The Magenta Foiling Team, a segment of United Kingdom-based organization The Magenta Project, held its first WASZP foiling clinic in the U.S. on Nov. 2-3 at Cabrillo Marina.

The Magenta Project aims to further women’s participation in and access to professional sailing around the world by providing mentorship and training opportunities.

Phoebe Chalmers, a member of the Magenta Foiling Team, said they focus on three main pillars to further the mission: performance (or racing competitively), partnerships within and outside the sailing industry, and grassroots-level clinics such as this one that encourage women to get out on the water.

“Sailing is a very male-dominated sport,” Chalmers said. “Most people, when they think of sailing, they think of old men on a boat. So it's definitely a challenging thing to be in as a female athlete.”

Chalmers said foiling is less reliant on physical strength and more so on other factors, making it possible for women to be competitive across the board in the sport.

“There's a lot of push at the moment to have more access and female pathways for sailing because women in the sport know they can sail just as fast as men and can be competitive. It's often about the boat and its design rather than the strength or physical ability of the person,” Chalmers said. “It's a lot more intellectual and more skill-based than just a physical ability.”

The clinic focused on instruction for the WASZP boat, which is a one-person boat used as an introductory boat in foiling. Three members of the Magenta Foiling Team, including Chalmers, led 10 participants in learning how to foil.

The clinic began with an introduction to the boat and how it works. Then, the clinic headed out on the water for hands-on instruction.

“Most of them are brand new to foiling [and] have sailing experience in the past, but are now learning this new avenue and sailing,” Chalmers said. “We get out onto the water and coach them through how to get up on the hydrofoils and get that boat flying out on the water.”

The clinic also featured a networking event on Nov. 2 that was open to the public, which featured a panel including Daniela Moroz, a six-time World Champion in formula kite and 2024 U.S. Olympics athlete; Chalmers, a Canadian-based foiling world championships competitor; and Pearl Lattanzi, A WASZP coach and sailor who is currently training for the 2025 WASZP World Championships.

“It’s an opportunity for these younger female participants to have a chat and hear from these more experienced women in foiling on how they got there, because for myself as part of our Magenta Foiling Team, [it is important] having people that our younger athletes can look up to and see that it's possible. That can be really important when trying to get into a sport: having someone to look up to.”

The Magenta Foiling Team is an international team, with members from Canada, Europe and Australia. Chalmers said that they held clinics in the United Kingdom earlier this year, as well as one in Barcelona several weeks ago. Now, they have their eyes set on Australia for an upcoming clinic in November.

Chalmers said they hope to return to the U.S. to hold another clinic, one that they hope will be even larger than this one as word spreads about their organization and what they aim to do.

“For this event, [the goal was] to introduce more women to foiling, especially on the West Coast of the U.S. and of Canada,” Chalmers said. “There hasn't been quite as much development over there, so this is an opportunity for us to start that and get some people developing their skills, which they can share with others so that we can come back and do bigger clinics.”

You can follow The Magenta Project @themagentaproj.

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Bio:

Emily McGinn is a journalist based in the Los Angeles area. She enjoys reporting on and writing about a variety of topics from lifestyle to news, especially in her areas of specialty, environmental science and political science.