STONINGTON — It was one of those cold, miserable days out on the water shortly before Christmas, and Genevieve Kurilec McDonald was fed up with her fishing rain gear.

Because she has never been able to find a coat with the right length of sleeve in nine years of lobstering, McDonald was wearing one with cut sleeves. When sleeves are too long, she said, they flop down and snag on lobster traps But cutting the sleeves leave the gear less than waterproof.

She ended the day soaked, an all-too-common fate. 

“I was wet and cold,” she remembers, “and I was tired of being wet and cold.” McDonald decided to advocate for better commercial fishing gear for women. She started soliciting comments from other women who fish commercially on her Facebook page, “Chix Who Fish.” The hope was to prod gear manufacturers to make more clothing to fit women. She expected to get about 30 comments, but instead received some 500 from women all around the world. 

They echoed her complaints that the current gear just doesn’t fit a woman’s body. Things would be baggy in some places and tight in others, and it was nearly impossible to find good commercial gear built small enough for their frames.  Women who fish are often very fit, and they either have to make do with squeezing into a child’s size or swimming around in an adult size; with a survival suit, this ill-fit can have life-threatening consequence. These choices defeat the purpose of the commercial-grade gear, McDonald said.

“It’s definitely about function and safety over fashion,” she said.

McDonald saw a business opportunity. The number of women fishing commercially in Maine is growing. Some seven percent of the state’s lobster-boat captains are women, a figure that doesn’t include the growing number of sternmen, she said. She now has decided to start her own business offering gear to fit this niche market.

In addition to lobstering, McDonald is a student at the University of Maine, and now is meeting with staff at the university’s innovation center. While she’d like to have the gear made in New England, she’s running up against manufacturing limitations, and is currently exploring options in Asia.

In the meantime, she hopes to create some kind of prototype gear to test on her own frame by July, if possible. Ultimately, she would love the gear to be useful for both men and women who need a different cut to fit their frames. 

“There are a lot of complaints right now from men about the current gear, too,” she said.