The 2x25 Review: what the data tells us, and what we're doing about it

Marin Le Roux - polaRYSE / 11th Hour Racing

 The Magenta Project and 11th Hour Racing published the 2x25 Review - a comprehensive global survey of gender equity and inclusion across sailing and the marine industry. If you haven't seen it yet, I'd encourage you to read it. Not because it makes for comfortable reading in every section, but because it is honest, it is data-driven, and it gives us something incredibly valuable: a clear picture of where we actually are.

And knowing where you are is the first step to knowing where you're going.

What the review found

The headline numbers are worth sitting with for a moment.

83% of respondents believe female representation in sailing has improved over the past five years. That is real progress, and it deserves to be acknowledged. We are seeing more women competing at the highest level of our sport than ever before - including six women completing the Vendée Globe [although the % of female participants actually fell as there were more sailors on the startline in the last edition], female athletes mandated to race onboard for the next America's Cup, and women represented on the water across every SailGP team. These are not small things and five years ago possibly couldn’t be imagined.

But the review also shows that this visible progress has yet to reach the majority of sailors. 65% of respondents reported experiencing some form of discrimination in sailing. More than 60% of women don't feel fully welcome in yacht clubs. 43% have felt out of place or unwelcome at a sailing event. And almost half of respondents were unaware of any reporting structure for safeguarding incidents.

The gap between what is happening at the top of our sport and what people are experiencing at club and grassroots level is real. The review names it clearly, and so should we.

One statistic that really stayed with me as I read the report this morning was this: more than 50% of respondents reported having to adapt their behavior, language, clothing, or mannerisms to feel accepted in sailing environments, reported by almost 40% of women compared to 11% of men. The emotional weight of that adaptation - the constant recalibration, the background noise of not quite fitting in - is exhausting and I know that first-hand.

I’ve spent years trying to fit into sailing and now I want to make sailing fit more people.

Why this matters to me

Everything I'm trying to build with my campaign alongside 11th Hour Racing is rooted in exactly what this review is measuring. Not just who is present in sailing, but who feels like they belong. And not just women - anyone who has an interest in the sport.

Belonging is not a soft concept, it is a performance concept. When people feel safe, seen and valued, they train harder, they take risks, they stay in the sport, and they bring others with them. When they don't, they leave, often quietly, without fanfare, and sadly sometimes without anyone noticing until it's too late.

The 2x25 Review reinforces something I have believed for a long time: representation at the elite level matters, but it is not sufficient on its own. The work has to happen at every level of the sport simultaneously. It has to happen in the clubs where young sailors first learn. It has to happen in the boats where crews spend weeks together at sea. And it has to happen in the conversations we have with each other about what kind of environment we want to be part of.

So what are we doing about it?

Thanks to the support we have from 11th Hour Racing, we can be really specific in our actions, because intentions without action are just empty words.

The Believe, Belong, Achieve Sailing Instructor Program

One of the clearest findings in the 2x25 Review is that coaches and role models matter enormously - not just for inspiring participation, but for shaping the culture that participants step into. The Believe, Belong, Achieve Sailing Instructor Program is a free two-day train-the-trainer course offered by our team for senior instructor trainers and coaches to learn how to close the gap in belonging by providing practical, evidence-based tools instructors can apply immediately to their own training programs. The program is supported by the research conducted with Leeds Beckett University’s Carnegie School of Sport exploring how belonging and culture support high performing teams. We hope that these courses will really change the culture in grassroots sailing so that from the very first moment someone walks into a sailing club or training center they feel part of something and where they belong.

BBA Workshops

Our Believe, Belong Achieve Workshops are designed to do exactly what the review recommends: shift focus from representation metrics to belonging and retention. These workshops bring peers together to have honest conversations about culture - what it feels like to be on a team or in an organization, who gets heard, and what happens when someone feels excluded or hesitant to speak up. It sounds simple and it isn't always comfortable. But the evidence is clear that culture doesn't change by accident. It changes because people decide to talk about it and come together to make actionable changes. 

Team values and our Constitution

We have developed a team values framework and a written Constitution that every member of our team signs up to. This is not a checkbox exercise. It is a living document that we return to, that we use to hold each other accountable, and that we update as we learn. Our values - respect, accountability, equity, creativity, and collaboration - are not aspirations, they are commitments. And when we fall short of them, which does happen, we name it and we work on it together to get back on track.

The 2x25 Review notes that progress is most often driven by committed individuals rather than systems, making it fragile. Our constitution is our attempt to build something more durable - to make our values structural, not personal.

So what next?

The 2x25 Review is not a verdict, it is a benchmark. And benchmarks are useful precisely because they tell you not just where you've been, but where you need to go.

What gives me genuine optimism is this: the review also shows that support for structural change is growing. People across sailing - of every gender - want a better sport. The proportion of men reporting concerns about inclusion has increased since 2019. Allyship is growing and that is significant. Change at scale requires everyone.

The recommendations in the review are practical and achievable: embed intersectionality into inclusion strategies, redesign progression pathways, invest in mentoring and sponsorship, require accountability at club and federation level, and shift success metrics from who shows up to who stays and who leads.

These are not radical requests. They are the foundations of any high-performing, sustainable organisation.

I am proud to be part of a sport that is willing to look honestly at itself and ask hard questions. I am proud to be part of a team that is trying to model, in a small way, what a different kind of sailing culture can look like. And I am excited about what comes next - not because the work is nearly done, but because the direction is clear and the momentum is building.

The tide is turning. Let's sail with it.