Do you like working with children, spending time outdoors, and traveling around the Chesapeake Bay? If so, the Sultana Education Foundation (SEF) may have a job for you!

As SEF looks towards 2019, the Foundation is looking to fill seven program staff positions, both on the schooner SULTANA, and with its paddling programs. Here is a quick look at the available positions at SEF.

Schooner SULTANA

Second Captain – year round/full-time
Education Director
Educator/Deckhands
Cook

Paddling Programs

Paddling Program Director – year-round/full-time
Assistant Paddling Program Director
Paddling Program Associate

Click here for complete job descriptions and application instructions.

Founded in 1997, the Sultana Education Foundation is a private nonprofit dedicated to providing unique, hands-on educational opportunities that promote stewardship of the Chesapeake Bay’s historic, cultural, and environmental legacies. The Foundation is a two-time recipient of the National Maritime Historical Foundation’s Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Maritime Education.

The Sultana Education Foundation has announced the schedule for its annual Downrigging Weekend Tall Ship and Wooden Boat Festival, set for October 26–29, in Chestertown, Maryland.  Now in its 18th year, Downrigging Weekend is one of the largest annual tall ship gatherings in North America and features four days of tall ship sails, deck tours, concerts, lectures, films exhibits and family activities.

Unique among tall ship festivals on the East Coast, Downrigging Weekend offers visitors the opportunity sail on a fleet of tall ships. Over the course of Downrigging Weekend, an impressive array of historic vessels—including KALMAR NYCKEL (the state ship of Delaware), the schooners VIRGINIA, LYNX, LADY MARYLAND, and SULTANA, and skipjacks SIGSBEE and ELSWORTH—will take passengers out for four joint sails on the Chester River. Sailing tickets begin at $25 and are available at sultanaeducation.org. Visitors can also visit and tour the ships at the dock during one of several scheduled free open houses.  Those looking for more comfort for their voyage on the Chester also have the opportunity to cruise on Chestertown’s own River Packet.

This year’s event will serve also as the unveiling for Chestertown’s newly revitalized waterfront. Following two years of construction, and $6.2 million in improvements, visitors to Downrigging will be welcomed by larger, state-of-the-art floating piers, a raised parking lot, a new Marina office, public bathrooms and showers, and extensive landscaping.

The Downrigging Weekend festivities won’t stop at the water’s edge.  This year’s events will feature the return of the Delmarva Dock Dogs competition hosted by Kingstown Farm, Home and Garden. Taking place on both Saturday and Sunday, this competition will see dogs from all over the region compete to see who can leap the furthest. Local dog owners are welcome to enter their dogs in the competition and registration and scheduling information can be found at dockdogs.com.

The Festivals’ on-the-water events will be rounded out by an exhibit of Classic Cars and Boats on the waterfront in conjunction with the Antique & Classic Boat Society, a waterside 5K and half-marathon hosted by the Chester River Association, and concerts by The Eastport Oyster Boys, Levi Stephens, and the High and Wides. Visitors this year won’t have to leave the River to hear music, thanks to a new waterfront stage hosting performances by Betty and the Bullet, the Mountain Lion String Band, the Chestertown Ukulele Club, Apache Trails, and the Dovetail Trio.

For those interested in maritime history, lectures will take place throughout the weekend.  On Friday evening, John Brady, President and CEO of the Independence Seaport Museum, will talk about the 1892 cruiser OLYMPIA. Saturday afternoon, Press Harding will perform “Boy in the Boatyard,” a performance of music, spoken word and images inspired by his childhood in Wingate, Maryland, and the Bookplate will host a talk on Gilbert Byron and his work by author Jacques T. Baker.

Art will be a major theme for Downrigging, including an exhibit by Marc Castelli, “Minding the Dogvane,” at the Carla Massoni Gallery, as well as the Artworks annual Studio Tour. The Kent County Arts Council has produced a new play specifically for Downrigging Weekend by playwright Earl Price, “Unlading,” which tells the story 23 enslaved Africans as they are “unladed” from a Dutch Man of War.

Also back this year is the enormously popular annual nighttime illumination of the tall ships and fireworks display over Chestertown’s historic harbor.

For a full schedule, or to register for a Downrigging Weekend sail, please visit www.sultanaeducation.org.

For the second time in three years, Captain Michael Fiorentino and the crew of the Sultana Education Foundation’s schooner SULTANA claimed victory in the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race.  This annual race sees a fleet of over 30 schooners race the length of the Chesapeake from Annapolis to Norfolk to benefit the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.  Sultana completed the 118 Nautical Mile race in an astonishing 16 hours and 15 minutes, averaging approximately 7.5 knots under sail for the duration of the race.

SULTANA competed in the “AA Class” of the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race, which sees her compete against the largest schooners, including VIRGINIA, LADY MARYLAND, COLUMBIA, and AJ MEEERWALD – all vessels whose designs are considerably more modern.   Using “corrected time,” a handicapping system that accounts for the differences in the competing vessels’ designs, SULTANA claimed victory by a margin of almost two hours over the second place finisher COLUMBIA, and four hours over the third place schooner LADY MARYLAND. 

Following the conclusion of the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race, SULTANA is scheduled to sail north to Solomons Island, Maryland to provide educational programs for Calvert County Schools in conjunction with he Calvert Marine Museum, before heading home to Chestertown for the Sultana Education Foundation’s annual Downrigging Weekend Tall Ship and Wooden Boat Festival on October 26-28.