Sailing

Dr. John Bernard Wells Jr., an anesthesiologist who loved classical music, sailing and explaining everything from human anatomy to how to build sailboats by drawing diagrams on napkins and pillowcases, died of prostate cancer Thursday at his son's home in Millersville. He was 92. Dr. Wells was born in Baltimore, the son of the late J. Bernard Wells, a former state's attorney for Baltimore. He grew up in a musical family where everyone played an instrument or sang. Dr. Wells learned to play the flute, and as a physician stationed in Marseille, France, during World War II, he had the opportunity to take some lessons with celebrated French flutist Jean-Pierre-Louis Rampal.

ROME CELEBRATED WEEKENDS The Stars' Guide to the Most Exciting Destinations in the World Rutledge Hill Press, $24.99 In 1990, writer Mark Seal began writing the "Celebrated Weekend" feature in American Way, the magazine of American Airlines. Over the years, he has interviewed more than 300 celebrities about their favorite cities. Now the chats are in book form. Here you will find Edward Norton discussing his favorite things to see and do in Baltimore as well as Mark Wahlberg on Boston, John Cusack on Chicago, Harry Connick Jr. on New Orleans and Tony Bennett on San Francisco (but of course)

Good morning -- Sailing racers -- You might be staging great races, but with no U.S. boat, Americans aren't watching the America's Cup.

Business women hold July meeting The Maryland Capital Chapter of the American Business Women's Association will hold its July meeting from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. July 11 at the Sheraton Hotel Annapolis, 173 Jennifer Road. The meeting will feature the DVD premiere of the Mardi Gras Fashion Show, the Induction Ceremony for the 2007-2008 officers, recognition of current officers, and the chapter's annual Outright College Grant will be awarded. The cost is $28 for members; $35 for guests.

ST. MARY'S CITY -- There was a run on pantyhose throughout the Southern Maryland counties earlier this week.Some 80 sailing athletes, representing six states and three foreign countries were competing in the regatta segment of the Special Olympics World Summer Games at St. Mary's College of Maryland and, well, jellyfish showed up en masse."

Patrick Anthony Gavin, deputy personnel director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and an avid yachtsman, died Tuesday of pneumonia at Anne Arundel Medical Center. The longtime Annapolis resident was 85.Mr. Gavin began his career in 1941 in Washington with the old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which became NASA. As deputy personnel director of the agency, he was responsible for labor relations and administering the Equal Opportunity Program."He was a very, very caring person who didn't accept what other people told him. He wanted to find out for himself, which is an invaluable asset when you're in the personnel business," said Paul Dembling, former NASA general counsel.

Blackbeard and his fellow pirates were lured to the tropical paradise that's now the British Virgin Islands for the same reasons we were: Hidden coves, calm waters and 50 islands within sight of each other, most ringed with pristine, white-sand beaches.Unlike the pirates, we weren't looking for a cave to stash pieces of eight, though I wish we could have found some of their treasure which, legend has it, is still hidden there. We came to sail the easily navigated, clear, blue waters that draw yachters and divers from around the world, increasingly these days with their children aboard.

Washington businessman Jim Muldoon is a sailor so rabid about his sport he has raced almost every summer since 1974 in 30 competitions up and down the Chesapeake Bay -- and won all of them.Except for one.Muldoon's elusive trophy is the one handed out at the annual St. Mary's College of Maryland Governor's Cup Race, a night competition in which sailors wend their way in twilight, darkness and sunrise from Annapolis to St. Mary's City, the state's first capital.As the race started yesterday evening in the Annapolis Harbor, Muldoon was determined this would be the year his sleek, 73-foot-long Donnybrook would take the prize.

The biennial Annapolis-to-Newport sailing race started off the mouth of the Severn River yesterday with its largest field in several years, including Chessie Racing, a 68-footer with an all-star crew led by George Collins of Gibson Island.Chessie Racing is expected to duel with Donnybrook for first-to-finish in the 473-mile race. Donnybrook is owned by Jim Muldoon of Washington, D.C.Collins, who spearheaded the Baltimore-Annapolis entry in the last Whitbread Round the World Race, has drawn from his Whitbread crew for this event.

In most ways, the second round robin of the Louis Vuitton Cup was sailboat racing as it should be -- high-speed, white-knuckle competition in which the teams eager to sail on the edge won.During this round of elimination races to determine which boat will challenge Team New Zealand for the America's Cup in February, sails shredded, a mast toppled, steering gear failed often and one multimillion-dollar racer cracked behind the mast and almost sank."

After having spent many years racing Austin-Healeys, Volvos and Lotus Elevens, Walter Cronkite finally gave up the rough-and-tumble sport of competitive driving, to his family's great relief, and turned to the sea for relaxation. He wrote in his 1996 autobiography, A Reporter's Life, that sailing was a more "family-oriented sport that I should substitute for racing," but "there has never been anything as exhilarating as driving at speed in competition." Cronkite, who acknowledged that he had read plenty of books about the sea, didn't know the first thing about sailing when he began on a Sunfish in the late 1940s.

The sun was bright and hot, but the waters of the Chesapeake Bay were icy as the Brendan Sail instructors launched a small sailboat at Annapolis Sailing School in Edgewater. "Yeee-oww," Riggs Brusnighan, 15, howled as he waded into the shockingly cold water to scrape off the winter's rust. Classes start soon in America's sailing capital, and there is no time to waste. They say every child who grows up in Annapolis should learn to sail, and there are probably enough sailing schools here to accommodate them all. But the Brendan Sail Training Program is different.

The captain and crew of Maryland's Pride of Baltimore II are turning to technology to tackle a centuries-old problem: how to keep the tall-masted clipper cruising comfortably when sails are unfurled and winds kick up. Seafarers say the challenge has grown more acute as masters and mates move from ship to ship with the seasons, producing new skippers who may not know enough about the conditions that could tilt the decks of classic vessels to uncomfortable, or...

Lee di Paula likes showing off his 1930, 50-foot mahogany motor yacht, The Duchess. Not only is the classic considered a sweet ride by fellow boaters, he is proud of the restoration work he did since buying it nearly three years ago. Although the yacht was structurally sound, he had to replace its interior. "This yacht was getting ready to be taken away to the graveyard," Di Paula said. This weekend's 10th annual Maryland Maritime Heritage Festival, at City Dock in Annapolis, will mark the first time that he and many others will show off their boats.

Lee di Paula likes showing off his 1930, 50-foot mahogany motor yacht, The Duchess. Not only is the classic considered a sweet ride by fellow boaters, he is proud of the restoration work he did since buying it nearly three years ago. Although the yacht was structurally sound, he had to replace its interior. "This yacht was getting ready to be taken away to the graveyard," Di Paula said. This weekend's 10th annual Maryland Maritime Heritage Festival, at City Dock in Annapolis, will mark the first time that he and many others will show off their antique and classic boats.

Salary: $55,000 Age: 38 Years on the job: 16 How she got started: A Connecticut native, Jennifer Kaye spent her summers sailing and racing with her parents, Ken and Ellen Kaye, who were both public school teachers with summers off. As Kaye was graduating from Marist College in New York with a degree in public relations and communications, her father called to tell her that the music program at his elementary school would be discontinued. So the family decided to start a sailing business, something they had always thought about.

Cruise line to sail year-round from city Royal Caribbean International announced Wednesday that it would offer cruises year-round from Baltimore beginning in June 2010. The cruise line had previously scheduled next year's sailing season to end in November, but itineraries will now be available through April 2011. Michelle Deal-Zimmerman Constellation Energy, workers gave millions Constellation Energy Group said Wednesday that it contributed $4.1 million to last year's United Way campaigns in areas where the Baltimore company and its subsidiaries operate.

The decision to yank Annapolis sailor Farrah Hall from the Beijing Olympic team in favor of Nancy Rios never passed the sniff test. Lame excuses by US Sailing about its unilateral ruling in October 2007 only made things worse. Now, a panel convened by the U.S. Olympic Committee has found that Hall was judged by a kangaroo court that ignored federal law and followed its own rules that were, at best, written in the dirt with a stick. In a 23-page ruling, the hearing panel called the situation created by US Sailing "a procedural nightmare" that could have been avoided if Hall had been allowed to defend herself.

Capsules by Michael Sragow. Full reviews are at baltimoresun.com/movies. The Express: *** ( 3 STARS) This film provides a stirring and surprisingly contemplative version of the life of gridiron hero Ernie Davis (Rob Brown), who was known as "the Elmira Express" in his high school years in Elmira, N.Y., and became a legendary star at Syracuse University. Many inspirational sports movies provide only junk food for thought; this one contains some authentic reflections on sports in the civil rights era, as well as flesh-thwacking game footage that for once conveys what a coach means when he looks at a runner and declares him "a thoroughbred."

For landlubbers like myself, great sea movies from Captains Courageous to Master and Commander cast a spell because they're exotic in such a rugged and elemental way. Even if you can't grasp the jargon of sails and riggings or plotting a course, the action feels understandable when you see ships outmaneuvering each other or plowing through wind-tossed seas. Morning Light, a handsome, compelling documentary produced by Roy E. Disney and Leslie DeMeuse, and written and directed by Mark Monroe, offers a high-tech version of nautical adventure as well as something else: a refreshing affability and purity.