Turning the Tide : Yachting: Six Southland women are among the crews that set sail in a race from California to Hawaii. They hope they will inspire others to take up the male-dominated sport.

Betsy Crowfoot vowed that she would never sail again. Not after a yacht race like that. Waves the size of three-story buildings. Seas churning like a washing machine gone berserk. Loss of power, radar and lights. Forget sailing, Crowfoot said. I’m taking up sky diving.

Her crew mates could relate. They too had been told that the Oakland-to-Santa Catalina yacht race last July would be nothing more than a yawn: gentle breezes, lazy currents, a pleasure cruise. No one envisioned the raging storm ahead. No one aboard the 40-foot sloop Antara expected to worry about survival.

That was a year ago. Now, the core of that crew--Crowfoot of Tustin included--is taking on a greater challenge: the 37th Transpacific Yacht Race from Southern California to Honolulu.

Eight women--six from Southern California--were among the racing crews that set sail Wednesday afternoon from Point Fermin, north of Los Angeles Harbor. They hope to cross the finish line 2,225 nautical miles away in 12 to 14 days.

A fast finish is not the ultimate goal, they say. It’s the adventure that drives them. It’s the thrill of taking on the sea, bad weather and all. Inspiration, liberation, self-esteem and camaraderie--they’ll find it, they say, in the middle of nowhere.

Although being only the second all-woman crew in the race’s history, and the first in 14 years, is important to them, most say they don’t want to make too much of it. But they do hope that their participation will inspire other women to take up the male-dominated sport.

“It’s a very physical race,” said Leon Cooper, commodore of the Transpac Yacht Club, which stages the event. “When a man is over 40 or in his 50s, it’s really too much. But women know how to pace themselves better. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t do it.”

Antara’s crew members have come a long way since the Oakland-to-Catalina venture, but they are in no way complacent.

Last week, Terry Monson of Diamond Bar made certain that her life insurance was paid, then withdrew all the money in her bank account and gave it to her mother.

“I wanted to make sure I arranged my affairs,” Monson said.

As the Antara crew knows, ocean racing can be treacherous, exhausting and humbling. People fall overboard. Equipment fails. The wind, dependable one minute, suddenly becomes unreliable.

More predictable, of course, are sunburn, seasickness (the norm for the first few days) and what some sailors refer to as “boat butt” (sort of an adult version of diaper rash).

Dampness permeates all.

“When you’re wet for any length of time,” Monson said, “you basically start to mold.”

In 1979, the Concubine--with an all-woman crew skippered by 21-year-old Terri Clapp--sailed into Honolulu after 16 1/2 days. Winds had been nearly nonexistent. The weather was hot, the Concubine crew edgy. A problem with the boat’s fresh water supply led to rationing, meaning freeze-dried meals had to be prepared with seawater.

Jolly sailors they were not.

Antara owner Barry Schuyler, a retired UC Santa Barbara professor and women’s sailing advocate, watched the Concubine pull into Honolulu that year. He heard about the disharmony among its crew. Fourteen years later, the women racing his boat to Hawaii talk about interfacing and team building. They underwent personality profile tests. During the Transpac, daily group communication sessions will help solve any conflicts.

Call it the New Age Antara.

Deb Rigas, Antara’s navigator, probably would. She’s the one with the sapphire-studded nose ring. She’s the one who had hoped to bring a big, cowhide-covered drum so she could sit on the deck and pound out a rhythmic beat--”So I could tune in to that earthy, vibe thing,” said Rigas, 38.

The drum is too big, so she will have to be content with yoga and aerobics.

Huntington Beach resident Flora Obayashi, 42, grew up on a cattle ranch on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Only 200 lived in her hometown, Pukoo, and the nearest neighbor was three miles away. Kids went to school barefoot, some on horseback.

After moving to Honolulu, she went to the harbor every July to watch the finish of the Transpac. Some day, Obayashi told herself, she would be on one of those crews, too.

At 27, Lori Barnes of Fountain Valley is the youngest crew member. Like Amanda Russell--a 28-year-old Briton who recently moved from Huntington Beach to San Francisco--and alternate Judy Rudner, 27, of Cypress, Barnes sees Transpac ’93 as a steppingstone. Someday, Barnes said, she would love to sail around the world solo.

The skipper, Bonnie Gibson of Costa Mesa, 45, is a dental hygienist, owns an embroidery business and serves as president of the Orange County-based Women’s Ocean Racing Sailing Assn.

In December, 1991, Gibson was found to have cervical cancer. She underwent two surgeries, the second last August. She was sailing again by September.

Said Gibson: “Women learn in sailing about their own personal strengths.”

First mate Shirley Doell agrees. Two years ago, Doell, a 37-year-old crew coach at UC San Diego, was sailing her father’s boat from England to the Canary Islands. Off the coast of Portugal, a storm hit in the middle of the night. Winds whipped in at 60 knots. Doell’s two crew mates were seasick. Even though the boat was knocked over twice, Doell managed to make emergency repairs and sail into the closest port.

It is experiences such as those that make women’s sailing advocates wonder. How is it that, after proving themselves repeatedly in difficult situations, women are still generally viewed as second-class sailors? Although several have managed to earn respect--the late Peggy Slater, who skippered L’Apache in the Transpac in 1951, was considered a pioneer--the majority of women who have participated in Transpacs have done so as cooks.

In the last two weeks, product donations have poured in to the Antara crew. They will be outfitted in boat shoes, bathing suits, jackets, T-shirts, gloves and hats. A surf shop in Newport Beach donated sunscreen. The Sea Gals of the Balboa Yacht Club prepared seven days’ worth of dinner entrees. A woman in Oakland gave them a quilt.

From countless rolls of film to the latest in safety equipment to dry ice, the crew received nearly $20,000 in freebies. Not bad for a grass-roots project, as Antara supporters like to call it.

Not bad for a boat that a year ago was being towed into Port San Luis Obispo by the Coast Guard.

“We learned a lot from that race,” Crowfoot said. “Mostly that you have to be prepared, and you can’t rely on what people tell you.”

Crowfoot paused a moment. She laughed, then added:

“We’ll be OK. Fear is the greatest motivator.”