Sailing

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.

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.

Even after the Volvo Ocean Race yachts slide away from Annapolis today and the Maritime Heritage Festival shuts down, a piece of sailing pomp will remain downtown. The National Sailing Hall of Fame and Museum opened Thursday at City Dock, where it will remain until the end of the boat shows in October. The hall is temporarily housed in an air-conditioned tent next to the Maryland Natural Resources Police building. It will move into the Natural Resources Police building when that agency finds a new home, organizers said.

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.

You don't have to be rich to sail here. You just have to find the Downtown Sailing Center, tucked away on the waterfront behind the Baltimore Museum of Industry. There, a fleet of yachts, ranging from day-sailers to cruisers, awaits you on three floating peers. You can learn on them, borrow them, even sleep overnight on them. "We're the best-kept secret in the Inner Harbor," says Steve Gross, president of the 427-member center, a non-profit educational charity. Qavone Grant, 14, has discovered the secret and has a smile all over his face.

Farrah Hall's Olympic dream will have to wait at least four years. The Annapolis windsurfer's final plea before a federal arbitrator was dismissed after nearly two days of testimony. The ruling means that Florida windsurfer Nancy Rios, and not Hall, will represent the United States in the RS:X women's event at the Summer Games in Beijing. "My heart goes out to Farrah Hall, who put her heart and soul into making the Olympic team. She has a bright future in our sport," said Dean Brenner, chairman of US Sailing's Olympic Committee.

The Pride of Baltimore II is offering a month of public sailing opportunities as a fund raiser to help support the goodwill ambassador sailing ship's 1992 itinerary.The schedule for "Gala Sail" month, from April 15 to May 16, calls for the two-masted schooner to sail twice daily, on three-hour afternoon and evening excursions.Tickets cost $200 a person, and the outing includes "a bountiful, gourmet feast" and open bar.The Pride will also be open to visitors this weekend while docked at the Broadway Pier in Fells Point and at the Annapolis City Dock April 11 and 12. Hours for today and tomorrow's tours are noon to 5 p.m."

When flipping through channels its rare to find a television show on sailing - and even more rare to find a live one. Enter T2P.tv. "We're sailing TV on the Internet," said Tucker Thompson, 31, who co-owns T2P.tv with Bruce Nairn, 53. The Annapolis-based firm broadcasts regattas in cyberspace to the sailing diaspora. The quality does not quite compare to sports coverage on the networks or cable. However, Thompson and Nairn do convey the feel of the race course. Thompson comments on wind shifts, on the favored side of the course, on what sailors are doing well, and doing badly.

The first modern Olympic regatta was sailed a century ago in London in big boats with big crews in big winds. This year, it's little boats with small crews and tiny winds. That combination means sailors and their coaches will have to be adaptable and patient, just the formula used by Olympic Laser sailor Andrew Campbell and his coach, Bill Ward, over the past five years. Ward is director of sailing at St. Mary's College. Before that, he coached at Georgetown University, where he trained Campbell, who was named national collegiate Sailor of the Year three years ago and is ranked 15th in the world in the Laser class.

This year's St. Brendan Cup Regatta, Shearwater Sailing Club's 12th such event, was a challenge nearly equal to that faced by its legendary namesake St. Brendan the Navigator.In light air and a strong ebb current, there were plenty of problems for the 71-boat PHRF, MORC and cruising one-design fleet on last Saturday's 14-mile course back and forth across the bay around government marks."It was very easy to get in trouble by not watching the current," said PHRF A-2 winner Scott Allan, who sailed Jerry and Nancy Cann's new Melges 24 Crusader Rabbit to a 4 1/2 -minute victory in the 18-boat PHRF A-2 class.