The history of recreational sailing and yacht racing is an important part of the maritime history of Annapolis. However, it should be told in the context of the broader role of vessels under sail.
It was sailing ships that brought the European settlers to a new life of hope and opportunity. It was ships that brought Africans to a life of slavery. It was sailing ships that enabled Marylanders to prosper in trade with other colonies and with England during the Colonial era and in trade with other states of the union and countries around the world after achieving independence as the United States.
It was boats under sail that for centuries enabled Marylanders of independent character to harvest the rich bounty of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.
In the past century, as boats under sail yielded to motorized boats in harvesting this bounty, boats under sail became an increasingly popular source of recreation and sporting competition. Finally, although the Navy has long since powered its vessels by coal, oil and nuclear power, the art of sailing is still taught at the Naval Academy as a means of instilling the importance of health and agility, reliability, teamwork and an appreciation of nature.
In different ways, many aspects of the city's maritime history are celebrated. The maritime museum in Eastport is primarily concerned with the story of watermen and their boats. The Kunte Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial recalls the history of slave ships. There are the Naval Academy museum and the Navy's sailing hall of fame. There is the state-owned waterfront house of Capt. William Burtis, who was a captain in Maryland's "Oyster Navy" and promoter of recreational boating.
What is missing is the linking of these sites to tell the whole story of the city's maritime heritage in all of its facets. What better link than using the water itself to connect the various maritime sites? Boats, though probably not under sail, could give residents and visitors alike the perspective of "they who go down to the sea in ships."
The story of recreational sailing and competitive yacht racing is an integral part of the city's maritime heritage. However, I have become convinced that the establishment of the National Sailing Hall of Fame should not result in the destruction or removal of the Burtis house, which is the last physical remnant of a once-racially mixed neighborhood of watermen and those who worked in water-linked businesses. The house also represents the transition from working boats to boats used for recreation.
As the city will vacate the building at the corner of St. Mary's and Compromise streets as a recreation center when the recreation center in Truxtun Park is completed, the city should consider offering this building to the National Sailing Hall of Fame on a long-term lease at nominal consideration as a site for telling the story of recreational sailing and competitive yacht racing.
The city government should also consider making a commitment to developing a plan to link this site with others that together tell the entire story of the city's maritime heritage.
The writer is the city's Ward 1 alderman.