Tabor Girls and "Elizabeth Taber"

There are records of girls sailing on Tabor Boy as early as 1926, when a group of female Tabor Girls’ School students made the cruise from Marion to Hadley Harbor, near Woods Hole. However, female students were not permitted to be part of the seasonal, all-boy crew, even after the school reintroduced coeducation in 1978.

Instead, the school added Elizabeth Taber to its fleet in the 1984–1985 academic year as an honorary school ship. Elizabeth Taber and its crew of six girls served as a counterpart to Tabor Boy. The 40-foot ketch, built in 1971, was donated to the school by Robert Lawrence.

In 1985, new “sail training/outward bound” cruises to the Bahamas aboard Tabor Boy were introduced under Captain Carlson and First Mate Jim Geil, open for the first time to male and female students, as well as faculty, parents, and alumni, during school break. Policy changed again and in 1987, if five female students expressed interest in Tabor Boy as a spring sport, the crew would become coeducational. Lisa Massimino Magiera ’88 completed the spring break cruise in her junior year and signed up to crew Elizabeth Taber for her senior year. As the Elizabeth Taber was no longer in the water, Massimino received Captain Geil’s approval to join the formerly all-boy Tabor Boy crew.