Sailing season kicks off with a sock-burning party in Annapolis, Md. : NPR

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

It’s finally spring. For many people across the country, the winter has been long and cold. And in Annapolis, Maryland, people gather every year around this time to herald in good weather by making a ritual sacrifice of their socks. This spring tradition marks the unofficial start of the Chesapeake Bay sailing season. NPR’s Scott Neuman has this story.

(SOUNDBITE OF SAIL FLUTTER)

SCOTT NEUMAN, BYLINE: Manuel Skow and his racing crew aboard Bear Away struggle to get the sails back under their cover after a frustrating day on the water.

MANUEL SKOW: Today was a beautiful day, except that there was no wind. So we didn’t run.

NEUMAN: Today it was the lack of wind, but a few weeks ago it was the ice that was the problem. Skow competes in the Annapolis Yacht Club’s annual Frostbite Series. As the name suggests, it’s not for fair-weather sailors, but this year even Skow and his fellow Frostbiters were put to the test. The persistent cold of winter delayed the racing season.

SKOW: The problem is we had so much ice. In fact, two weeks ago was our first race.

NEUMAN: A week later, the sun is shining and we can feel spring. At the nearby Annapolis Maritime Museum in the Eastport neighborhood, a sock-burning ceremony marks the unofficial start of boating for the year. Kelly Swartout is the museum’s vice president of development. She says it all started with a harsh winter like this.

KELLY SWARTOUT: So the idea of ​​burning socks started in 1977, during one of the coldest seasons we’ve ever experienced. That’s when the bay froze. Everything was happening. And one local sailor was so fed up with the cold that at the spring equinox he decided to take off his socks and burn them.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

NEUMAN: This simple act of seasonal defiance has led to an enduring tradition. Today, hundreds of people head to the beach to party, hoping to no longer need winter socks. There’s live music, booze, and a Chesapeake Bay favorite: oysters.

(SOUNDBITE OF OYSTERS BEING TIPTED)

SCOTT WILKE: We’ve had several raw, a few baked. It couldn’t be better this year.

NEUMAN: Scott Wilke is originally from Glasgow, Scotland, but now lives in Mason Neck, Virginia. He has been coming to the sock burning in Annapolis for 15 years now. He explains to me how the socks are chosen.

How do you make the selection? I mean, you don’t pick the brand new ones, I guess.

WILKE: I hope not. No, you dig somewhere in the back of your drawer or in the back of your closet, and you… I hope you find one that has, you know, a hole or two in it. I hope it won’t be infested with moths.

NEUMAN: Annapolis Poet Laureate Jefferson Holland recites a poem as the flaming well on the beach crackles nearby.

JEFFERSON HOLLAND: So if you’re sailing into port on March 21 and you smell Limburger mixed with laundry starch…

(LAUGH)

HOLLAND: …You’ll know you’re downwind of the Eastport docks, where they burn their socks for the equinox.

(APPLAUSE)

NEUMAN: This is the main event. Not a tidy affair, but a free-for-all with dozens of socks of all colors and fabrics running above us and raining down on the sandbox. Some land directly in the flames. Others miss the mark and must be helped into the fire. It’s a fitting end to a brutal winter and time to get back on the water. Scott Neuman, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF MAN LIKE PAYPA SONG, “THE LAST EPISODE”)

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