Sailing

George Fisher, a Baltimore businessman and yachting enthusiast, died of a heart attack Thursday at Northwest Hospital Center. The Mount Washington resident was 93. Mr. Fisher was born in Baltimore to Russian immigrants and raised near Lombard and High streets. "In a 1999 family video, he said he was named George because his father thought this was `the greatest country in the world, and he revered George Washington,'" said his daughter, Barbara Fisher Steinke of Mount Washington. He worked in his family's Chester Street grocery store while attending school, and graduated in 1928 from City College.

When he was chosen an alternate, Steve Manson lost the chance to sail from California to Hawaii in the Transpacific Yacht Race aboard the Morning Light, the subject of a Disney documentary. But he didn't miss the boat. Instead, the West Baltimore native who learned to sail just four years ago got to crew on the boss' boat - the famous 94-foot racing rocket Pyewacket - and was greeted by Roy Disney at the dock. Blasting across the finish line Sunday at Honolulu's Diamond Head at 26 knots (30 mph)

This weekend, some people will watch sailing and others will sail. For the most part, the spectators will be above the Bay Bridge at the in-port race for the Volvo Ocean Race fleet, while the on-water action below the bridge will be for the Lands' End National Offshore One Design regatta. About 270 boats are registered in 18 classes for the event, which has been coming to Annapolis since 1999. George Brengle, marketing director for Sailing World magazine and executive director of the NOOD series, said there had been concern last fall that the Volvo race might reduce the field or cause some classes to drop out. "But I don't think we lost any boats because of that," Brengle said.

T. Conway Matthews Jr., a retired lawyer who enjoyed sailing, died Monday of colon cancer at the Presbyterian Home of Maryland in Towson. The former longtime Rodgers Forge resident was 84. Born and raised in Hagerstown and a 1939 graduate of Hagerstown High School, he earned a bachelor's degree in English in 1943 from what is now Frostburg State University before enlisting in the Army Air Corps. In 1946, he enrolled at the University of Maryland Law School and earned his degree in 1949.

The Annapolis area was well represented in the national-level Snipe competition last week.Five of the top teams from the Severn Sailing Association Snipe Fleet were among 50 competing in the Snipe Midwinter Championships, which sailed out of the Clearwater Yacht Club over March 10 to 12.The Midwinter regatta traditionally attracts excellent sailors from across the nation, Canada, the Bahamas and other parts of the world, and is well known for tough competition.Racing...

One-design sailing in Annapolis will start off with a bang this year when more than 100 boats are expected to be on the line for the Laser Atlantic Coast Championship Regatta at Severn Sailing Association April 30 to May 2.With SSA and Laser Fleet 10 as hosts, the event will attract some of the nation's top competitors, because it is the final portion of a four-regatta series that will determine Olympic campaign funding recipients in this newest Olympic sailing...

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.

W. Graham Schwartze, who worked his way up from apprentice paint-maker to president of Masury Paint Co., died Friday of pneumonia at Genesis Eldercare in Arnold. He was 83 and lived in Arnold. Mr. Schwartze joined Baltimore's H. B. Davis Paint Co. in 1939 as an apprentice paint-maker. In 1949, Davis bought the John W. Masury Paint Co., then in Brooklyn, N.Y., and the third-oldest paint manufacturer in the country. The company's paints were marketed nationally under the slogan, "Masury is good paint."

ATHENS - Gary Jobson has a bad comb-over. And that's a good thing. Sixteen months after a diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, the Annapolis man known as sailing's greatest ambassador is back, providing commentary of the Olympic regatta for NBC. "I had scans just before I came over, and I'm clean. My stamina's getting better. I'm skinny, but I just about have enough hair to comb over," he said, laughing. Jobson is producing and hosting a 30-minute nightly Olympics sailing program for NBC, which is being broadcast at midnight on the Bravo network.

After five months of bone-jarring, teeth-rattling adventure at the earth's extremes, the sailors of the Volvo Ocean Race are on their way to Maryland, the Land of Pleasant Living. If only the wind holds out. The six yachts will leave Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, today for the 5,000-mile voyage north and arrive at the Inner Harbor around April 15. They will be on display as part of the Baltimore Waterfront Festival from April 27 until May 4, when they head to Annapolis for the three-day Maryland Maritime Heritage Festival.