9 minute read
Havre de Grace, Md
planting about 86,000 acres of trees as buffers along streams to prevent pollution from entering the water. Ten million trees could make significant progress towards that goal, according to Sieglitz.
“Nothing really beats forest cover for water quality,” explains Ryan Davis, the Pennsylvania forests projects manager for the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. Working with 200 partners around the state, from DCNR to environmental nonprofits and agriculture industry groups, the Partnership has provided resources such as trees and stakes for the planting of over three million trees on farms and other personal property. “They help by offering some resources that buoy what everyone else is doing,” Davis says.
The Partnership also hopes to boost local economies like maple syrup production as much as possible. In 2017, Pennsylvania had the sixth highest syrup production in the United States at 139,000 gallons. “Maples are always one of our top ten species picked,” Sieglitz says. “When we encourage people to consider things they can eat or source from their forest buffer, maple syrup is definitely on that list.”
For maple farmers like Corrie Bacon, who owns Butler Hill Farm in Tioga County, working with the Partnership allowed him to plant maples on previously empty land. Bacon has about 1,500 taps on 39 acres of land, and last year produced 450 gallons of sap. He received 850 trees from the Partnership to help grow his farm even more.
While the Partnership has been chipping away with tree plantings, there’s still plenty to do before 2025. From a numbers standpoint, the gap is clear. The Partnership has only four years to plant seven million trees. There have also only been a couple thousand acres of forest riparian buffers planted in recent years, according to Davis. “We’re still in the early stages of this effort, even though it’s been happening for decades,” he says. “The hope is that we’re not going to stay in the beginning stages for too much longer.”
Interest in tree planting programs has been rising, which is great for awareness but presents another problem: “Right now, we don’t have enough contractors to do the work,”
Clockwise from top: Stirring maple cream; seedlings headed for planting; a double-tapped maple tree.
Sieglitz says. Stark echoed that concern, citing a lack of funding and technical assistance to keep up with the demand.
But once they help a farmer plant trees, groups like the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay also help farmers install other conservation measures, such as manure storage. Because cows are constantly producing manure, farmers may spread it on fields even when they know it will be immediately washed away. Storage can help prevent nutrients from entering waterways in the first place.
In the pressure to meet the EPA’s targets, Sieglitz doesn’t want to lose sight of what’s important: healthy trees. “The 10 million number is looming over us,” she says, “but first and foremost is tree care, survival, and maintenance.”
That’s especially important for people who have planted maples, as it will take decades before those trees are ready to tap. The Partnership plants trees that are one to three years old, but maples can’t be safely tapped until they are about 40 or 50.
“I’m 55,” Bacon says, “I may see these maples tapped, but more than likely not. I was looking to do something for the future, for my son.” . Emma Johnson is a writer and communicator working for the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. She graduated from the Yale School of the Environment and is a longtime salamander enthusiast.
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TALK OF THE BAY
Sailing On
Sailboat racing in the Upper Bay has come a long way.
by Susan Moynihan
Drive across any bridge around the Bay on a clear afternoon and you’ll see groups of sails dotting the water, racing from marker to marker in picturesque clusters of white on blue. Sailboat racing is ubiquitous around the Bay from spring through late fall, but it wasn’t always that way. A current project at the Havre de Grace Maritime Museum, done in coordination with Havre de Grace Yacht Club, sheds light on the early days of small-boat racing in the Upper Bay, following its development from a sport for the wealthy to an everyday enjoyment accessible to the middle class following World World II. And they even have the boat to illustrate it.
Sailboat racing has been around as long as there have been boats, says Al Caffo, avid history buff and former commodore of the Havre de Grace Yacht Club, when I met him one summer afternoon at the HdG Maritime Museum. “It’s like that old joke: What do you call two boats on the same tack? A race.” and that regatta, now known as the America’s Cup, remains the world’s oldest international sporting event. (The modern Olympics didn’t start until 1896.) Buzz over the race led to the development of yachting clubs all along the East Coast and eventually around the Bay. With its location at the confluence of the Bay and the Susquehanna River, Havre de Grace was an ideal location for one, and the HdG Yacht Club was founded in 1907, with the chief aims of “social, boating, outing and camping.” Like many clubs around the region, it started off with high hopes but its resources dwindled with the onset of World War I. “Wars tend to end yacht clubs,” said Caffo, “and then they restart again.” And so it went with the HdG Yacht Club, whose initial capital of $1,000 had dwindled to $185 by 1913. The club was loosely reformed in 1927 and formally reincorporated in 1930 with the goal of creating an annual regatta.
At the time, regattas focused on
Hampton One Design, a top choice for Bay sailors since the 1930s
According to Caffo and the museum’s Executive Director Juliette Moore, the nation’s interest in yacht racing really ignited in 1851, when a trio of New York businessmen sailed the schooner America across the Atlantic to England to participate in a race during the World’s Fair. They won the trophy,
powerboating—typically on daredevil machines with outboard engines that were all about speed. The yacht club’s first race took place on June 14, 1930. A program from a weekend regatta later that summer, on display at the museum, lists a series of powerboat races, along with sculling, rowing, and even swimming races for men and women, but nary a sailboat race. Along with cash prizes and silver trophy cups, gifts were donated from local businesses, including a stopwatch from Pitcock Bros. Hardware, a fountain pen desk set from Green’s Pharmacy, and no fewer than four silver cup cocktail shakers, from the Democratic Ledger, the local Kiwanis Club, Hecht’s Hardware, and Susquehanna Hose Co.
The regatta was a quick success, likely helped along by the city’s reputation as one of the East Coast’s premier horse-racing destinations. The Havre de Grace Racetrack, known as The Graw, ran from 1912 to 1950, drawing viewers from Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York to see winning races by Man o’ War, War Admiral, and Seabiscuit, among other thoroughbreds. “Sporting culture at the time was a great social event, from horse racing to regattas,” says Moore.
By 1933, Motor Boating Magazine declared HdG Yacht Club’s regatta to be the largest held in the east, says Caffo. The program for the 7th Annual Regatta in 1936 lists 32 separate powerboat races, with multiple classes and distances, along with a few sailboat races almost as an afterthought. “The course maps for the sail races were not what we would refer to as elegant,” says Caffo, and did not factor in wind speed or direction.
This isn’t to say that boats weren’t
Above: The restored Hull 117 sails through her first race.
racing under sail power in other parts of the Bay. Log canoe sailboat races have been documented since the late 1800s around St. Michaels. But it would take another world event to bring on the popularity of small-boat racing as we know it today. In the wake of World War II, returning servicemen created a new middle class, which led to a major increase in affordable housing, household appliances, automobiles, and yes, sailboats.
In Havre de Grace, Bob McVey was of these returnees. He grew up sailing the upper Bay, joined the Merchant Marine, and then enlisted in the Army at the onset of World War II. Upon returning safely home, he was eager to get back on the water again. So along with two fellow sailors, Marshall Palmer and Steiner Pierce, he invested in a used Hampton One Design (HOD) sailboat.
This classic Chesapeake sailing boat was designed in Hampton, Va., in 1934 by local boatbuilder Vincent Serio. According to the Hampton History Museum, the Hampton Yacht Club wanted to start a one-class boat sailing competition. They chose Serio to design a small sailboat that could be used in regattas and races. One of the key elements was a centerboard, rather than a keel, so the boat could maneuver through the shallow waters of the lower Bay. Equally key was the generous sail size, to take advantage of light winds in the Chesapeake summers. Best of all was the price: Designed as an everyman’s boat, and later available as a kit, a new one retailed for $324.
McVey likely bought his for considerably less, due it its condition; it was said to have been sunk in the water, a deteriorating hull full of sand, when he found it in Chesapeake City. He brought it home and set to work restoring it, naming it Ringer. Despite its humble start, McVey and Ringer became quite the team, and in 1952 they raced to victory in the Admiral Byrd Cup in Cambridge. He continued to be a prolific racer and yacht club supporter until his passing in 1994. His passion and memory is celebrated annually with the HdG Yacht Club’s
