When you join the Navy Patuxent Sailing Club (NPSC), you will have access to racing, training and socializing on a fleet of sailboats that enhance your work and personal experiences of southern Maryland. Our clubhouse is at a picturesque marina with a large basin where you may learn and practice and which is directly on a beautiful river with coves, creeks, small towns and other marinas and restaurants for you to visit. The Patuxent River is a major tributary to the Chesapeake Bay, where you can cruise to distant locations and ever greater adventures! The NPSC can be a place for you to improve your basic sailing abilities, hone your more subtle techniques, increase your overall confidence on the water, and share your knowledge with others.
The Navy Patuxent Sailing Club is like no other DOD-Sponsored Sailing Club. Hosted on the Patuxent Naval Air Station, your club enjoys the support the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation organization and infrastructure. When combined with the enthusiasm and dedication of NPSC’s all-volunteer leadership, administration, instruction, and maintenance, this allows the club to offer you tremendous benefits at costs a mere fraction of what you might pay to rent a for-profit boat, or purchase and maintain your own boat, or the even the costs to sail with another club with a different support structure.
Here is a summary of the benefits of Club membership:
· Access to a wide variety of boats, large and small, well suited for experienced and novice sailors alike, ready for a wide variety of different sailing adventures
· Certified instruction and training, including world-recognized American Sailing Association and former/retired USNA Sailing Club sailors and leaders who sailed larger vessels to Bermuda and other distant shores
· Convenient all-inclusive on-line billing for ASA Training, club membership, racing and social events
· You do not need any certification, training, or experience to sail with us (only to act as “Skipper”)
· Significant opportunities to include non-member guests in most club activities
· Cruising on large boats -- whether over-night or a long weekend get-alway-- we live in one of the best cruising grounds in the world
· Special multi-day adventures where crews spend the night 'on the hook' or at on of a plethora of marinas, learning new skills, making new friends. Regular and annual trips such as:
-- the annual Norfolk Harborfest and Parade of Sail (June)
-- the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race (October)
· Racing opportunities spanning the spectrum from informal small boat races to local Southern Maryland Sailing Association (SMSA) Keelboat races (short to medium-distance Chesapeake Bay races), and the famous over-night Maryland Governor’s Cup race from Annapolis to St. Mary's City.
· Social Sails, where sailing is secondary to socializing, members share food and drink while leisurely sailing to what wind is available to watch sunsets and make special memories! Social Sails are offered at a very reasonable participation fee
· Continuing education programs on topics like small boat racing, boat systems, sail trim, navigation, weather, safety, etc.
We are a group of veterans, civil servants and federal contractors who share a passion for sailing and collectively strive to foster safety and seamanship in all we do. But also people who truly enjoy the wind and the water, and work together in constant pursuit of the real reason we sail: fun.
What do we ask in return? Besides the modest annual membership fee and participation, we ask you to give of yourself as you receive--by helping out on one or two maintenance or volunteer opportunities to keep the clubhouse looking nice and the sailboats seaworthy. Anyone with base access is eligible to join, and though there are no volunteer hour requirements, the more members that help, the fewer tasks those the help out most have to do.
We have monthly membership meetings on the second Saturday at 10AM to share information, plan events and improve the club’s operations. Further, we have several smaller committee meetings (Racing, Social and Training) and semi-annual maintenance parties to perform required, periodic maintenance on the boats. Our members skills and participation are valued, and that is why your club can be so much more than a place to rent a boat. This is truly a club where you will find no strangers, just sailors and shipmates that you haven’t yet met.
Contact any of the officers listed under “who we are,” or stop by any club meeting the second Saturday every month (details elsewhere on this site) or just go click on “Member Signup” right now!
We look forward to seeing or sailing with you soon.