Nicola: I went home feeling very, very happy and very, very powerful, actually, that day. I felt, I felt I was on top of the world [laughs].

Alex: Today we’re hearing the story of an award-winning sailor. A young woman who – – when men have made the mistake of underestimating her – – not only flips those assumptions, but has fun doing it.

Nicola: My name is Nicola Stockdale. I’m 22. And I’m from Manchester.

Alex: Nicola is a senior instructor with the RYA – the UK’s Royal Yachting Association.

Nicola: And I do sailing, powerboating and windsurfing instructing as a little bit of fun.

Alex: Nicola grew up in a working class family in Manchester.

Nicola: My mum is amazing. She is amazing. She raised me pretty much on her own for the first two years. And then she met my stepdad.

She was a teenage parent. So she had me at the age of 17. Which, for me thinking about the fact that at the age of 22, I’d have a five year old child right now…. can’t deal with that. That's… that's quite difficult.

Alex: Nicola was an only child up until she was 7 years old, when her little sister Alice came along.

Nicola: I think single children always have like a certain personality to them, it makes them a little bit headstrong, they can get away with some sorts of things. I could kind of just make.. make my own path and make my own rules in a way.

Alex: Nicola had a happy childhood with her mum, little sister and her stepdad. Sadly though, he passed away from cancer when Nicola was 14.

Nicola: So that left Mum back again, as a single parent. And you know, she's really not had it easy, she's always had people against her and I think that has shaped her as a person and that has then shaped me and Alice as people as well.

Alex: Just after the loss of her partner, Nicola’s mum decided to start university.

Nicola: So was trying to raise two young headstrong girls and do a degree work so she can still earn a living and managed to do it all and, you know, graduated just when I started uni, which is incredible. She really is an inspiration for me. Superwoman.

Alex: Looking back now, Nicola can see the ways in which her stepdad’s passing impacted her.

Nicola: It wasn't a sudden death, like, some people have happen to them. I've had time to come, come to terms with it. And, you know, it did affect me, and it affected my schoolwork, and it affected my personal life. But people didn't know how to talk to me. They didn't know what to say, they didn't know how to act around me. And that was probably the hardest part about it.

But, you know, it meant that at home I had to step up and I had to help out and I do cooking and cleaning and help mom with Alice and you know, it kind of made me become an adult a lot earlier than most people at the age you know, at the age of 14. But I don't think that's necessarily been a bad thing. I think it's given me a lot of strengths. And I think it's helped me become the person I am today in a good way.

Alex: Nicola’s mum always had high hopes for her. She really wanted Nicola to go to Manchester High School for girls, a prestigious private school in the area.

Nicola: I have particular memories of being in my very pink, very small bedroom, princesses on the wall, you know, proper, girly little girl. And I used to remember seeing these bits from Man High pop up in my room where mum’s maybe ordered the prospectus, and it was sat there on top of my toy box, and I was always quite curious. So I would sit there and flick through it. And I was very aware of the school for a long time. And, you know, it was something that she wanted that for me, because she’d have wanted that for herself.

Alex: So when she was 11, Nicola took the school entrance exams – a tough set of logic tests and interviews.

Nicola: Finding out I got into Man High was …ah… I just remember being a very emotional day for many reasons

Alex: Getting the acceptance letter was thrilling – but it also came with pages and pages of financial information. Even at that young age, Nicola could sense the worry about the school’s really expensive fees.

Nicola: I do remember that mixed feeling on that day of, Wow, that's amazing. You've got into the school. That's incredible, well done. And then the kind of fear of okay, but how are we going to make this happen?

Alex: Happily though, Nicola got a scholarship and a bursary to attend the school.

It was at Manchester High – – with all its privileges and opportunities – – that Nicola got her first taste of watersports.

Nicola: So for someone from my background water polo isn't like your go- to sports, usually football or, and, you know, I used to do gymnastics that was more accessible. But water polo was kind of, you know, the step above. And so I really wanted to give it a go.

Alex: Nicola made the school’s water polo team. One of their first competitive games was against an all-boys team from another school.

Nicola: So obviously, there was a bit of a buzz going on – ‘oh boys are coming to the school, we're playing a boys team as a girls team’. I remember feeling like there was a bit of a point to prove for this game, because I knew even before meeting them that there would be a certain attitude towards us because it's the attitude that a lot of young boys have towards ‘Oh girls doing sports, or they're not as good. This is why you know, they have separate games because they're not as good as us’.

Alex: In the changing rooms before the game, the girls got together and came up with a strategy.

Nicola: Getting ready to kind of put these guys in their place a little bit. We did think about maybe using our femininity to our advantage, because we knew they wouldn't be expecting it, maybe play off like, oh, we were really worried about the game, kind of play it like, oh, gosh, it's so scary. We're gonna play a boys team, we're gonna lose when actually behind the scenes, we're like, we've got this right. And I remember talking to our coach, and he was like, Yeah, do it because they'll just believe it, they will - because they’re that cocky, right? They just think we're gonna play this girls team, they're gonna be rubbish, we're gonna win, easy win. Off we go.

Alex: The teams jumped in the pool, and the game began. At first, the girls were playing their part.

Nicola: Oh you know, we're so nervous, we don't know what we're doing. And, you know, we let them kind of press us up the pool a little bit, you know, let them think that they were winning. And then suddenly, we kind of all looked at each other and we kicked it into gear and went on the offence and I think they didn't expect us to be as scrappy as we were. And you know, they didn't probably expect us to be as forceful as we were either. And I think that shocked them so from that point onwards that we decided okay, let's do this. Let's, Let's win, we really dominated the whole game and i think a lot of faces dropped when they realised actually, these girls do know how to play water polo. And that was always one of the funniest parts of, you know, playing against any boys in the teams – the realisation, you can see it hit their face, and their face kind of drops a little bit. And then they try and hold it together. And you can just see panic in their eyes start to set in of oh my gosh, I'm going to be beaten by this girl, I'll never hear the end of it.

Alex: Nicola was playing defence, which she says is one of the more aggressive positions in the game.

Nicola: When we were playing, and I'd be marking someone they wouldn't expect me to be as forceful as we were in playing, you know, we knew we knew how to play we weren't afraid to kind of get in their faces a little bit and I think they didn't know how to react to that

Alex: Nicola could see the boys looking at their coach for reassurance.

And we’re there, like, bring it on, come on, we're playing a game of water polo here, get your act together.

Alex: The girls won the game hands down.

Nicola: I can't quite remember the score, but I remember it didn't look great for them. I can put it that way. They did they did kind of walk away very quietly after the game.

Alex: The atmosphere in the girls’ changing room afterwards was electric.

Nicola: We were chuffed with ourselves for winning the game, first of all, that was always what we were pleased about. And then being able to, you know, add on top of that, we beat the old boys team, and we really beat them. It wasn't close, it was, you know, a clear win.

And you know I went home feeling very, very happy and very, very powerful, actually, that day. I felt, I felt I was on top of the world.

Alex: It wasn’t long before Nicola came face to face with sexist assumptions again.

Nicola had always been drawn to the water. She got into sailing when she had the opportunity to take a school trip to Debdale Outdoor Centre – for a watersports day.

Nicola: Most people I've met who sail their parents have at some point sailed and have wanted to introduce their children to sailing and boats and the water. But I had a bit of a different experience.

Alex: During the school trip, Nicola met her instructor Martin, who invited her to join the club and take advantage of their affordable sessions. She was hooked.

Nicola: And I think what I loved most about water and going on the water especially is kind of how isolating it is, which sounds really strange, right? But you don't really take the technology out with you. Because if you drop it, it's gone, and expensive to replace. So you kind of get cut off from the outside world. And you become much more aware of what's going on. I think that's one of the best things about it is that it's kind of really freeing.

Alex: Fast forward a few years to when Nicola was 16, and she was working as a sailing instructor. She was running weekend courses for people who wanted to learn the basics of sailing, and get their RYA level one sailing certificate.

One particular weekend, she was training a group that included two men who already knew each other – which was unusual for these weekend courses.

Nicola: And I just remember straightaway, when they came into the centre the attitude was all wrong. I just remember thinking to myself, this is going to be an interesting weekend.

Alex: The men were in their early 30s, they were well groomed.

Nicola: They came in with kind of a swagger. They had their, their shirts on with their shorts, and they had sunglasses on their heads, and they had this, this smile on their face that you just kind of look at them and you go, you know, you're up to no good really.

Alex: They were chatting about how easy the sailing was going to be, joking about how they would go for a few drinks after. Not the best approach for a serious two-day sailing course.

They checked in with Nicola’s boss, Martin.

Nicola: Then Martin was like, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna pass you over to Nicola who's running the, you know, running the session for the weekend. And they kind of looked at me and you could see this look in their eyes of Are you sure? Like, is this who’s meant to be teaching and they probably had their own suspicions about me and I was young, I was female, probably not what they were expecting.

Alex: Nicola started out with the safety briefing, talking them through the equipment and the signals they’d be using on the water.

Nicola: As I'm going through it, talking about the importance of a buoyancy aid, making sure you wear it, what to do if you need help, I could just see them not really paying attention and kind of laughing at each other, to which I pulled them up on: “you're going to want to pay attention to this, because you're going to need my help. At some point this weekend. It's windy.” And they both kind of looked at me like oh, she spoke to us you know, we weren't… [laughs] they were kind of shocked that I'd called them out really.

Alex: Don’t forget – Nicola was sixteen at this point – it’s not easy to call anyone out, let alone people twice your age.

Nicola: But for me, safety is key. I'm very firm on safety rules [as I am] with anyone I've ever worked with. And so you know, I was going to tell it to them as it as it was, or they weren't going out in the water.

Alex: After she called the men out, they got sheepish, and began to pay more attention. But the belittling didn’t stop there. Nicola took them out to the dock, and asked them to wait while she got the boats.

Nicola: As I'm pulling it over, they kind of rushed over like, oh, you need help with that. That's really heavy, blah, blah. And I was like, No, I'm, I'm fine. Thanks. You stay over there. Because, you know, I don't want you to get in the way, basically. And I'd have to kind of assert myself in a way to say, I'm absolutely fine. You just pay attention to what I'm talking you through. You know I think it was probably coming from a nice place, but it was coming from a place where they kind of expected me to need the help. The expectation wasn't Oh, she can handle herself. It was the expectation of she's going to need help doing this. Whereas I know I've seen other sessions run by my male peers who were the same age probably about a similar build, and they were never questioned.

Alex: Eventually, the group got out on the water. It’s a small lake, surrounded by trees, so it’s mostly protected from the wind. But this day was different.

Nicola: The wind was was coming from behind the centre blowing down the lake, which is always when it's strongest. So it was really quite blustery, the flaggs were flapping, the water wasn't looking as still as it usually does.

Alex: Nicola jumped in the boat with the group, to show them the ropes…. as it were.

Nicola: That's so they can get used to how it feels, obviously, especially with the weather how it was: they needed someone in there to help balance the boat, because it's really rocky, it's difficult things move quickly when it's windy.

Alex: The men were clearly startled by how challenging the sailing was – and that humbled them.

Nicola: I think they were kind of shocked into a bit of silence and a bit of okay, we're going to listen and we're going to learn

Alex: But on the second day of the course, when the weather was sunny, they were up to their old tricks. The cockiness was back.

Nicola: I kind of you know, let them have that attitude a little bit because I knew it would come back to get them. And I knew that they wouldn't listen to me say that to them, they had to find out for themselves. And that's not to say that, you know, I wasn't teaching them in a way but it was that there has to be some kind of self realisation from a sailor of what you're dealing with.

Alex: So Nicola sent them out on the lake with their sails at full height.

Nicola: They started off okay; they were doing the manoeuvres that I was talking them through, they were doing quite well. And then it started to get a little bit windier.

Alex: She went over to the boat and offered to reduce the sail. But the guys refused.

Nicola: And the wind got a bit stronger again. And I remember going over and seeing the boat looking a bit more erratic, it was going around the water, tipping around a little bit, I could, I could sense the kind of anxiety from the boat a little bit, you kind of you can start to see when a sailor is starting to get a bit nervous.

Alex: The wind continued to pick up and eventually the men swallowed their pride and asked for Nicola’s help.

Nicola: That was the realisation from them that they knew that they needed my help because it was getting quite strong. And they knew that if they didn't get my help they were going to end up going for a swim and nobody wanted that

After we'd had that kind of conversation, and they'd reached out to me for help, the dynamic really changed. And it it I think that hit to the ego really kind of changed their attitude towards the sailing and towards me. And it meant they were much more receptive and listening to me and what I was telling them, and they actually ended up doing really well, once they were properly taking on board my advice, because I think at that point, they valued my advice

It did take me back a little bit that they came and thanked me but it felt great. Because I was like, you know, I felt like I'd made a difference a little bit to what their attitudes potentially towards other female sailors in the future that they maybe came across. So you know, that was that was a good feeling

Alex: In 2016, Nicola won the Manchester Active Young Volunteer of the Year Award for her dedication to sailing and volunteering at the outdoor centre.

Nicola: I think the more that we start to value women and lift them up, and really help them see the potentials that they can, they can reach, society will be improved as a whole

Alex: Nicola speaks with an assurance and maturity which has clearly been developed from her own unique experiences. You can see how strongly she has been influenced by her mother. As a powerful female role model, Nicola’s mother showed her daughter that women were in no way inferior to men. She also showed her daughter how much could be achieved at a young age. This helps to explain how Nicola has been able to excel in each environment she has entered into. Whether it be going to private school or operating in an environment traditionally associated with males, Nicola has been utterly undeterred by new challenges. Being underestimated by the males around her has also helped to motivate her even more. The way in which she carries herself with such confidence and self-belief will naturally change the attitudes of those around her.