After taking over as skipper of the all-women's entry in the 1993-1994 Whitbread Round the World race, San Francisco sailor Dawn Riley remembers one moment of the press conference in Fremantle, Australia when she was asked to take off her sweatshirt to reveal her sponsor's colors on a closer fitting crew shirt. One of the first women to compete equally with men at the top ranks of international sailing, Riley recalls thinking: " I wonder if a man would be asked to do this."

Currently the first women CEO for an America's Cup campaign, Riley says the rules have changed. "We don't have to take off our shirts for anyone. We can say 'no' now and there's no more discussion about it. Women sailing at the highest level of the sport is no longer uniquely cute."

Part of the reason that women are no longer a curiosity is due to Dawn Riley herself, a gifted athlete and student from Michigan who decided after graduating from Michigan State that a career in advertising on Wall Street was less appealing than the chance to work on and race high performance sailboats. Since making that decision in 1986, Dawn's career path has been about as close to vertical as you can get. Any glass ceilings she's encountered - and there have been several - were soon shattered like NBA backboards after an encounter with Shaquille O'Neal. Dawn is not just around for the new era of sailing, she is the Dawn of the new era.

For a sailor who has yet to skipper a boat to a major victory, Dawn Riley has nevertheless created considerable buzz, mostly because she's racing sailboats at a level that previously only men were a) trained for and b) allowed to. She's completed two 32,000 mile Whitbread Round the World races, considered the ultimate test of endurance and skill for sailors, including one as skipper of the all women team Heineken in 1993/1994. She's also crewed on two America's Cup campaigns, including one as the crew captain of the 1995 America Cubed all women's team. She's not a diehard women-only sailor - she actually prefers to sail in coed groups - but as part of the emergence of women in competitive sailing, she's one of the most talented sailors and leaders in the sport today.

If you took away her gender, Dawn's sailing resume resembles that of many others who have gone on to professional sailing and racing. A talented high school athlete in track, swimming and skiing, she got the sailing bug early and used to spend her summer months racing five days a week. As a teenager, she and her family went on a year long cruise from Michigan to the southern tip of the Caribbean and back aboard the family 36-foot sailboat.

She chose Michigan State for its superior academics, but ended up captaining the sailing team and leading them to a better record than intrastate rival University of Michigan, which had a better funded sailing program. She also spent her spare time taking care of and racing big boats, like the Frers 45 Lunatic, which she agreed to manage after her New York interviews for an advertising gig came up dry. Lunatic went on to win some big races that year, which made Dawn's decision more favorable, and she enjoyed special status on the Great Lakes, crewing on some of the hottest boats in the Detroit area.

By 1989, Dawn was thinking beyond American waters, however, She heard about an all women's team being put together to do the Whitbread and faxed her resume to team leader Tracy Edwards in England, who immediately asked her to try out. Dawn soon earned a berth and eventually became one of the team leaders during the race. Her boat Maiden finished second in class and won two of the toughest legs of the race. Ironically, though, Dawn remembers that even after the women had shown that they were competent, hard core sailors, they were "still wearing pink shorts and having flowers sent to us. It really didn't reflect who we were."

Dawn then tried out for the first America Cubed America's Cup team, a program in which she was the only women sailor. She quickly established herself as one of the best members of the crew, but when the final selection came for her position, she lost out to a man. The boat, headed by Kansas millionaire Bill Koch, went on to win the America's Cup in 1992. Dawn's disappointment was bitter, but she was able to put the defeat into perspective. She eventually approached Koch with the idea of doing an all women's effort in 1993.

Before those plans were carried out, however, Dawn received a phone call from Uruguay asking her to take over the all women entry in the 1993 Whitbread. She wasn't eager to go back to the Southern Ocean with its frigid temperature, Roaring 40 winds and deadly silent icebergs. Yet she felt that if she didn't pick up the sword, the advances that women had made with Maiden would be wiped out. She feared people would say the women in 1989/90 had just been a fluke. So off she went, back out into the snow and 50 foot waves. Her boat, Team Heineken, persevered, even through a pair of broken rudders that forced them to limp across the final finish line in England. Dawn may not have been the winning skipper, but her resourcefulness and grit became plainly evident to the sailing community at large.

Dawn returned to America to join the first all women's America's Cup effort, another learning experience that came quite close to pulling a major upset in the American defender series. The America Cubed team had four time America's Cup winner Dennis Conner on the ropes in their final race, only to see Conner charge back to win on the last leg while the world held its breath in excitement.

Even though America Cubed was billed as a women's team, Dawn reveals that the major decisions still rested in the hands of men. Wanting more say in the process, she decided to put together her own syndicate. Scraping together her own savings and donations from friends and family, she put up the entry fee for the upcoming America's Cup 2000 in New Zealand and formed the coed America True challenge. Headquartered at the San Francisco YC in Marin, America True features many talented sailors, including helmsman Jeff Madrigali, one of only two American medal winners in sailing at the 1996 Atlanta Games. Also onboard are several of Dawn's cronies from Whitbread and America's Cup, including Leslie Egnot, Merrit Carey and Katie Pettibone.

Currently, Dawn and her sailors are competing in various match racing events, including the "Road to the America's Cup" Regatta in New Zealand, site of the races in 2000. As for her goals, Dawn states that she wants to win the America's Cup. "That's simple to say and hard to do, but we want to win with originality and integrity," she adds. The syndicate's gender diversity fulfills the first objective. As for integrity, Dawn likes the idea of taking big time sailing out of the hands of rich men and making it more accessible to others who are just as talented. "We think we can spend money wisely and accomplish our goals," she says.

America True has also involved itself in community-based programs, such as the Adventure Sail of SF, part of a nationwide program that uses sailing to help inner city, at-risk youth gain positive life experiences and introduce marine industry and science career options. Adventure Sail in SF hopes to offer sailing instruction to 10,000 teenagers between now and the America's Cup races in 2000.

Dawn and her mates will be tuning up on the Bay this summer as well. Look for the boat where men and women enjoy a parity that has previously been unfamiliar in competitive sailing. Dawn hopes their efforts will breed success on the water, and that the new era of competitive, cooperative coed sailing will unfold with even greater speed.