Sailing

If you go What: Sailing Into the Season, an evening of nautical holiday music Where: The Annapolis Maritime Museum, 723 Second St., Annapolis When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday Admission: $15 in advance, $20 at the door (includes refreshments) For more information or to make reservations: visit amaritime.org or call 410-295-0104.

Don Backe and Karl Guerra share more than a love for sailing: After their lives were transformed by tragedy, both men used the sport and the organization they now run to regain their sense of purpose. Backe helped found Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating in 1991, four years after a horrific one-vehicle automobile accident in Crownsville left the former independent private school headmaster a paraplegic at age 51. Guerra is now executive director for the Annapolis-based nonprofit organization that helps those with physical, mental and emotional handicaps - along with others who can't afford financially to sail - gain entrance to a sport Guerra thought he had lost when he suffered a massive stroke in 2000 at age 52. But it could take the dream of a much younger man without any disabilities with the same love of being on the open waters to help keep CRAB afloat.

The "Columbian year" is finally with us. In an impermanent world, Christopher Columbus is one of only a few humans who gets to have a 500th anniversary commemoration.In company with Jesus, Mohammed and Confucius, his deeds have penetrated the globe. Explorers there have been, many of them, but Columbus is a standout. For better or worse, his adventures have changed the entire world.But how much do we know about this New World explorer? The information is piecemeal, gathered from spotty documentary records.

An article in the April 20, 1912, edition of The Argus reported a Catonsville resident's cause for concern on board a sister ship to the doomed RMS Titanic. While not on the doomed ship Titanic, a Catonsvilleian on the Olympic went through much of the excitement. He is William G. Scarlett of Bloomsbury avenue, who went abroad for a rest. A short time ago, three members of his family were ill with typhoid, and Mr. Scarlett felt the need of change and recreation.

Kathy and John Deutsch moved to Annapolis from Allentown, Pa., in September for one reason: They wanted to spend time with boats. The couple had taken sailing classes and fallen in love with the Chesapeake Bay, the sailing culture and the laid-back town. "It is that sense of adventure ... and thrill of being out on the water," said Kathy Deutsch, 58, the proud owner of a 41-foot sailboat. The Deutschs came to the right place. Boating and maritime culture dominate Annapolis and are major parts of life in Anne Arundel County.

When you think of a week at the beach, you think of sun, sand or lying prone with a book among happy people while the surf pounds the shore line.Not me this summer. I was determined to do something I'd never done before and had always wanted to do. I wanted the kids to know I'm a cool cat and don't want to go out of style. I wanted them to remember me this summer, for a good laugh.In other words, I didn't want to sit on my duff at the beach all day. Also, I think the ocean temperature was in the 70s that week.

The striking thing about the Jet-14 racing dinghy national championships on the Chesapeake Bay last weekend was the number of husbands and wives sailing together. When my wife, Valerie, and I enrolled with the Annapolis Sailing School many years ago, the first thing the instructor did was assign us to different boats. The rationale: one partner, usually the male, is dominant afloat, undermining the other's training. But there they were at the Severn Sailing Association, racing together: Greg Kowski and wife Ann Neff, last year's Jet-14 national champions who finished second this year; Dave and Ann Hansen, who traveled 600 miles from Utah to sail here together; Rhett and Celeste Simonds, who have been sailing together for 26 years; and lots of other couples.

The Maryland sailing community was, a mere month ago, enjoying a warm feeling of success that came from a smooth stopover for the Volvo Ocean Race and the opening of the Sailing Hall of Fame in Annapolis. Since that time, nautical disaster has struck twice in the Volvo race and once close to home with the loss of Capital publisher Philip Merrill in the Chesapeake last weekend. The possibility of death at sea is nothing new to mariners -- but the losses have cast a somber mood in sailing circles.

Status: Day 6, Leg 6Standings:Boat, Nautical miles to finish1. Toshiba, 4,941.32. EF Language, 4,943.93. Swedish Match, 4,945.34. Silk Cut, 4,948.75. Chessie Racing, 4,961.06. Merit Cup, 4,961.67. Innovation Kvaerner, 5,035.08. BrunelSunergy, 5,078.79. EF Education, 5,232.9 (as of 00: 3: 16 GMT)Boat beat: EF Education, the all-female entry, reported a rigging failure early yesterday morning. The damage occurred while sailing in winds in excess of 45 knots in cold, rough seas in the middle of the night.

Going for the gold can be a costly undertaking for youngathletes -- just ask 28-year-old Harford Countian Max Skelley. He'd like to be the first American to compete in one of the Olympics' newest events, the Laser single-handed boat competition. Max began sailing Lasers about nine years ago and is one of the top Laser sailors in North America.Here's how he got this far: After each Olympics, the U.S. Sailing Committee and the Olympic Committee form a team and schedule competitions in which the team members vie for points.

It's Titanic time. As the world pauses to remember the great calamity of April 14, 1912, two area restaurants are recreating the last meal - or aspects of it - for the upcoming 100th anniversary. Langermann's in Canton is offering a special Titanic dinner April 12-14. And in Annapolis, the Flying Dog Brewery is teaming with the Rockfish on April 14 for a Ghosts of the Titanic beer dinner. For Langermann's, the dinners are a return engagement of the one it produced for New Year's Eve. For that dinner, chef Neil Langermann pared down the staggering 10-course meal to a manageable five.

With a name like Heavy Seas Alehouse, you might expect that the new bar and restaurant in Little Italy/Harbor East would be a shrine to the esteemed Baltimore craft brewery. Hugh Sisson, the brewery's founder, said before the opening that licensing the name was meant as a showcase for the brand. And the beer list that was previewed underscored that point — all Heavy Seas, all the time. But for all the Heavy Seas love, this isn't a venue that appeals to just fans of the beer. In fact, it is the first great new bar of the year, more than meeting the expectations set by the Heavy Seas name.

The USNS Comfort, the white-hulled hospital ship that has been a fixture of the Baltimore waterfront for a quarter-century, is moving next year to Norfolk, Va., the Navy announced Tuesday. Maryland officials had fought the move of the ship, whose missions have included supporting service members in Iraq and helping earthquake victims in Haiti. Former Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, who helped to bring the ship to Baltimore in the 1980s and worked with the current congressional delegation to keep it, called the decision a symbolic and an economic blow to the region.

If you go What: Sailing Into the Season, an evening of nautical holiday music Where: The Annapolis Maritime Museum, 723 Second St., Annapolis When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday Admission: $15 in advance, $20 at the door (includes refreshments) For more information or to make reservations: visit amaritime.org or call 410-295-0104.

Charles Erwin Brookes, the retired chief of W.R. Grace's Davison Chemical division, died of a heart attack Nov. 1 at the Bay Medical Center in Panama City, Fla. The longtime Gibson Island resident was 86. Known as Charlie, he was born in Orange, N.J. His son, Stephen Brookes of Washington, D.C., said his father came from a "family of very modest means. " At one time, his parents addressed envelopes by hand for a business to make ends meet. At age 12, Mr. Brookes won a scholarship to St. Mark's School in Southborough, Mass.

Dozens of early American flags hang from the rafters of the F. W. Haxel Flag Co. in Harford County. They bear the traditional alternating red and white stripes but only 15 stars, in a salute to that flag that flew over Fort McHenry in 1814 and inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem that became the national anthem. Surrounded by those replica banners, officials from Harford and Cecil counties began their role Tuesday in the state's bicentennial celebration of the War of 1812.

Last Monday, the defender and challenger committees for America's Cup '95 agreed to make a number of changes in how the Super Bowl of yacht racing is run."We believe this agreement signals the beginning of a new spirit of sportsmanship between the defender and challenger syndicates," America's Cup '95 chairman Frank Hope Jr. said in San Diego. "From a racing perspective, the agreement is designed to make the elimination series a fair test of sailing and design abilities."But the agreement also will eliminate or further regulate some of the side-show activities that have surrounded the Cup for a number of years -- espionage, closed boating compounds, bidding wars for top skippers and crews, etc.The agreement also recommends a centralized location (Commercial Basin)

A media mogul, a surfboard industry pioneer, a coach of disabled athletes and the first man to sail solo around the world are among the inaugural inductees to the National Sailing Hall of Fame, a Maryland institution working to build a permanent home on the Annapolis waterfront. Next weekend's induction ceremony, to be held at the San Diego Yacht Club in California, comes six years after the National Sailing Center and Hall of Fame was formed to promote sailing and recognize men and women who have made "outstanding contributions" to the sport.