One Year After the 2x25 Review, The Magenta Project Celebrates Its Largest Mentoring Graduation Yet

Women's Cup © Cynthia Rodriguez

One year after the landmark 2x25 Review revealed the persistent barriers preventing women from progressing across sailing and the wider marine industry, The Magenta Project is celebrating its largest graduating mentoring cohort, marking another milestone in the organisation's mission to create a more equitable future for the sport.

The 2025/26 cohort sees 77 women graduate from The Magenta Project's internationally recognised Mentoring Programme, making it the biggest class in the programme's eight-year history.

The graduating mentees have participated across an expanded range of specialist pathways, including Offshore, Inshore, Foiling, STEM, Leadership, Media and, for the first time, dedicated Media and Race Management pathways, reflecting the growing breadth of career opportunities available across the sailing and marine industries.

The milestone comes just one year after The Magenta Project, together with World Sailing and 11th Hour Racing, published the 2x25 Review, one of the most comprehensive studies ever undertaken into equity within sailing. Gathering insights from more than 2,500 respondents across 68 countries, the review found that while women have never been more visible at the highest levels of the sport, many still face significant barriers to participation and progression. More than half of respondents reported changing their behaviour, communication style or appearance simply to feel accepted, while mentoring, leadership development and clearer career pathways emerged as some of the most important actions needed to accelerate change.

Rather than allowing those findings to remain statistics on a page, The Magenta Project has continued to build practical solutions.

"Our mentoring programme exists because talent has never been the issue," said Victoria Low, CEO of The Magenta Project. "What has been missing are the pathways, the networks and the opportunities that allow talented women to thrive. Every graduate represents another step towards changing not only individual careers, but the culture of our industry."

Since launching in 2018, our mentoring programmes have now supported more than 400 women across five continents, connecting them with over 140 volunteer mentors working throughout the global sailing and marine sectors.

Alongside the mentoring programme, The Magenta Project has continued expanding its portfolio of leadership and career development initiatives. During the past year alone, this has included Female Leadership Development Programmes in partnership with The Ocean Race and IMOCA, STEM clinics focused on engineering and technology careers, as well as new technical, race management and volunteer development initiatives designed to broaden access across every area of the sport.

Applications for the next mentoring cohort are open now, with the programme expanding to 100 mentee places for 2026/27, the largest intake in The Magenta Project's history.

By the end of 2027, the organisation expects to have supported more than 500 women through its mentoring programme, creating one of the largest global networks of female sailors and marine industry professionals.

Because building a more inclusive industry isn't achieved through one initiative or one generation, it happens by creating pathways that allow talent to progress, leadership to diversify and opportunity to become the norm rather than the exception.

About The Magenta Project

Founded following Team SCA's campaign in the Volvo Ocean Race, The Magenta Project exists to open doors, develop networks and create opportunities for women and under-represented gender groups across sailing and the wider marine industry. Through mentoring, leadership development, STEM programmes, research and global partnerships, the organisation works to build a more equitable future for the sport.

themagentaproject.org