September 9 – Sultana Announces Plans for Downrigging Weekend

For Immediate Release
For More information contact:
Liza Brocker
Director of Development & Communications
410-778-5954 / [email protected]
Sultana Announces Plans for Downrigging Weekend 2015
September 9, 2015 / Chestertown, Maryland: The Sultana Education Foundation has
announced the schedule for its annual Downrigging Weekend Tall Ship and Wooden Boat
Festival, October 29 – November 1, in Chestertown, Maryland. Now in its 15th year,
Downrigging Weekend is one of the largest annual Tall Ship gatherings in North America and
features four days of Tall Ship sails, deck tours, concerts, lectures, films and exhibits.
Unique among Tall Ship Festivals on the East Coast, Downrigging Weekend offers visitors the
opportunity sail as part of a fleet of Tall Ships. Participating Ships for Downrigging Weekend
2015 include the State Ships of Delaware and New Jersey: KALMAR NYCKEL and A.J.
MEERWALD, the schooners PRIDE OF BALTIMORE II, LADY MARYLAND, and SULTANA, as well
as the oyster dredging skipjacks ELSWORTH and SIGSBEE. This fleet will be joined by a flotilla
of privately owned wooden vessels also in port for the Festival. All told, the Downrigging Fleet
will take more than 1,200 people sailing on the Chester River during four scheduled public
sails.
If all the activity on the water isn’t enough, Downrigging Weekend also has plenty to offer
shore-side, including lectures by New York Times reporter Ian Urbina, Pulitzer Prize winning
Washington Post Book Critic Michael Dirda, and authors John Nagy and Kate Livie, as well as
an exhibit of classic cars and speedboats by the Antique and Classic Boat Society. There will
also be concerts by Parsonsfield, Chester River Runoff, Phil Dutton and the Alligators, the High
and Wides, the Pam Ortiz Band, the Mike Buccino Trio, the Banjo Man Bill and Tom Anthony,
and the Guthrie Matthews Method; tastings of regional wines and seafood; a waterside 5K and
half marathon, an observance of Maryland’s Emancipation Day; a new exhibit by renowned
maritime artist Marc Castelli; the annual Chestertown RiverArts Studio Tour; and finally the
enormously popular night-time illumination of the Tall Ships and fireworks display over
Chestertown’s historic harbor.
For more information, a complete festival schedule, and online reservations visit
http://www.sultanaeducation.org or call 410-778-5954.
-ENDFor Press Ready Photos Visit:
http://sultanaeducation.org/public-programs/sultana-public-sails/downrigging-weekend-2/media-information/