IN THE NEWS
Baltimore Guide, May 2001
Sublime sailing
Downtown Sailing Center growing fast and taking some new tacks
by Steve Purchase
The Downtown Sailing Center on Key Highway is growing by "leaps and bounds" and is headed in some
new directions to serve the widest variety of sailors in the community.
In the center’s new offices in the Baltimore Museum of Industry’s newest building (the old Hercules
Shipping Co. building at 1425 Key Highway), director Kirk Culbertson and assistant director Scott
Livingston talked about the sailing center as it begins its fourth season at the museum.
Many exciting activities are on the center’s agenda – including an open house on Sunday, June 3,
from noon to 4 p.m. Anyone with an interest in sailing around the harbor this summer should attend
this event. (Last weekend, 45 people showed up for an open house in the driving rain.)
But let’s skip ahead in this story and take a moment to actually go sailing in the harbor, which
is the center’s reason for being. Let’s take a ride with Kirk Culbertson in one of the sailing
center’s newest boats, the Australian Access dinghy, which is designed to accommodate disabled
sailors, even quadriplegics.
The little boat is 10 feet long and has an orange and white hull. Two nylon seats and a "joystick"
control lever are the main components in the tiny cockpit. Orange nylon sails flap overhead on a warm
day with vivid blue skies and fluffy white clouds.
We leave Dock B, on the left side of the waterfront as you look out on the harbor from the museum,
and head toward the nearby Domino Sugar building.
"Just push the stick in the direction you want to go," Culbertson says to the sailing challenged
reporter. He adjusts the sails and the little 120-pound boat responds immediately. This was not a
particularly windy morning, but there was enough of a breeze to glide along quite nicely.
The joystick is a simple control that you push left or right to steer the boat. "A quadriplegic
could operate it with a chin cup," Culbertson says. "It makes sailing accessible to everyone."
We take a quick trip around the Domino Sugar building and head toward Canton and notice that the
Chase’s Wharf building is still under construction. A few minutes later we head back toward the museum
on a zig-zag course (called a tack); it has been a quiet, almost sublime little sailing trip.
"The best part of this boat is that it is virtually uncapsizable," Culbertson, 46, says. The
centerboard, which weighs about 100 pounds, has a sizable amount of lead in its bottom end; that
makes the Australian 10’s (as they are called) extremely stable and almost impossible to tip over.
Culbertson explains that the Access dinghy is made only in Australia and is sold at cost for
about $3,500. It was designed especially for disabled sailors.
"But this makes a wonderful boat for anyone to learn on," he says as we dock back at the museum’s
waterfront.
The sailing center has four Australian 10’s right now, but plans to increase the number to 12 soon.
The Downtown Sailing Center was created in 1990 as a sailing club operating out of the Harborview
marina. Three years later, 10 of the original members formed the current non-profit corporation. In
1998 the center moved its boats to the Museum of Industry and used a small trailer as an office.
"We want to have 500 to 550 members by the end of the year," Scott Livingston, 34, says. "We are
growing by leaps and bounds." There are about 450 current members from all over the mid-Atlantic region.
One of them, Hugh Elliot, regularly drives from his home in Alexandria, Va., to use the center’s
facilities and help design an adaptive sailing program for the disabled. On Tuesday morning, he
rolled into the sailing center in a wheelchair (he had both of his legs amputated after an accident)
and talked about his plans to put a team together to compete in the Paralympics in Athens in 2004.
"Hugh is a role model for the disabled," Culbertson says.
"We were looking for a place to train and the Downtown Sailing Center was interested in an adaptive
sailing program," Elliot says. "It was an absolutely marvelous fit. You know, sailing is one of the
few sports in which disabled people can compete – and even win," he said.
"We’d like to form a core group of racers," Culbertson says. "They race every Thursday night. Last
week, Hugh and his crew won a third and fourth place in a race with 14 other boats. They are that good."
Culbertson said the center is trying to find wheelchair users who might be interested in learning
how to sail. "We have contacted Kennedy Krieger and the Kernan Hospital [which has an amputation rehab
program]," he said. "Baltimore has many hospitals, veterans’ groups and rehab facilities. This is the
new wave . . . there is no other program like ours.
"We want to start a program for the blind, too," Culbertson said, adding that the National
Federation for the Blind headquarters near Riverside Park would make a good partner. Blind sailors
would be paired with sighted sailors and would navigate a course by heading toward buoys with different
sound devices (whistle, horn, siren).
Another new program at the center is focused on spreading the joy of sailing to students and teachers
at South Baltimore schools.
"We had 20 kids from Southern High School and principal Pat Blansfield at the center last week,"
Culbertson said. "She grew up sailing on skipjacks . . . she loved [the visit to the center] and so did
the kids."
Culbertson said he hoped to expand the after-school sailing program next fall to include the Francis
Scott Key Technology Magnet School in Locust Point and Federal Hill and Thomas Johnson elementary schools.
The Downtown Sailing Center has held an annual SuperKids Camp each summer since 1997. More than 1,000
inner city students participate each year in the program organized by the Parks & People Foundation.
"Working with kids is one of the things we like to do best," Culbertson says. "Our happiest times are
when we are actually teaching people how to sail."
He noted that over the past year the center added five or six new boats, including a Sonar for
adaptive racing and a J-30 with a red and white hull that was donated by an Annapolis woman. The
center owns more than 40 boats, including a small fleet of J-22’s, Impulse 21’s and 27-foot Du Fours.
"But one of the biggest changes was hiring Scott as assistant director," he said. "He has made a
tremendous difference."
Livingston, a Wilmington (Del.) native, said he is a "jack of all trades" at the center. He’s the
adult education coordinator, the man behind the computer in the office and the builder of new docks.
"We saved $4,000 by using e-mail and the Internet to communicate with our members," he said.
Livingston, a mechanical engineer by trade, said he has been in Baltimore for about five years and
has been a full-time employee at the center since January.
"I moved to Baltimore from San Diego to work at Black & Decker," he said, "but I got more and more
interested in [the sailing center].
"It has been a really good niche for me because I am working on an MBA at the University of Maryland’s
University College and I can sail at the same time so that’s great."
Livingston lives a block away in an apartment on East Fort Avenue. "It is extremely convenient," he
says.
"We hang out at Little Havana, which has been very helpful to us. They let us use storage space
behind the restaurant to store our boats last winter."
Livingston said one of the best aspects of the new office is its window that overlooks the harbor.
"We can keep an eye on what’s going on out there.
"Safety is always our chief concern, then learning, and then having fun. If there are high winds or
lightning, we tell members to just park the boats as quickly as possible.
"[The Baltimore Museum of Industry] is a great spot for us with its pavilion, parking, and the museum
itself. Our members love the museum," he said.
Culbertson adds: "We have a great mix of people, from their 20s to their 70s. They don’t separate
into groups . . . they get along great."
A great deal of information about the Downtown Sailing Center is available at www.downtownsailing.org
or you can call 410-727-2884.
The Downtown Sailing Center is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit community sailing center.
Located at The Baltimore Museum of Industry
Photography donated by Andy Herbick Photography, and others.