Dear Editor;
What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago the Sultana Education Foundation was recovering from the almost complete cancellation of our annual Downrigging Weekend Tall Ship & Wooden Boat Festival due to inclement weather. In contrast, this past weekend the fleet of ships assembled in Chestertown for Downrigging Weekend took over 850 people sailing on the Chester River, and the Festival welcomed thousands of additional visitors for ship tours and a variety of concerts, lectures and exhibits.
The list of people and organizations who contributed to Downrigging’s success is long. First, of course, are the Town of Chestertown and the Chestertown Branch of Morgan Stanley, who respectively provided the facilities and funding that made the Festival possible. Next are the non-profit organizations – the Kalmar Nyckel Foundation, Pride of Baltimore, Inc., the Living Classrooms Foundation, the Bayshore Center at Bivalve, Echo Hill Outdoor School, and the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum – who own and operate the visiting historic vessels that are the stars of the weekend.
More than 20 business and non-profit partners organized events for Downrigging Weekend, including The Garfield Center for the Performing Arts, the Book Plate, the Kent County Arts Council, the Carla Massoni Gallery, The Mainstay, Robert Ortiz Studios, the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, the Chester River Association, Sumner Hall, Shore Vines, Music Life, and RiverArts. Particular thanks is owed to Ralph Cattaneo and George Hazzard of the Antique and Classic Boat Society for helping organize the “Keels & Wheels” exhibit, Jeff Carroll and the Fish Whistle Restaurant for hosting a dinner for the visiting captains and crews, the Center for Environment and Society at Washington College for co-sponsoring Friday’s lecture with Ian Urbina, and Occasions Catering, the Chestertown River Packet Company, and Washington College for sponsoring and hosting the Festival’s fireworks show.
At the heart of the Downrigging Weekend are the 40+ volunteers who donate their time and labor to make the Festival possible. Space prohibits listing their names here, but three volunteers deserve individual recognition: Robert Ingersoll for overseeing much the Festival’s infrastructure, Bill Donahue for conceiving of and organizing “Keels & Wheels,” and Carla Gerber who helped administer the Festival’s Public Sails. And while not a volunteer, Sultana’s owes a special thanks to William Nicholson, the Town employee who manages the Chestertown Marina and who worked as hard as anyone this past weekend to ensure the Festival’s success.
For those who want to get a jump on next year, you can mark October 28-30 as the dates for Downrigging Weekend 2016.
Sincerely,
Drew McMullen
President, Sultana Education Foundation
Front photo by Michael Wooten
Eleanor Altman says
Thank you for giving us a fantastic weekend of events and programs and making us proud to be Sultana’s home.