost her life. While sailing solo from Japan to Taiwan, she encountered sudden waves near the coast of Okinawa and fell off her boat. The boat drifted into the open ocean, and Yang managed to swim back to to the Okinawan shore. Luckily she didn’t have any substantial injuries and could recover easily and resolve all the necessary paperwork to fly back to Taiwan. It took me a few days to get in touch with her while she was recovering. I had followed her GPS tracker and realized that something was wrong, but a friend from Japan that she was already safe and taken well care of, but needed some time to recover. When she finally picked up my phone, I was taken aback by her attitude. She wasn’t frightened at all by the incident, if anything, it had been an important life lesson. And that is when she told me she wanted to be the first Taiwanese person to participate in a transoceanic solo race. I think many people after such a life-or-death event, would probably be scared for life and decide to pursue a different career, but Yang Wei-Chen decided to channel that experience into the fuel to pursue an ever bigger challenge. Cross the Atlantic, solo.
When she kick-started her “Project Formosa Sailing”, a two year plan to get the necessary training and qualifications to participate in the 2027 Mini Transat race, she asked for my help with the sailing school. Despite the fact that I don't have, and neither has my little sailing school in Taitung, the necessary funds to support such an international project, I could at least provide the legal framework to create a crowd-funding platform for her project. This way all donations can be properly invoiced, and might be more attractive for potential sponsors that want to support her. In exchange, Yang told me that 5% of the total amount could be used for Taitung Junior Girls High School students that have the will but not the means to participate in the national regattas of Taiwan. For the past year, while Yang Wei-Chen was starting her training in France, I was in Taiwan spreading the word out. Our crowd-funding platform is still in its early stages (so far we have only reached 3% of the goal), but we are slowly building up for 2027. The goal was in 2026 to Wei-Chen to obtain her 1000nm offshore qualification, which she successfully obtained this September, and in 2027 is where the real challenge begins. Moving to France to participate in trainings, sailing in other events to accumulate experience until the real launch on September 12th. 1300 nautical miles from La Rochelle (France) to Las Palmas (Spain) and another 2800 nm from Las Palmas to San Salvador de Bahia (Brasil).
After she obtained her offshore qualifications and came back to Taiwan this October, we have started approaching sponsors to fund the project and media channels to get more attention to her story. We anticipated many challenges ahead, mostly about money, but of course to the general fear of the ocean that is commonplace in Taiwan. Sailing is not a very common sport in the island, due to an extended martial law and a prohibition on water activities that lasted more than 38 years. Among all these challenges, there was one that we hadn’t taken into account: Taiwan’s traditional misogynistic society.
In one of her recent meetings with a sponsor, Yang Wei-Chen explained to me her most bizarre conversation.
老闆：So you want to be the first Taiwanese woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean. How many Taiwanese men have done it before and how did they do?
Yang: No, I want to be the first Taiwanese PERSON to cross the Atlantic Ocean solo.
老闆: Oh, no Taiwanese has ever done this? You are a girl, you won’t be able to achieve this.
(I won’t transcribe the entire conversation, but you get the gist of it)
She has encountered this kind of conversation over and over in different formats. People tend to assume that she is the first Taiwanese “woman” to race solo, implying that previously it has surely been done by a male sailor. Some other people downplay the achievement and the courage. If it can be done by a woman it is probably not that difficult. And in some cases, as in the conversation above, no credit is given that she can accomplish such a feat.
Of course it is up to the reader to judge if what Yang Wei-Chen wants to attempt is a difficult or simple feat, but for anyone that has ever sailed on a boat, probably knows that controlling a sail boat on the ocean is quite complicated, even when you have a professional team with you. Then, try to do it on your own. And then try to cross an ocean, being alone for weeks. Nothing more. I don’t believe many sailors have even attempted to sail on their own for an overnight trip. I do not think it is complicated. I think it is FUCKING INCREDIBLE. Doing such an incredible feat, or even daring to try, takes an incredible amount of courage, physical and mental strength, resilience and patience. Once you are out there on the ocean, it is only you and the elements. And I believe that Yang Wei-Chen is one of the few people with the right mindset and willpower to do something like this.
Gender prejudice is something that I have repeatedly encountered in my many years in Taiwan. Especially in older generations or more traditional setups, there is a general belief that women are not fitted for certain types of activities. Sailing under a storm, with big waves and strong winds, definitely falls into one of these. The general sailing environment in Taiwan is mostly middle-aged men who treat women (especially young girls) as a colorful add-on to the crew, to make sailing a more entertaining experience. I have worked with many incredible female sailors through these years that had to tolerate these kinds of attitudes until they were valued and “seen” for their sailing skills. Over the years, many female instructors who have worked with me have shared similar experiences. They told me that the only way they could get a place on a sailing team was by being cute and sexy. Some were even asked to wear bikinis and expected to tolerate inappropriate comments from male crew members.
In fact, this gender divide does not begin with adult sailing teams. It starts much earlier, when children are still young. Across Taiwan, even the youngest sailors competing in the Optimist Class are divided into separate Boys’ and Girls’ Fleets. Of course, there are physical differences between men and women. Adult men are, on average, taller and stronger than women, which is why many sports, including Olympic disciplines, have separate male and female competitions. But this reasoning does not necessarily apply to children before puberty, generally between the ages of 7 and 12, when differences in height, weight, and physical strength between boys and girls are much less pronounced. Actually, sailing is a sport that is not only about strength, it takes patience, focus, strategy and attention to detail, and in many cases, girls supersede boys in most of these categories.
In fact, most international sailing competitions, including the Optimist World Championship, do not separate boys and girls into different fleets. Some countries divide young sailors into Gold and Silver Fleets according to their experience and performance, while others create age categories, such as U11 and U13, to account for differences in age. Taiwan, however, is one of the few countries that separates boys and girls in all national sailing competitions. It would be interesting to see what the results would look like if Taiwan adopted mixed-fleet racing for its national Optimist competitions.For the past few years, I have organized races in Taitung with boys and girls competing in the same fleet, despite facing pressure from other sailing clubs and many parents to separate them. And guess what? We have had more female champions than male champions. If we look at countries that hold mixed-fleet competitions, such as the UK, Spain, and New Zealand, we find that boys and girls account for roughly half of all U11 Optimist champions. This is particularly striking when you consider that there are significantly more boys than girls participating in the sport. Sadly, gender inequality in sports remains an issue worldwide, not just in Taiwan. As for Taiwan, I believe that if girls were given the opportunity to compete directly against boys, the results might surprise us all. And perhaps the conversation would no longer be about giving girls a chance. Instead, we might find ourselves asking whether we should separate boys and girls into different fleets to give the boys a chance.
Gender bias against women in sports is deeply ingrained in Taiwanese society. It starts at an early age, even in school, where gender stereotypes shape how basic chores are distributed among students. It is commonplace to hear teachers say things like, “I need two strong boys to move this,” while girls are relegated to softer tasks such as sweeping and tidying up.These attitudes persist into adulthood, particularly in sporting environments, where female athletes are often expected to tolerate rude and misogynistic behaviour as simply part of the game. Their abilities and endurance are constantly questioned, while their achievements are downplayed or dismissed. Meanwhile, male athletes are often given a much smoother path to success.
Coming back to Yang Wei-Chen, she has a lot of challenges ahead. She has funding challenges and training challenges. She has to undergo a lot of training and participate in as many races to accumulate experience, as well as dealing with visa applications, meetings about sponsors and increasing media attention. Let’s not add unnecessary challenges into the mix, let alone make her feel less or doubt her accomplishments because she is a woman. Remember that she is not only the first Taiwanese WOMAN to participate in a Transatlantic ocean race, she is the first Taiwanese PERSON to even try it.
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We need your help!
We are actively looking for SPONSORS for Yang Wei-Chen’s “Project Formosa Sailing”. This project is not only for herself, to accomplish something that no Taiwanese has ever done before, but to encourage and inspire young children to dare to think the impossible. Being the first is always the most challenging, but we hope that there will be many more incredible Taiwanese kids that will brave the ocean and do incredible things.
This is Yang Wei-Chen’s Crowdfunding Platform, any donation, small or big is welcomed:
However, our biggest challenge is to find bigger sponsors that can help her go through this journey hand-in-hand. Boat rental and maintenance fees, parts, registration fees, training, visas, insurance and so on. She is looking for a sponsor(s) to be on the sails and hull, to be part of the journey from Europe to South America,, thousands of miles across the Atlantic SOLO. If you want to be a sponsor, please contact us, or Yang Wei-Chen’s email directly.
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