No Pink Spinnakers Here: How Team Allegiant Defied Sailing Norms

Marianna Fleischman had just finished racing one of the East Coast’s most prestigious offshore events. At the post-race party, clad in a matching crew shirt like many others in the crowd, she was swapping sailing stories with a man from another boat. He gestured at her top and asked, “So did all the wives of the racers wear those matching shirts?” She blinked. 

“Actually,” she said, “my husband is still out racing. I beat him to the party.”  

That moment, of course absurd, landed with the weight of every assumption that still drifts through the world of sailing like a fogbank: Who’s driving the boat? Who’s trimming the sails? Who belongs offshore? And who still has to prove it?

In June 2025, Allegiant, a privately owned offshore boat out of the Chesapeake Bay, completed the 475-mile Annapolis to Newport Race with the first all-women crew in the event’s history. The achievement wasn’t immediately obvious. Unlike podium finishers, milestone makers don’t always get mentioned. It wasn’t until the finish-line radio operator keyed the VHF’s mic and confirmed their place in history that skipper Maryline Bossar, navigator Hannah Garbee, watch captain Marianna Fleischman, and the rest of the eight-woman crew let themselves believe it. They had done it.

And yet, no official acknowledgment came from the race organization. No announcement, no mention at the awards. 

So, they wrote their own press release.

“Celebrating a moment like this feels paradoxical,” Bossar later said. “It shouldn’t be a big deal that a team of competent women raced offshore together. But here we are. Until these things become normalized, they need to be named.”

And named they were—by themselves, for themselves and for the sailors coming up behind them.

In many ways, Allegiant’s story is about showing what offshore sailing can look like when leadership is shared, preparation is intentional, and assumptions are quietly, methodically dismantled. This was a race, yes, but it was also a statement—made not with a protest sign, but with a foghorn, a well-trimmed sail and a course held steady.

The ocean, of course, doesn’t care who’s at the helm. Wind is indifferent to gender. Waves neither cheer nor question. Offshore, what matters is skill, grit and an unrelenting focus on the next tack or trim. Allegiant’s crew lived this truth through every hour of their race, battling fickle winds, long becalms and sleepless nights. 

“Our last 24 hours were something else,” Bossar recalled. “We set the spinnaker one last time and held it steady downwind in heavy wind. Allegiant is very balanced with that symmetrical kite. We crushed it, sailing faster than many boats on different routes, riding a weather system from the south we called ‘the elevator.’ We knew the models were converging. We knew what we had to do. And we did it.”

It wasn’t just adrenaline. It was also strategy.

They had spent the early part of the race playing the long game. Light air dominated the first two days, and boats whose crew panicked early often made impulsive tactical errors—hugging the coast or jibing too soon. Allegiant’s crew held their nerve, committed to going east of the rhumb line before the breeze returned. When it did, their position allowed them to jibe straight into the Newport approach, clean and fast.

For Fleischman, who served as a watch captain, the final day was a gift after a frustrating stretch of false starts with shifting winds. “It felt like this horrible cycle of hope and disappointment,” she said. “Then the wind finally filled in properly, and it was a push to give everything we had. We caught a couple of boats on that last day.”

Hannah Garbee, navigating for the first time on an ocean race, recalled the team’s strategic approach: “We wanted to get as far east of the rhumb line as possible before the wind filled in so we could jibe straight into Newport. That positioning really helped us capitalize on that last push.

“It was like threading a needle in the dark,” Garbee added. “But it paid off. That’s what navigation offshore is about: reading weather patterns, staying patient and trusting your prep.”

There were no shortcuts. In the months leading up to the race, the Allegiant crew trained
obsessively. Everyone aboard was safety certified. They ran woman-overboard drills in the dark, navigated by instinct and instrument, and practiced emergency steering setups and spinnaker douses until every response became second nature. Even sleeping arrangements were tested, rotating bunks and fine-tuning rest schedules to guard against the creeping effects of fatigue on decision-making. The boat became a floating system of interlocking trust and repetition, built to hold its heading even through windless nights when the tide threatened to carry them backward.

“There’s this idea that offshore racing is about hero moments,” Fleischman said. “But actually, it’s about systems. You build a routine, you build trust, and then the big moments take care of themselves.”

One of those moments came late in the race, far offshore near the continental shelf. Allegiant was drifting in a windless patch, essentially dead in the water with no steerage, when a vessel under power emerged from the fog. It was bearing down fast. 

There was no response on the radio. It stayed on a collision course.

“We were basically yelling, trying to prevent a collision,” Garbee said. They blasted their foghorn. Swept the deck with a high-powered spotlight. The boat kept coming.

Bossar prepared to start the engine. “In that moment, my job as skipper was to keep everyone safe and make sure no one punched a hole in the boat,” she said. “And the crew were ready to act.”

At the last possible moment, Garbee managed to raise someone on the VHF radio. The reply, though, was flippant—an almost casual acknowledgment of the near miss. “Their response sounded silly,” Garbee recalled. “They didn’t take us seriously at first.”

The intruding vessel passed within two boat lengths. The crew on Allegiant was shaken, but steady. There was no panic, no second-guessing, only quiet relief—and a sharp awareness of how high the stakes can be offshore, especially when you’re not immediately assumed to be competent.

“We were proud of how we handled that moment,” Bossar said. “It reminded us why we drilled so much in the first place. Offshore, we plan for everything we can. But you can’t plan for someone else’s disregard. And when you’re an all-women crew, there’s this added layer, like you have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously.”

Their journey offshore didn’t just test their physical limits. It also exposed the cultural weather still shifting across the sport. From provisioning dockwalks to competitor banter, subtle biases surfaced: unsolicited advice, second-guessing, condescension disguised as concern. “Some competitors didn’t even realize we were an all-women crew,” Bossar said. “We got called a ‘lady boat’ a few times. We handled our own comms, our own messaging. We didn’t want to wait for validation.”

And they didn’t get it. Not officially.

At the post-race awards, their finish time was announced—but not their history-making crew composition. Not even a passing mention.

“You wonder, does this matter? Are we really doing something here?” Fleischman said. “And then you realize: This is why we had to do this. Milestones like this get ignored because they’re not seen as competitive achievements, but there’s competition in showing up when the system isn’t built for you.”

Still, they didn’t dwell. They did what they always do: solved the problem themselves. Shared their story. Moved forward with the same quiet determination that had carried them across 475 miles of ocean. Because for them, this wasn’t just about one race. It was about building a pipeline for the next.

“If you want more women offshore,” Garbee said, “you have to give them opportunities. That’s how I got started. Allegiant took me on in 2022 when someone dropped out. That single opportunity changed everything.”

The problem, she explained, is structural. Offshore experience is gatekept—passed down through closed circles, inherited like family recipes. If you’re not already in, then getting in is nearly impossible.

Bossar would like to see an open registry. A crew bank. A place where women with training, certifications and ambition can raise their hands. “If you’re short on crew, look there first,” she said. “It’s not a handout. It’s a pathway.”

Fleischman agreed. “The jump from buoy keelboat racing to offshore is huge,” she said. “And for women, it’s even bigger. But you don’t get better without time on the water. We need to make that time easier to get.”

On Allegiant, that access was deliberate. Everyone rotated through roles. From helm to foredeck, from nav station to sail locker, they cross-trained and trusted one another. There were no barked orders. Just communication, consistency and respect.

“I never felt like I had to prove myself because I’m a woman,” Bossar said. “That’s not always the case offshore.”

They flipped the offshore stereotype. Instead of bravado, they ran with checklists and sleep schedules. Shared loads. Shared leadership. Even their gear and food choices told a story. They packed for endurance and morale. “No pink snacks,” someone joked. High protein, high comfort, high efficiency. 

“We relied on mechanics more than muscle,” Garbee said. “It made us more thoughtful. You learn to solve problems without forcing them.”

And as physically smaller sailors, they engineered smarter systems using block ratios, winch placement and timing. Seamanship by design, not brute force.

Leadership, too, was something they redesigned. Bossar, who co-skippers Allegiant with her husband on other races, emphasized that the difference isn’t gender. It’s approach. “He doesn’t use as many words as I do,” she said with a laugh. “But our styles complement each other. That’s personality.”

The tone aboard Allegiant was supportive, not soft. Strategic, not sentimental. For Garbee, preparation meant not just learning nav software but also building confidence in real-time decision-making. “Being part of an all-women team meant I didn’t have to carry the weight alone,” she said. “I could teach others to support, and that made for better decisions on the water.”

There are a lot of capable women sailors, Bossar said, but they’re overlooked: “If race organizers created even a simple award category for mixed or all-women crews, it would signal that those efforts matter.”

She also suggested creating a roster of skilled women available for delivery crew. “Deliveries are often unpaid, but they’re where people log their miles,” she said. “Give women those sea miles. They’re ready, able and willing.”

Fleischman pointed out that many women never get the chance to try offshore sailing because the path isn’t clear. “Some people love buoy racing and don’t want to go offshore,” she said. “But for the ones who do, there needs to be a bridge.”

Allegiant is laying the planks, race by race. The crew’s next goal is the Annapolis to Bermuda Race—a challenge that, to date, no all-women crew has completed. “There are seven open spots on this boat,” Bossar said. “We want to fill them with women.

“Every race is a chance to do something new,” she added. “To step into roles traditionally held by men. I was skipper. Marianna was watch captain. Hannah was navigator. … We’re not asking to be seen as women sailors. We just want to be sailors.”

Garbee credited her grandmother for helping her achieve her potential: “She said racing would make me a better sailor. It wasn’t about winning, It was about learning. I didn’t even see other women navigators until I got to Newport. And once I did, it made me want to be better.”

Bossar, too, sees change ahead. Slowly, but surely. “You’ll sail with men and women in all kinds of conditions,” she said. “And if you feel intimidated, that’s OK. Just know there are women sailors out there, waiting to help you build confidence. We’re out here.” 

Follow the Allegiant Crew:

Allegiant: allegiantsailing.com, @allegiantsailing
Hannah Garbee: TikTok @hannahsailorgirl
Marianna Fleischman: Instagram, YouTube, Twitch

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