All-Female Crew Taking a New Tack : Sailing: Stella Maris skipper Bonnie Gibson and seven other women put aside jobs and charity work to compete in the Newport-Ensenada Yacht Race.

It was a little after 8 p.m. and the eight-woman crew of the Stella Maris must have been thinking about the gourmet scampi-and-fettuccine dinner being prepared in the galley.

It was the crew’s first overnight practice run on the 40-foot sloop and Jane Golding was taking her turn at the helm, her eyes riveted on the compass. Skipper Bonnie Gibson was below deck, adjusting the stove.

Then someone spotted something looming in the dark and Charmaine Day quickly flashed a spotlight high on the Stella Maris’ headsail.

“It was a huge freighter without it’s running lights on,” Golding said. “It was about 300 yards away when they turned on their lights and changed course. We had seen it earlier and figured it was stopped because it didn’t have any lights on.

“Then all of a sudden we noticed we were on a crash course. There was kind of mass confusion on deck.”

There’s nothing quite like an aircraft carrier-sized wake-up call.

“Let’s just say we learned something about alert watches in the shipping lanes,” said Gibson, owner of the Stella Maris and the impetus behind this eclectic all-woman crew. “It’s all part of a continuous learning process that goes with sailing. We’ve had some talks about that situation and it won’t happen again, especially not this weekend.”

Friday, Gibson and Co. will compete in the Ancient Mariner class of the Newport-Ensenada Yacht Race, and as far as anyone can tell, they will be the second all-female crew to do so.

Mickey Barr was the handicap winner of the first Newport-Ensenada race in 1948--the year Gibson was born--and there have been other woman skippers and some all-woman crews, but apparently only one other all-female cast.

Given the popularity of this race--an event that is more party than race to many competitors--Gibson finds it hard to believe that there haven’t been more all-female crews. In any case, it will be a timely feat. The Newport Ocean Sailing Assn. is celebrating the year of the woman sailor in 1990, and Wednesday night, the Stella Maris crew was honored during a tribute to women in sailing at the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum.

“My husband, Michael (Matthews), sailed Stella Maris in last year’s Ensenada race and he sort of challenged me to skipper in the race this year,” Gibson said. “I thought an all-woman crew would be fun.

“I’ve made some wonderful new friends and spent more time with some old ones. And, as owner and skipper, it gives me a lot of satisfaction to see them working together and developing their own strengths and talents.”

The Stella Maris is not that much different from the other wooden boats--sloops, ketchs and schooners--in her class, except that she has spent more time on the beach than most.

She was formerly a ketch, custom designed and built in 1936 by A.A. Steele of West Los Angeles. The boat ran aground in Huntington Beach in 1982 and that’s when Gibson and her husband, who is a shipwright, bought the wreck from an insurance company.

More than five years later, the Stella Maris (Latin for Star of the Sea) was brought back to life by Matthews. Everything was new except the hull, and even it had been fitted with 15 new planks and all new ribs.

If boats could talk, the Stella Maris could give Gibson and her crew plenty of assistance this weekend. After all, she’s a veteran of at least 17 Newport-Ensenada races and has been at sea longer than any of her current crew members have been alive.

She has seen a great many sailors come and go, but it’s hard to imagine that any crew could have been any more enthusiastic than this one.

These women do take their sailing seriously . . . but not too seriously.

“I joined the Women’s Ocean Racing Series and they set me up with a crew, but those guys were out for blood,” said Bobbie Reed, a buyer for a Mission Viejo computer firm. “Then I got hooked up with Bonnie. It’s been fun, really exciting and the camaraderie is great.”

Sailmaker Dave Ullman came along on a recent practice sail and the crew riddled him with questions about tactics and supposedly secret tips on how to sail the course.

Ullman tried his best to play down the myths and stress fundamentals. He offered advice on how to make the best use of the spinnaker and a host of fine-tuning tips on everything from sail-trimming to riggings.

When Ullman stepped off the boat onto the dock at the Balboa Yacht Club, Gibson yelled, “Don’t forget the wig and dark glasses on Friday.”

OK, so they’ve been together less than a year and maybe they’re not quite ready for the America’s Cup.

When the sloop momentarily was dead in the water while attempting to tack in a narrow channel of Balboa Bay, someone asked, “What do we do now?”

“Put the motor on,” suggested Donna Blue of Lido Isle, the crew’s gourmet cook who cheerfully brags that she has broken two fingernails while hoisting the sails during recent practices.

They’re red (well, maybe dark pink) badges of courage.

Five years ago, Blue left a successful career behind to spend more time enjoying life. After 10 years as purchasing director for an Irvine firm, Blue is now concentrating on recreation--golf and sailing--and community service work. She has served as a chapter president for the American Cancer Society and is affiliated with the City of Hope and Cystic Fibrosis.

Charity work is one common thread that binds this diverse group, which ranges in age from 35 to 49. A strong stomach and a love and respect for the sea, of course, are the others. Many own their own sailboats and relish the chance to improve their skills as well as spend more time on the water.

Day, Executive Director of the Orange County chapter of the American Diabetes Assn., calls the Stella Maris experience “an opportunity to accomplish a common goal, utilizing the forces of nature, skill and teamwork.”

Lorrie Lewis teaches computer skills to the blind. Laura Winters, a CPA and partner in a Costa Mesa accounting practice, is a court-appointed advocate for abused children in Orange County.

Denise Richards, a free-lance consultant who recently quit her job as national public relations manager for a tire company, is a foster parent through the Save the Children Fund.

“I crave the water,” she said. “I was taking an ocean sailing class at Orange Coast College last summer, Bonnie was in the class and she recruited me. It’s a special environment with women who share a passion for the sea.”

A charitable notion and what she calls “a love affair” with the ocean got Reed hooked on sailing. She volunteered to serve as an adviser for a group of Dana Point Sea Scouts so some young women could be included in an outing.

“We had 14 kids on three 30-foot boats,” she said. “We hit 30-knot winds and ran into some 20-foot waves. The skipper asked me if I was afraid, but I really wasn’t. Maybe I didn’t know enough to be afraid.”

Golding, a sort of self-appointed cheerleader with drill-instructor tendencies, recently “retired” from the family jewelry business.

“I used to work 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week,” she says. “Now, I play 10 to 12 hours a day.”

When she isn’t sailing her 22-foot Columbia or OCC’s 30-foot sloop during classes, Golding is under the water, exploring off the coves in Laguna Beach.

A stiff breeze billows the sails, the deck tilts and the sloop slices smartly through the swells. “We be bad ,” Golding yells.

The Eager Eight have put a lot of time and work into this effort. They even raised enough money to buy new racing sails for the Stella Maris. All of the women hope to sail a respectable race and finish high in their class, but most have the perspective to see the Ensenada-Newport Yacht Race as simply the culmination of good times.

“When you get down to it, it has to be fun,” Gibson said. “It’s been an awful lot of work, so it better be fun.”