GCBSR to start Friday instead of Thursday
Twenty-nine boats registered for the 2018 Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race (GCBSR), with festivities running from October 8-14. This totals almost 2000 linear feet of schooners racing down the Chesapeake for the 150-mile race and exceeds last year’s number.
There will be two new venues in 2018: starting October 8, schooners dock at the Anchorage Marina in Baltimore; in the Southern Bay in Portsmouth, VA, post-race awards and festivities will move to Festival Park (shuttle buses will transport crews to the event site).
In partnership with Sail Baltimore, GCBSR hosted about 200 children for its education programming in Baltimore. After the race, GCBSR will host another 100 children in Portsmouth on Saturday and several groups on Monday in Portsmouth and Norfolk. The latter group will sail on the Lady Maryland and Schooner Virginia.
Among the highlights of the weeklong event are:
October 9: As part of Fleet Week events, several schooners participated in the Salute to Schooners, sailing near Ft McHenry while hundreds of school children sing patriotic songs. Listen for cannon fire! (Schooners love to fire cannons.)
October 10: Parade of Sail around the Inner Harbor (from Canton to Inner Harbor) at 5 p.m.
October 10: Open Docks in Baltimore.
October 12: Race start off Annapolis at 11 a.m.---NOTE: THIS IS ONE DAY LATER THAN ORIGINALLY PLANNED DUE TO INCOMING FOUL WEATHER
October 13: Pig and Oyster Roast, awards, chantey singing, and more merriment in Portsmouth.
Among the schooners registered are: A J Meerwald, Adventure, Adventurer (56), Adventurer (65), Apella, Bonny Rover, Celebration, Columbia, Farewell, Flower of Caithness, Koukla, Lady Maryland, Libertate, Liberty Clipper, Lion, Mistress (77), Norfolk Rebel, North Wind, Peanut, Sally B, Sea Hawk, Sultana, Summer Wind, Tom Bombadil, Virginia, Wolfhound, and Woodwind.
The GCBSR promotes education and public awareness of the Chesapeake Bay’s maritime heritage and encourages the preservation and improvement of the Chesapeake’s natural resources. GCBSR has donated to several local organizations in Maryland and Virginia this past year: Sail Baltimore, Oyster Recovery Project, Elizabeth River Project, and the Watermen’s Museum in Yorktown.
