Alex Agnew - President

Agnew is a co-founder and current Executive Director of Sailing Ships Maine. He served as chair of Tall Ships Portland 2015, a tall ships festival with public participation of more than 60,000 people in Portland, Maine. He served two terms on the board of directors of the American Sail Training Association, now Tall Ships America and two terms on the board of Oliver Hazard Perry Rhode Island. He is interested in Sailing Ships Maine as a vehicle for introducing students and educators to the transformative effects of outdoor experiential learning at sea.

An active ocean sailor, Agnew has sailed transatlantic once and to Bermuda 10 times. He is a co-owner of a 40 foot sailboat named Chase and a 32 foot sailboat named Haiku.

Agnew was President and Publisher of Ocean Navigator and Professional Mariner magazines from 1998 until March of 2021 when the magazines were sold to Maritime Publishing.  He remains Associate Publisher of both magazines. Ocean Navigator serves the needs of owners and operators of ocean sailing yachts and Professional Mariner serves USCG licensed professional mariners and owners and operators of commercial shipping in North America. Editorially, both magazines focus on safe vessel operations with significant editorial resources dedicated to reporting on the lessons learned from maritime casualties.

Agnew is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Vassar College, where he majored in history. During college, he was a member of the first class of the Williams College Mystic Seaport Program in American Maritime Studies where he studied celestial navigation with Don Treworgy and Susan Peterson Howell and subsequently navigated in 9 Bermuda races, 7 of them by celestial only. He is a member of the Cruising Club of America, the Blue Water Sailing Club and the Ocean Cruising Club.

From 1991 to 1998, Ocean Navigator magazine operated the 88’ Schooner Ocean Star, an uninspected 6 passenger adult sail training vessel which primarily served subscribers to Ocean Navigator magazine. Agnew was involved with the project during initial construction and with the marketing of the vessel and was familiar with its financial as well as its seagoing performance. He has sailed on Schooners Harvey Gamage, Westward, Ocean Star and Spirit of Massachusetts.

From 2015 through the present, he has focused on matching students with sailing opportunities sending more than 1,000 students to sea for overnight experiences on more than a dozen sailing ships including Schooner Harvey Gamage, Oliver Hazard Perry, Schooner Sara Jane, Spirit of Bermuda, Lettie Howard, Wendameen and Fritha. He was inspired and guided in this work by his friends Bart Dunbar, Pamela Coughlin and Bert Rogers and he looks forward to working with you.