Woman Takes Club Helm Too : Bahia Corinthian’s first female commodore, Carolyn Nelson Hardy, is the latest to break into ranks of top officers in male-dominated O.C. yachting circles.

The pink commodore’s flag is your first clue that something is different this year at Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club in Corona del Mar.

For the first time in its 35-year history, the club has chosen a woman as commodore.

Her name is Carolyn Nelson Hardy, but to her sailing crew she’s Auntie Mom. To patients at Hoag Hospital, she’s Dr. Nelson, and to racers up and down the coast, she’s better known by the name of her 35-foot sailboat, Mischief.

No matter what you call her, friends and fellow boaters agree that Hardy, 53, is one tough competitor.

“Carolyn must be a good doctor, because she’s a very competitive lady,” says Doug White, a fellow yacht club officer who has known Hardy for eight years.

“Being the first woman commodore is a commendable goal for anyone, but I don’t think that being the first female had that much to do with it. It is just something that Carolyn wanted to to do.”

As commodore, the nautical equivalent of club president, Hardy joins a select group of Orange County women who are beginning to hold top positions in the mostly male-dominated world of yachting. This year there are only two female commodores in Orange County: Hardy, first woman to head the large, full-service yacht club in Corona del Mar, and Linda Elias, first female commodore of the much smaller Voyager’s Yacht Club in Newport Beach, an all-volunteer organization with no paid staff or clubhouse.

In years past, South Shore Yacht Club in Newport Beach has had three female commodores: Sheila Van Guilder, Lee Knudson and Agnes Doty. Dana Point Yacht Club has had two: Barbara McCarthy and Patti Burke-Pratley. Dana West Yacht Club in Dana Point also has had two: Alice Hollingsworth and Doris Chisum. To become a commodore, members must first be elected to the board and work their way up through a series of offices before being appointed commodore.

In all, Orange County has about a dozen yacht clubs and a number of sailing associations and powerboat organizations serving hundreds of recreational boaters. As more women become involved in boating, more of them are working their way to the top of these organizations, according to George Dashiell, commodore of the Assn. of Orange Coast Yacht Clubs.

“Ten years ago it would have been a rarity,” he says. “Women have always been in yachting, but it has almost been a tradition that none have served as a flag officer. But in the last 10 years that has changed. We will see more women coming into these leadership roles. I have come to the point where I don’t even think about it any more.”

So has Linda Elias who has grown accustomed to being outnumbered by the men. “I’m used to being the only one or one of the few female members of a racing crew,” says Elias, 42. “So, to me being commodore doesn’t feel any different.”

Hardy, too, is used to being one of the few females, not only in boating, but also in the medical world. In 1965, when she became a doctor, she recalls that only a small percentage of physicians were women.

As sailors, both Hardy and Elias are fierce competitors.

Hardy began racing sailboats more than 25 years ago, when she was a sophomore in medical school at Loma Linda University. Elias began racing about 15 years ago when she became one of the founding members of the Orange County Women’s Ocean Racing Sailing Assn. She is the only woman to have won the WORSA competition four times. She has also competed in two TransPac races to Hawaii and is preparing for a third.

Winning trophies is a fact of life for Carolyn Hardy, whose Newport Beach home is filled with dozens of awards attesting to her racing career. “I give a ton of them away to the crew because I couldn’t do it without them,” she says.

Hardy recently finished fifth in the prestigious Lipton Cup in San Diego, which includes amateurs and professionals. As an amateur, Hardy says: “We thought fifth was good.”

Like Elias, Hardy has sailed in some long distance races, including skippering a boat nearly 1,000 miles from Newport Beach to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. “We run our boat as a team. Attitude comes first, team works comes second and third comes sailing skills.”

Hardy, who has no children, serves as a sort of surrogate mother to her crew of young sailors. That’s why the crew has dubbed her Auntie Mom. “She kind of keeps a watchful eye on us and keeps us in line,” says Mark Reardon, 26, who serves as helmsman.

Both Hardy and Elias say they are concerned about setting good examples for other women who want to follow in their wake. “I feel that other women will want to do this in the future and I want to leave the door of opportunity open,” Hardy says.

As for their mostly male colleagues, the two women say they’ve received good support. “I don’t want to be treated differently,” Elias says. “And they didn’t do anything different for me.”

Hardy says the only way she was treated differently was when fellow members got together and ordered the pink 3-foot-by-5-foot flag in her honor. “I thought it was cute that they took the time and effort to make a pink commodore’s flag for me as the first woman,” she says.

Creating the pink flag, instead of the traditional blue one, was the idea of Ginney Siever, a former commodore of Windjammers Yacht Club in Marina del Rey. “When I was commodore, my husband and I got this off the wall idea of having a pink flag for me,” she says. “It went over really well, so when Carolyn’s time came, I said, ‘You have to do the pink flag.’ ”

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Classic yachts. About a dozen classic wooden yachts, including the 75-foot Spike Africa, will take part in the annual Heritage Regatta June 11 and 12 in Newport Beach. The event is sponsored by the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum.

Activities will take place at the Balboa Yacht Club, 1801 Bayside Drive, Corona del Mar. A reception will be held at 6 p.m. June 11, and the race will get underway at 1 p.m. on June 12. Before and after the race, the classic yachts will be on display at the club docks. For information call (714) 673-3377.

Fish for free. You won’t need a fishing license on June 12 to take part in “Free Fishing Day” in Upper Newport Bay. Free lessons and demonstrations will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. as part of a statewide event.

Game wardens, marine biologists and naturalists will be on hand to answer questions, and there will be rods and reels available. There’ll also be fly-tying demonstrations, casting demonstrations and fishing videos. Activities will take place at Shellmaker Island, about a quarter mile north of Newport Dunes. Entrance is off Back Bay Drive. Free parking will be available. For information, call (714) 640-6746.