Meet the Leading the Change! Campaign Crew

Sometimes things happen serendipitously in life; the formation of the Leading the Change! Annapolis to Newport Campaign feels like one of those serendipitous moments. As we are now over halfway through our campaign, and about a month away from the race, it feels nice to take a moment and reflect on how it all started, who we are, and why we are taking on this big endeavor on top of all that we do.

Offshore sailing has some serious barriers to participation. To start, it’s incredibly expensive, time-consuming, and hard to access. You need a boat, and a boat that is seaworthy and outfitted with all the offshore gear that is needed, which is again expensive and not something that the majority of young sailors (I’m defining young as under 30 here) have the finances to accomplish on their own. What this

means is that when young sailors race offshore, it is not on their own terms. They race on someone else’s boat, with someone else as skipper, often having less decision-making power and fewer leadership opportunities. Depending on the boat, young sailors might be jumping onto a boat to go offshore with total strangers as well. If you’re a female, its an added layer that you may be the only female on the

boat, and that you may be treated or valued differently than the rest of the crew.

Our female-led Leading the Change! Campaign allows us to challenge some of those barriers head-on and compete in the Annapolis to Newport Race on our own terms all while bringing important topics into the mainstream conversation of sailing while providing incredible leadership opportunities to our female crew.

Leading the Change! is rooted in the values of diversity, equity, inclusion, environmentalism, and youth involvement which aims to push the needle closer to gender equity in offshore sailing. Our goal is to be a highly competitive boat that performs well while making an impact on the sailing community in

relation to our values.

Our crew is composed of an amazing group of women. Maya Hoffman, 24, is the brains behind this whole operation and will be the Skipper for our Leading the Change! Team. Without her, this campaign wouldn’t be possible. She is pursuing professional offshore racing, focusing on navigation and weather routing and competed in the 2022 Newport Bermuda race as an onboard coach for Team Bitter End, the youngest all-female crew to complete the race. Maya is also getting her Master’s degree in International Environmental Policy, is a 2022-23 mentee in the international organization the Magenta Project’s mentoring program, and is a Skipper for Sailors for the Sea Powered by Oceana.

Chelsea Carlson Freas, 32, is our Navigator and is a degreed meteorologist and lifelong sailor who has 'tied the knot’ between the science of weather and the strategy of sailboat racing. She’s the meteorologist for the US Sailing Team and the founder of SeaTactics, which provides weather coaching and forecasting to sailors who want to gain a competitive edge. Chelsea is a 2022-23 mentor in the

the international organization, The Magenta Project’s mentoring program, and is specifically Maya Hoffman’s mentor this year!

Emma Janson, 25, is our Boat Captain and Safety Officer. Emma has been a youth sailing coach for 8 years working with a variety of both yacht club and community sailing organizations and spent a summer as a captain in the BVI. Emma is getting her Master of Arts in Marine Affairs with a focus on marine plastic debris, using sailors as a tool for ocean research, and structures of inequities in the sailing world. Emma is also a 2022-23 mentee in the international organization, the Magenta Project’s mentoring program, and is a Skipper for Sailors for the Sea Powered by Oceana, just like Maya!

The rest of our crew is made up of youth sailors from the MudRatz organization who will be joining us or the race. Lily Flack, 20, is a junior at Saint Mary’s College of Maryland and is a member of the Varsity Sailing Team as a skipper for the women’s team. She is an environmental studies major and biology minor. Ellie Menezes, 16, is our youngest team member! Ellie is a junior in High School and co-founded her high school's sailing team. Ellie races C420s and is the current captain of Equal Opportunity, a MudRatz Melges 24. Ellie volunteers her time at New England Science and Sailing and specifically enjoys working with the adaptive sailing program. Both Lily and Ellie competed in the 52nd Newport to Bermuda Race aboard Spitfire with the MudRatz Racing Team. We are so lucky to have them on our team!

We have an incredible crew lined up who are not only phenomenal sailors with a wide range of experience but who are also passionate about campaign missions and initiatives. It’s been an incredible journey to get where we are now, fully registered for the race with an amazing boat and badass crew, and I am so excited to cross the start line with this group and see what we can accomplish on the racecourse.

If you want to continue learning about our campaign, check back for more blog posts that go into detail about our campaign missions and what we will be doing to address them.