New sporting standards, best practices, programs, and good sailors come together for healthier waterways
Our oceans, bays, lakes, and rivers are under assault by pollution, overfishing, environmental catastrophes, plastic refuge, oil, sewage, and a lengthy list of problems. Keeping our waters clean is a critical issue that has received considerable helpful attention in recent years from the sailing and boating community. The international and national governing bodies have made environmental sustainability a high priority over the past decade. Advocacy groups and grant making organizations have improved our precious waterways. In the United States, the government has recently turned away from supporting environmental treaties like the Paris Climate Accords and funding for the Environmental Protection Agency. Despite these developments essential progress is being made.
In 2015, World Sailing, the international sailing governing body, with 114 member nations, created a sustainability commission and hired staff to study the issue and work with national and regional authorities to start improving the environment.
Back in 2004, prominent sailors and environmentalists, David Rockefeller and Dr. David Treadway, founded Sailors for the Sea, an “ocean conservation organization that engages, educates, and activates the sailing and boating community toward restoring ocean health.” The group made a compelling case to improve our world’s waters. Within a few years, many yacht clubs, marinas, community boating centers as well as individual boaters were adapting sustainability practices. In Annapolis, both the Annapolis Yacht Club and Eastport Yacht Club have sustainability committees and adhere to recommended guidelines. People are paying attention. Sailors for the Sea merged with a larger group called Oceana in 2018. Oceana was started in 2001 as “an international organization focused solely on ocean conservation.”
Sailors for the Sea works closely with World Sailing to encourage hosting clean regattas. The group’s initiative reports that 4,000 events have reached 1.7 million sailors in 53 countries over the past twenty years. Sailors for the Sea and World Sailing offer a tool kit for regatta organizers and competitors to follow that can be found at sailing.org.
A sailor’s environmental group called 11th Hour Racing, based in Newport, Rhode Island, is working to use the sport of sailing to restore a balanced relationship between people and the planet. The mission of the group is “to eliminate single-use plastic at regattas, to integrate sponsorships, grant making, and promoting an ambassador program to champion collaborative, systemic change across the sailing and sport communities to benefit our ocean.” The group has sponsored high level, around-the-world race teams to help communicate their mission.
It is disheartening to see trash in the water. One of my biggest pet-peeves is seeing deflated plastic balloons in the Chesapeake Bay. Our waters are littered with balloons, that must seem fun to launch at weddings and birthday parties, but when they land in the waters of the bay, they cause devastating environmental damage. The same goes for food wrappers, plastic bottles, beer cans, plastic grocery bags, and cigarette butts. Plastic does not dissolve and, instead, breaks up and is often eaten by fish and wildlife. One study says a beer can takes 400 years to dissolve. This is a danger to our food chain. Garbage on our streets flows into creeks and rivers. If every property owner cleaned their grounds and streets the bay would be a lot cleaner.
Sailing regattas have adopted “green regatta” practices. These regattas require participants to eliminate single-use items like yarn and plastic strings used to furl sails, plastic utensils, placing plastic signs with sponsor logos on boats, and, happily, the use of plastic water bottles is long past. Going paperless is another crucial step. Sailing instructions, weather forecasts, and race results can all be published online, reducing the need to print information on paper.
The clean regatta program follows the credo said by the famous American anthropologist, Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
There are many organizations around the Chesapeake Bay that are working to improve our waters. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) has been a leading advocacy group since 1966. CBF has supported legislation on environmental issues, educated the public on best practices, funded research projects, and published an annual report on the health of the bay. The similarly named Chesapeake Bay Trust (CBT) is a quasi-state agency that provides direct grants to groups working on environmental improvement projects. In 2024, CBT provided over $30 million in grants to over 400 groups. One of the important initiatives of the CBT is educating school-aged children about the importance of protecting the environment. Each year the CBT engages well over 100,000 students. Long term, these young people carry their experiences forward for the next generation. Riverkeeper organizations throughout the watershed, including Severn River Association (SRA), Severn Riverkeeper, Arundel Rivers, ShoreRivers, and many more work to contain storm water runoff, stabilize shorelines to minimize erosion, and work on in-the-water oyster restoration. Several dozen community groups jointly support these organizations. Collectively, they are dedicated to protecting our waterways from damaging development, while advocating for better environmental law and policy at the local, state, and federal levels.
I’ve spent nearly 70 years sailing on the waters of the East Coast of the United States. From Maine to Florida, I have witnessed the improvements in water quality. Clearly there is a lot of work to do but awareness of the problem, along with good practices, is important. If everyone does a little bit more than their share, we will all enjoy cleaner waters.
The United States Sailing Association has joined the initiative and asks boaters to practice sustainability. The list of suggestions has several steps that are easy to practice:
- Do not overflow your fuel tanking. Use absorbent pads to catch drips and spills.
- Prevent oil and gas leaks. Make sure your engine is well maintained.
- Slow down to reduce fuel consumption. Lower speeds, at a steady pace, are a good practice.
- Make sure trash does not end up in the water. While underway, garbage can easily blow overboard.
- Separate recycling and waste garbage.
- Be mindful not to allow items made of plastic, electrical tape, paint chips, and garbage to litter marinas and boat parks.
- Avoid using single-use plastic bottles.
- Keep an eye out for wildlife by staying in channels and moving at a slow speed in areas with schools of fish and flocks of birds.
- Keep your boat clean. This is particularly important when you transit a boat from one location to another either on the water or on the roadways. Invasive species can cause havoc if they are introduced to another body of water.
Gary Jobson is a world-class sailor, television commentator, author, longtime resident of Annapolis, and pre-eminent ambassador for sailing of the United States. He either serves on or has served on the boards of Operation Sail, US Sailing, Olympic Sailing Committee, Annapolis Yacht Club, National Sailing Hall of Fame, Chesapeake Bay Trust, and Visit Annapolis, among many others.
