Clean Regattas - Eastport Yacht Club

One of EYC’s environmental goals is to consistently run sailing regattas at the highest “green and clean” standards achievable. EYC follows the clean regattas guidelines promulgated by the nonprofit organization: Sailors for the Sea. Their mission is to unite boaters to protect the ocean. Sailors for the Sea offers the world’s only sustainability certification for water-based events. The Clean Regattas program offers race organizers, program directors and marina managers the support and resources necessary to reduce their environmental impact. One-part education, two-parts activation, Clean Regattas unites and mobilizes sailors by offering support and resources to help conserve and protect the ocean. EYC has been a regional leader in operating Clean Regattas.

Over the 2023 racing season, we registered all our major regattas and our Friday night race series with Sailors for the Sea. During the first week of May, the Environmental Committee worked closely with the Santa Maria Cup Committee to help make this major (“Grade 1”) international women’s match racing regatta a model “clean regatta” event at the “platinum level. ”Throughout the event, the organizers, club staff, and regatta participants (sailors, race committee, umpires, and spectators) all helped maintain consistent use of the 20 “best practices” recognized by the international Sailors for the Sea Clean Regatta Program on the water and at the on-shore events. Subsequent major clean regattas at the gold level include:

One Design Classic 6/17
Maryland Cures Cancer 6/24
Boomerang Race 7/8-7/9
Friday Night Beer Can Series

We also recognized CRAB Cup on 8/19, when we presented our 2022 EYC Clean Regatta Award to CRAB for their commitment to achieving gold or platinum level certification every year since 2016. It is anticipated that this year’s CRAB regatta will be certified at the platinum level.

View a short video:

Creating Clean Regattas
- Other yacht clubs and organizations have asked us how we approached our award-winning clean regatta efforts. It was not without challenges, but with perseverance we accomplished our goal of Gold-Level certification with Sailors for the Sea (SFTS) (www.sailorsforthesea.org).
  
  Our marina, built in 2010, was awarded a Clean Marina Certificate by the State of Maryland (DNR Marylnad Clean Marina), which helped fulfill several of the Best Practices of SFTS. The 2014 J/80 Worlds regatta was our first attempt to meet enough of the Best Practices to achieve Gold-Level. We enlisted the support of Annapolis Green (annapolisgreen.com) to help us with the recycling and composting efforts required. We were certified Gold-Level, but we realized that our challenge was to accomplish this on our own and we have succeeded.
  
  Recycling: Because regattas accumulate many bags of recyclable materials, the club decided to have recycling pickup on a regular basis. The club now has a number of recycle bins and a large recycle collection bin that gets picked up on a weekly basis. This also supports our clean club efforts.
  
  Composting: A bigger challenge is composting, both from a pick-up and an educational point of view. Today, we only compost at our regatta parties and at some larger house parties. There are very few composting companies that are able to use industrial compost, however, we found Veterans Compost (www.veterancompost.com) will do it for a nominal fee. In the meantime, our club is working at being able to compost club-wide and in 2019 became 100% single-use plastic free by using compostable plates, utensils, cups, straws, bar picks, and bags when reusable items are not practicable.