Gliding through Baltimore’s harbor in a 21-foot Bayliner, Anne McAvoy waved at other boaters as they passed by.

Standing at the helm of the vessel she’d taken out for a spin from Freedom Boat Club on a late summer afternoon, McAvoy was the odd woman out in a sea of men. But if she felt any trepidation as the wind swirled through her hair and jostled her dangling earrings, she didn’t let on.

“You’re in charge,” McAvoy, a 62-year-old Monkton resident, said of the feeling she gets behind the wheel.Recreational boating, an industry with a $4.2 billion annual economic impact in Maryland, is a hobby seemingly dominated by men. In the United States last year, only 15% of boat buyers were women, a slight decrease from 16% in 2021, according to data from the National Marine Manufacturers Association, a trade association that represents boat and marine engine manufacturers in the U.S.

In Maryland, however, there are efforts underway to attract more women to the activity and make them feel at home on the water.

“When women see other women doing things, they get more inspired and encouraged that they could do that, too,” said Beverly “Bev” Rosella, a Delaware resident who co-owns a number of Freedom Boat Club locations across multiple states, including in Maryland and Washington, D.C.

The international, membership-based boating club has 10 locations in Maryland. In the Baltimore area, Rosella estimated that approximately 33% of Harbor East members and close to 40% of Middle River members are women. When she purchased the Maryland and D.C. clubs with her husband, Tom Rosella, and their nephew, Josh Rosella, in 2021, female members made up about 30%.

Across the Freedom Boat Club network in the U.S., 35% or more of members are women, Rosella said, adding that it’s her goal to attract even more.

“The word is getting out,” she said of what she described as a changing tide. “There are a lot more women out there. There are a lot more role models.”

For Freedom Boat Club members, it’s not necessary to own a boat to take one for a spin. They make a reservation and show up at a club location, where staffers prepare a boat for their departure and await their return — a sort of nautical version of car-sharing services.

Baltimore’s Harbor East outpost provides access to two center console boats, two pontoon boats and two Bayliner deck boats. Members are required to take an initial training course, Rosella said, but they’re also invited to take advantage of as much additional — and free — training as they’d like.

During one training session in the waters off Kent Island, roughly two years ago, McAvoy recalled being instructed to “stop, turn off the motor and just pause.” Within moments, a pod of dolphins appeared near the boat.

“It was so calm, it was so peaceful, and it really gave me the sense of what I had done for myself,” she said.

SeaSisters, a group for female Freedom Boat Club members, is also designed to bolster confidence.

For two seasons, LeeAnn Augustine — a 64-year-old Delaware resident who serves as the group’s ambassador in Maryland and D.C., among other locations — has rounded up women to socialize at bars and restaurants, or go on sightseeing boat excursions. She also takes SeaSisters members out on the water to practice fundamental skills, like docking.

“The utter joy and relief when somebody docks a boat for the first time, it’s palpable, that feeling of success,” Augustine said, adding that the “supportive and nonthreatening environment” with only women present at practices helps participants thrive.

“There’s a little less stress, we’re just kind of enjoying ourselves,” said Freedom Boat Club member and Howard County resident Beth Dua, contrasting boating alongside fellow SeaSisters members and in the company of her husband.

She’d never driven a boat before joining the club three years ago, but said that the training she received has made her feel secure behind the wheel, even when she’s steering solo.

“I don’t need anyone to help me drive my car, so why do I need anyone to help me drive the boat?” Dua, 45, said.

At the Annapolis School of Seamanship in Eastport, founded by John Martino two decades ago, a course titled “Women at the Wheel” is offered exclusively for women.

Martino, a 49-year-old Annapolis resident and CEO of Chesapeake Bay Media, said he was initially “resistant” to the idea of offering such a class. “It’s all the same material we’re teaching,” he recalled thinking. “Why would I specify who can come to the class?”

It took convincing from Tara Davis, who formerly worked at the National Marine Manufacturers Association and managed the Baltimore Boat Show, to launch the course, initially as a boat show seminar.

“I was wanting to become a more confident woman on the water and a more confident boater myself,” said Davis, who now serves as the executive vice president of Chesapeake Bay Media. “I figured if I wanted to learn how to do it, I wasn’t the only one.”

Now, the Annapolis School of Seamanship offers “Women at the Wheel” courses on the water multiple times a month, spring through fall. The course tends to sell out, Martino said, and is typically taught by female instructors, like Marla Keith, who lives with her husband and their small white dog, Splice, on a 47-foot Grand Banks Europa docked in Eastport for part of the year.

At the start of each course, some participants are nervous, said Keith, 67, “but they all end up with smiles on their faces at the end of the day.”

“They’ve discovered what they can do,” she added.

Growing up, Keith’s family had a houseboat and a speedboat for water skiing on the Mississippi River. During a “midlife crisis” that became a “midlife celebration,” she said, she went on a “learn to sail” trip in the Caribbean with a female captain who encouraged Keith to get her captain’s license and teach classes.

Making women feel comfortable — by creating a “safe space” to learn and work through mistakes — contributes to the success of the “Women at the Wheel” class, said Keith, who’s taught it alongside a few other instructors for three years.

“If guys got the sailing maneuvers about 60%, they would push through and say, ‘Hey, I’m ready to do this,’ ” she said. “A lot of the women, including myself, I want to know it backwards and forwards, 110% before I even do it to begin with.”

Keith said she and her students sometimes share “a little cheering, bonding moment” when they encounter other boats with women at the helm.

More women have also joined the ranks of Universal Sailing Club, a group founded in 2001 to foster a community for and encourage Black sailors on the Chesapeake Bay.

When fleet captain Dr. Alyson Hall, an ophthalmologist specializing in glaucoma surgery in Annapolis and Bowie, joined 12 years ago, she recalled there being only one female captain. Now, the Annapolis resident said there are nine, six of who are boat owners.

Of the club’s 70 members, 41 are women.

“It’s gotten contagious, because women love the camaraderie of other women as crew and captains on the boat,” said Hall, 59, who organizes the cruising schedule with other captains and owns a Dufour 41 sailboat.

Being on the water gives Hall a sense that she’s been “transported into another world,” she said.

Adrienne Daniels, a sailor for almost 40 years and the club’s commodore, said the experience makes her feel “one with nature and God.”

She joined Universal Sailing Club in 2021, having not previously known of any Black yacht clubs or seen many other Black sailors. Now, Daniels said she, Hall and another boater are planning to get their captain’s licenses come winter.

“I think we are inspiring each other, quite frankly,” Hall said.

In the spring, Freedom Boat Club member Anne McAvoy took a group of her high school friends — all women — out for a spin under the Bay Bridge. They marveled at the sight of the landmark, excited to take it in from a different vantage point.

“It was just the gals out exploring,” she said. “They were like, ‘Wow, you’re driving the boat and I can’t believe we’re here doing this.’ ... It’s a shared sense of accomplishment.”