A crew racing a J/105 on the Chesapeake Bay, every person working.

One connection can change a life.

We make sailing accessible to underserved kids and adults who never had a way onto the water, and build a pathway from their first sail into racing, leadership, skills, careers, and opportunity.

Support Impact See our work

It started with a table at a club fair.

I didn’t grow up sailing. No family boat, no club, nobody in the sport. I didn’t know college sailing existed.

Then I walked past a table, wrote my name on a list, and two weeks later I was on a race boat. That one connection led to the College of Charleston offshore team, an Annapolis-to-Newport win, a Coast Guard captain’s license, and a life built around the water.

The opportunity was always there. The pathway was hidden. I was lucky enough to find the door.

Impact exists so that nobody else has to get lucky.

Two sailors in foul-weather gear in the cockpit of a race boat.
Frostbite racing, Annapolis. The door, once you find it, is a boat and someone who says yes.

The boats are here. The pathways aren’t.

No boat.
No club.
No money.
No connection.

Annapolis is one of the sailing capitals of the world. Being surrounded by sailboats doesn’t mean you have a way onto one. Getting in depends on owning a boat, belonging to a club, or knowing someone who does — and most people have none of the three.

Talent and ambition are everywhere. Opportunity isn’t. That is an access problem, not a charity problem — and access problems can be solved.

We build the pathway.

Boats, coaches, crews, and races are tools. The thing we create is the route from a first day on the water to wherever a person wants to take it.

  1. 1First connection
  2. 2First sail
  3. 3Crew
  4. 4Racing
  5. 5Offshore
  6. 6Skills
  7. 7Careers and opportunity
Ten sailors hiking on the rail of a J/105.
Crew Connect Racing on a Wednesday night, Annapolis.

Our first pathway: Crew Connect Racing

A free community racing team for kids and adults from Annapolis and Baltimore. Participants pay nothing, and they don’t ride along — they are the crew.

Real racing

Weeknight series, Bay distance races, and one offshore race a year, with community sailors in every position on the boat.

Coached, year-round

Boat-work nights, classroom sessions, training sails, and first sails for people who have never been on the water.

Skills that travel

Rigging, marine electrical and diesel systems, composites, sail care, navigation, safety at sea, and certifications.

A next step for anyone who wants one

Paid crewing, deliveries, sailmaking, marine trades, and the path to a captain’s license.

Full program details

Already on the water.

45sailors already crewing with us
50+participants in the first funded season
40+free program days a year
$0to take part
“I didn’t have a boat, and I didn’t have a club. I showed up, did the work, and there was a place for me.”Mark, 17, Eastport — walked onto the docks on a Wednesday night and asked a crew if he could come. He’s raced every week since.
Mark racing on a J/105 on a Wednesday night.

Every participant is counted, every step of progression tracked, and the results reported to the people who fund it. As the program grows, so does what we can measure: who kept sailing, who raced, who went offshore, who earned a certification, who found work on the water.

Sailing teaches people to become capable.

Confidence
Teamwork
Leadership
Discipline
Technical skill
Responsibility
Competition
Belonging

For some it becomes a sport. For others, a career. For many, it becomes a community and a different way of seeing themselves.

And it is the original clean-energy sport: every mile we race is powered by wind alone, on a Bay our participants learn to know and protect.

A local beginning. A bigger ambition.

Today, Impact is building one pathway in Annapolis. The long-term goal is to build and fund those pathways wherever people are kept out of sailing because they never had the opportunity or the connection to get in.

Impact Sailing Foundation is a Maryland nonprofit corporation, incorporated in September 2026, with its 501(c)(3) application pending. Until that approval, the program operates in sponsorship with Spectrum Sailing, a 501(c)(3) that runs free sailing camps for autistic kids and adults. The founding board is forming now.

Founder: Captain Shane Kilberg — USCG 100-Ton Master, College of Charleston offshore team, Annapolis-to-Newport winner.

An offshore race boat under a yellow spinnaker.
Where the pathway leads. Photo: Tim Mangus.

Help create the connection that changes a life.

Every gift puts someone on the water — a first sail, a season, or the boat that lets the program grow beyond borrowed seats.

Donate online Discuss a larger gift
Online

Give at spectrumsailing.org/support/donate and write Crew Connect Racing in the comment box. That note is what directs the gift to our program.

By check

Payable to Spectrum Sailing, memo line Crew Connect Racing. Mail to Spectrum Sailing, PO Box 1111, Isle of Palms, SC 29451. No processing fee.

Tax deductibility

Gifts are received by Spectrum Sailing, a registered 501(c)(3), which issues your receipt. Many employers match charitable gifts — it’s worth asking.

Other ways in

Join as crew. Bring your boat and your time. Introduce us to someone who should know. Call 443-615-4413.