Sail Maine - Community Sailing at Its Best

           A Profile of Maine's Community Sailing Center, by Airwaves Amanda Salvesen 

           Across the country, community sailing programs for adult and junior sailors are becoming increasingly popular. They sponsor clinics, host regattas, and give lessons for sailors from every age and experience level. One such program is Sail Maine.

            Sail Maine sprang from humble beginnings in the mid-90’s and got off to a rough start. However, in 2004, the City of Portland granted the institution a lease on waterfront land and therefore room to grow. Jeff Cumming, current director (or sailing master) of Sail Maine, points to that moment as a huge opportunity for the revitalization of the organization. “As soon as we got our own spot, we started to take off,” he states with authority. Sail Maine now has the capacity to offer many programs for the community which include adult sailing and navigation courses, varsity high school teams in the fall and spring, junior summer sailing, and college racing. The venue also sponsors many events throughout the year including the Special Olympics, college and high school regattas, a frostbite series, and this summer’s northeastern Junior Olympics.

            This non-profit organization faces many of the challenges expected in a small community-based program. One of their biggest challenges is maintaining funds. “We try to maintain about a 60-40 split”, says Jeff; the 60% is revenue generated by program fees and the rest comes from beneficiaries, donations, and fundraisers. “We’re gratified by the support we’ve received from the community.” Sail Maine also continues to search for a permanent location; the land where they are currently is on a short-term lease from the City of Portland.

            Jeff Cumming has been around Sail Maine for many years and has seen it grow up. He sailed for the University of Southern Maine, a college that was very influential in the beginnings of Sail Maine. In 1998, he coached for the junior program and, in 2005, began working in his current position. Jeff heads a seasonal staff of about 36 employees and is currently searching for part-time and full-time recruits (see our job bank). Because of his experiences with Sail Maine, Jeff has a lot of advice to offer other similar institutions with the desire to grow. “We want to do what we do well before we move on to other things… you need to be proud of the product you put forward.” He repeated this point emphatically,

“One of our biggest accomplishments was allowing growth to happen without getting too far ahead of ourselves.”

To Jeff, maintaining slow and controlled growth of the program was one of the biggest contributors to its success, “If someone offers up an idea, it may be a great one, but first you need to ask yourself, ‘Is this going to support a lot of people pretty efficiently?’. You want to get the biggest bang for your buck.”

            Sail Maine has become, through hard work over the past years, a very successful community sailing center. Many people in the area rely on Sail Maine as their only way to enjoy the sport of sailing. For example, the program sponsors a conglomerate team of many different high school age sailors whose schools don’t have sailing teams. “In the current economic times, schools are cutting back,” says Jeff. His goal in this respect is to allow these kids to sail for a team they wouldn’t have otherwise. These young sailors represent just one of the groups that Sail Maine has assisted, and, as the center grows, even more will be affected. In the future, Jeff hopes to expand into adaptive sailing and looks forward to this summer’s Junior Olympics as the only one of many large regattas Sail Maine will host. Through Jeff’s work, and others along with him, these hopes will likely become reality, giving Maine a quality institution with a reputation for the support of community sailing.

Visit Sail Maine's site.