LA SPERANZA

Captain: Jack Maher

Nationality: US

Capt. Jack Maher
Jack was born and raised in Northern Virginia and grew up sailing and boating on the Potomac River and Chesapeake bay. He always knew that a “traditional” or “regular” lifestyle wasn’t for him. In 2015, after graduating high school, he decided to turn his love and passion for the water into a career and signed on as crew to a traditional sailing ship and took a voyage across the ocean that changed his life forever. He completed his captains license course in 2018 and moved to Key West, Florida the following year to further pursue his career in the maritime industry. Over the past 4 years he has captained multiple modern and classic sailing yachts, traveling up and down the east coast of the U.S. and to the Caribbean. Outside of chartering, he spends his time windsurfing, cycling, and doing yoga. Jack is passionate about creating memorable charter experiences through sailing, water sports, snorkeling and hiking.


Chef Sidney Anderson
Sidney grew up in a very small town in Minnesota. She came from humble upbringings, eating whatever they could afford. Her memories of cooking started before she could see the counter top, knowing that if you wanted to spend time with the family, you did it in the kitchen. She and her dad would experiment and make whatever they could. Recipes were only suggestions and there were no such thing as mistakes. After her dads garden started growing she learned the real value of fresh food, sparking even more interest. When she was in high school, she’d ditch a lot with friends, only to end up in the kitchen where she would make them a delicious meal. From the start, Sidney has paved her own path without many rules or guidelines. Her ability to problem solve and go beyond the conventional box of modern day “shoulds and shouldn’ts” as given her the creative freedom to “measure with her heart” and make mistakes that turn into her next “I don’t know, but it’s good” meal. When Sidney turned 19, she left Minnesota and moved to many different places to discover the world beyond what little she knew. Along the way she found sailing, this became another passion. After 5 years she now has her 100 ton masters license and over 10,000 offshore nautical miles. During one of her past deliveries on an 80ft traditionally rigged wooden sail boat, the cook fell through. She couldn’t bear seeing everyone struggle to feed themselves daily and stepped in to do both her job as deckhand and cook. In a leaky galley with a half broken stove she successfully feed her hungry crew of tall ship sailors then would head on deck to start her watch. This experience transitioned over into some high end charters on the same wood yacht from 1939. Today she is excited and proud to say she can make a living doing not one but two of her many passions, while grounding herself in the mentality that making food is fun, sailing is fun, and life should be fun too, no matter what ingredients you have in your pantry