It has been a long time since Amber Ringgold hasn’t worn a cap in public, “hiding under a hat with no hair.” But on the glimmering Chesapeake Bay aboard the Beneteau Oceanis 40 Anneliese, sipping wine with her husband, Rico, today her hair is shining—and so is she.
“It wasn’t until now that I’ve sort of been able to process the last year and a half,” she says. “When I was thrust into it, I really didn’t have a chance to do anything like this. It was a full-time job in itself.”
“It” is breast cancer. Her last surgery, seven months ago, was the preventative removal of her ovaries. She’s still in active treatment, and a month ago, she was at a retreat for women going through cancer when she learned about Sail Beyond Cancer in Annapolis. She and Rico could spend an afternoon on the Bay sailing, at no cost to them. They were about to mark their 20th anniversary, and her hair was growing back.
“It just seemed like it was a great thing to do, to celebrate a lot of things,” she says. There’s little wind today, but it hardly matters. “We love being outside and doing anything having to do with the water.”
While Amber and Rico sunbathe up forward, the Sail Beyond Cancer crew—today made up of four people—cater to their every whim and need, sail the boat, help them take the helm when they want, and spend a lot of time just flat-out smiling. Each of the crew has been touched by cancer in some way, though that’s not a prerequisite for volunteering. It’s just common ground, understanding, and empathy.
Photo: Wendy Mitman Clarke“The whole point of it is so they can leave it on land for awhile,” says Suzanne Snyder. “They can take the helm and have control of it, be in control of something.”
A little over 10 years ago, Snyder felt that control ripped away when she learned she had breast cancer. A single mother of three and self-acknowledged “serial entrepreneur,” she began the hard work of surviving and drew on her love of sailing to help her through it. It showed her that she “wanted to connect people in the community who have cancer and use sailing as a tool” to help them and their families as they lived with and sometimes died from the disease.
In 2014 she began a nonprofit to provide “respite sails” on Lake Champlain out of Burlington, Vermont, to anyone in any stage of cancer. The program’s success led to a second chapter in Salem, Massachusetts, in 2018 (Sail Beyond Cancer North Shore).
In 2019, Snyder established the “mothership” chapter Sail Beyond Cancer USA to oversee and support independent but affiliated local chapters. The network expanded again in 2022 with the launch of a third chapter in Annapolis, and new chapters are in the works for Gloucester Point, Virginia, and Newport, Rhode Island. Each chapter fundraises independently and cultivates its own network of volunteers and vessels. The Annapolis chapter, for example, has around 75 volunteers operating a fleet of eight boats.
“We are expanding slowly and methodically, making sure each location is right,” says Sail Beyond Cancer USA board member Suzanne Whitney, who with her husband, Beau, takes nominees aboard their Sabre 42 out of Gibson Island, Maryland. “There needs to be easy access to the boats and a cancer center nearby.”
Photo: Wendy Mitman ClarkeAnyone can nominate someone for a free, three-hour, private sail (and a person with cancer can nominate themselves). The nominee can be any age, from anywhere, dealing with any kind of situation—undergoing chemo or radiation, in hospice care, recovering. Each may invite five people to come with them, typically family members and caregivers who also endure the grueling reality of living with cancer.
“When you’re a cancer patient, everyone is taking care of you and it doesn’t feel great,” Snyder says. “This is an amazing way to say thank you to those people.” Along with respite sails, the organization offers memorial sails for anyone who has lost a loved one from cancer in the past three years.
Each chapter owns one “signature” boat, supplemented by others privately owned and sailed by their owners, who are thoroughly vetted and trained by the local chapter. Anneliese was donated to the Annapolis chapter by Joe Zebleckes, who signed on in 2021 as a volunteer. He was living with stage four lung cancer, “but he didn’t need to let people know that,” Snyder says. “He did a lot of volunteer sailing with us.” In June 2023 he went on his final sail aboard his boat, “and right to the end he was like, ‘Trim the main! Ease the main!’ ’’ she laughs. “He had a lot of buddies on board that day.”
Other Annapolis-based boats include a Taswell 49, Catalina 42, C&C 44, and Jeanneau 44. The Burlington chapter has a Catalina 42 and six privately owned boats between 37 and 43 feet; Salem has a donated Frers 38 as well as two privately owned boats between 34 and 45 feet.
Between 2020 and 2024, the three chapters conducted 544 respite sails and 37 memorial sails, taking 2,988 people on board. Overall, 563 volunteers put in some 7,240 hours to make it all happen.
The numbers tell one story; the hand-written notes kept in Anneliese’s guest book tell another.
“After having a very stressful time in my life, today was a breath of fresh air. I didn’t know that the wind, the sun, and the sound of the waves could be this healing…Not only myself, my whole family enjoyed it…thank you for this legendary day.”
“Thank you for providing a safe space to honor and remember and celebrate my brother. The sail was perfect, and we felt free to laugh or cry…my brother was very much with us on our sail tonight.Thank you for your love and care, and for ‘getting it.’ ’’
“A wonderful day on the Chesapeake Bay to honor my sister’s valiant battle with cancer. She is now in remission and we continue to pray for her continued good health.”
“Thank you so much for being so kind and letting us share this experience. After four years of scare after scare and bad news, seeing my dad have so much fun and joy has truly been a blessing.”
“We take it for granted sometimes,” says Mike Friia, a volunteer and board member of Sail Beyond Cancer Annapolis. He’s referring to sailing and its ability to make us happy, even peaceful—its ability to heal. His brother, he says, “got to ring the bell recently,” marking his final cancer treatment. “It’s so much for the families, too. They just get relief for three hours.”
On Anneliese, volunteer Lisa Adams takes photo after photo of Amber and Rico; she’ll present the images to them as a gift after the sail. It’s her second season volunteering in an “ambassador” role, providing food, drink, and any assistance the nominees and their passengers need. “I love the water, and I love to take photos of people and the water,” she says. She lost her father to cancer in 1995; she’d always wanted photos like this of them together, but he died before she was able to make it happen.
“It just makes you grateful, just seeing these warriors,” says Suzanne Whitney. “People think it’s depressing but it’s not. You’ve given them a gift. They don’t know what’s coming next.”
Amber, holding Rico’s hand now and then, smiles under the bright shining sun. “It’s just so peaceful,” she says.
March 2025
