Bermuda will be among the teams battling for honours in the inaugural New York Yacht Club Women’s International Championship, which gets under way in Newport, Rhode Island today.

The island’s team consists of skipper Katrina Williams, co-skipper Julia Lines, Carola Cooper, Meg Sherwin, Ellie Wollmann, Ellie Cumpsty, Leah Sweet, Bella Cassaretto, Kate O’Donnell and Brandi Kastner.

Bermuda’s sailors have their work cut out competing among a stellar fleet which boasts Olympic champion Lijia Xu of China.

Williams hopes to finish in the top half of the fleet and is wary of the enormous task at hand competing against some of the world’s elite sailors.

“I would love for us to finish in the top half, but it is very difficult to know where we are going to stack up against all of these international teams until we get there,” she told The Royal Gazette.

“I’d also be really happy if we have races where we are right up there battling at the front. We want to compete hard, but we also want to get better throughout the week. If we leave Newport knowing we were a better team at the end of the event than we were at the beginning, that matters to me.”

The regatta will be contested in the IC37 keelboat with all racing taking place on New York Yacht Club’s Harbour Court from September 12 to 19.

More than 60 teams applied for a place at the event, with Bermuda earning one of just 20 invitations.

For Williams, earning an invitation represents more than the result at the end of five days of racing. The campaign represents an opportunity to compete and learn at an exceptionally high level, while taking another step towards creating a more visible pathway for Bermudian women who want to continue in competitive sailing.

“The movement behind women’s sport right now is fantastic, and we have so many girls coming through Bermuda’s junior sailing programmes and programmes like Endeavour,” Williams said.

“But what happens next? So many sailors don’t necessarily have the network or access to opportunities beyond Bermuda, or even know what competitive sailing can look like off the Island.

“My goal is to help build that pathway and show female sailors that they can continue to develop, both personally and professionally, through competitive sailing. It doesn’t have to be the Olympics or college sailing. There are so many other ways to stay in the sport, keep learning and compete at a really high level.

“We have the talent here. Now it is about helping make those opportunities visible and showing the next generation that there is somewhere for their sailing to go.”

Also representing Bermuda on the international scene are Sammy Dill, Ruth Mello Cann, Dina Kancades, Joanne Rogers and Sarah Vezina at the International One Design Women’s Invitational, which also gets under way in Marblehead, Massachusetts today.