Reflecting on the sailing season's highlights.
On a colorful autumn November evening, members of Universal Sailing Club (USC) gathered at the picturesque Fishing Creek Farm Marina Club House in Annapolis to reflect on the season’s highlights.
USC was formed in 2001 by Black sailors from the Baltimore-Washington-Annapolis region. Today, the club is cultivating a community of new and experienced sailors on the Chesapeake Bay and beyond. We sail together as captains and crew on member-owned boats from May through November.
One favorite sail was to Oxford, MD, a site documented as a Middle Passage port in the 1600s where slave ships stopped with captured Africans. Oxford is also home to the Water’s Edge Museum, which holds a collection of literature, paintings, and lithographs of art celebrating local Black lives as professional sail makers, military figures, musicians, watermen, farmers, and crab pickers. USC was welcomed and felt honored to see our history reflected in the local culture. Three of our boats docked at the historic Cutts and Case Marina where a member keeps his 46-foot Ralph Wiley wooden sailboat, Surfbird.
Another highlight was USC’s signature, annual event, the 11th Souls at Sea on-land and on-water remembrance ceremony honoring ancestors lost during the Middle Passage. For the second consecutive year, we gathered in St. Michaels, MD, where USC’s partnership with the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum yielded another successful occasion. This well-attended and beloved experience included many folks from nearby communities and the Seafarers’ Yacht Club.
Other highpoints of 2024: 30 USC members accepted an invitation from the Baltimore County Sailing Center to sail aboard the Pride of Baltimore II on a hot July day; In August, club members chartered boats in Rhode Island and sailed to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket; and USC collaborated with the Downtown Sailing Center (DSC) to create the first ever Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) On the Water series focused on teaching basic sailing to this underrepresented community.
As the sun set, we planned our first international club cruise for Croatia in 2025. Come join us as we sail the Chesapeake and beyond. Learn more at universalsailingclub.org.
by Dr. Deborah Jackson-English
