In 1982, among many black-tie fundraisers, the Hospice Cup broke new ground. Volunteers fundraising for a Virginia hospice and a small group of sailors organized a fun race from Annapolis, Maryland, to the St. Michaels, Maryland.

The organizers, including Virginia Brown , Josephine Erkiletian, and prominent sailor Al Van Metre, were surprised at their own success. The first hospice regatta, called the “Hospice Cup”, was organized in 1982 in Annapolis, Maryland, to benefit a hospice in Northern Virginia.

More than 30 years later, Hospice Cup is still going strong. It now benefits multiple hospices serving communities in Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Maryland. Several Annapolis yacht clubs manage the sailboat racing with one sailing club organizing the race with the assistance from the other clubs.

The event is run by an all-volunteer board of an independent non-profit, Hospice Cup, Inc. Organizing this way has allowed the event to easily adjust over the years to changes in benefiting hospices and clubs managing the race. While the number of hospices benefiting from the regatta has varied over the years, incorporating Hospice Cup as an independent non-profit organizations has allowed the event to be more flexible than if it were governed by any one hospice or racing organization.

Incorporated or not, successful hospice regattas are often led primarily by volunteer groups that frees hospice staff to focus on attracting sponsors, reaching out to people who don’t sail, and communicating about Hospice care. It also frees the racing organizers to focus on race management and communicating to the sailing community .

As Hospice Cup thrived — and Hospice services grew nationwide — the volunteers of Hospice Cup, Inc. received numerous requests for assistance from other communities, hospices and sailboat racers.

Virginia Brown stepped up and became unofficial ambassador to numerous communities that wanted to develop their own hospice regattas.

Each new regatta depended on its own local resources to succeed. By 1999, there were ten healthy and continuing regattas, with more interested in starting.

To perpetuate and share the many years of experience with hospice regattas, Virginia Brown and representatives of the existing hospice regattas formed the National Hospice Regatta Alliance in late 1999.

The Alliance was formed in late 1999 in part to relieve Hospice Cup from responding to numerous requests for help establishing regattas in other locations, with Virginia Brown volunteering to help new regattas. Meeting with representatives from the 10 existing regattas, the Alliance was established in November 1999.

In May 2000, the Alliance hosted the first annual Hospice Regattas Championship at Annapolis, Maryland. Teams from each of the now twelve hospice regattas competed in this first-ever national sailing championship for charity.

Subsequent championships have been held at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Annapolis Maryland, Rochester, NY, and St. Petersburg, Florida, and Charleston, South Carolina.

In 2020, the pandemic, a hurricane, cost, and low participation from member organizations caused us to rethink the National Championship program. In 2023 the Alliance hired an outside consultant to assist the board in evaluating our purpose, mission, and effectiveness. This consultant contacted every Alliance member organization for their feedback and input. In addition, every member of the board assumed the responsibility to serve as an “Ambassador” to our member clubs by either attending their annual regatta or having detailed conversations with the club leadership.

We have paused the National Championship program and are focused on helping individual regattas be as successful as possible in both fundraising and spreading awareness for their local hospices. Because each regatta is managed locally, some have started and faded, but new inquiries also lead to new regattas. We have charted a course to ensure that more hospices and communities benefit from these events that are so different than most fundraising events.

Alliance member clubs/organizations are asking us to:

• Assist them in building communications among regattas
• Establish a place/way members can share best practices and ideas that can strengthen each other.
• Continue to provide members with artwork, posters, logo-wear, fund raising ideas and programs
• Sponsor a Hospice Hero trophy for each member regatta to show appreciation for a volunteer during this regatta year.

We reaffirm our original 1999 mission statement: To support charity sailing regattas that raise funds for and awareness of non-profit hospice services in local communities.

We are continuing to ask, listen, and create additional ways to try to meet the needs and desires of our Alliance community in the days ahead…Fair Winds