On Wednesday, 19 April, Judita Simonavičiūtė, deputy Mayor of Klaipėda, welcomed the Baltic Sail Committee to the annual spring meeting: “Klaipėda seeks to be a heart of events, to do a continuous work to attract the tall ships, therefore the expansion of the Baltic Sail partners’ activities and their collaboration is highly important and essential.”

The meeting was discussing the participation of the Baltic Sail partner cities in the events dedicated to the centennial of the restoration of the states of Lithuania, Latvia and Poland and how  to attract and encourage sailing vessels to visit the Baltic Sail port cities. Further, the idea of awarding sailing ships with a „friendly port“ title is under consideration. Other mandatory items of the meeting agenda: financial support for sailing boats, approval of the next calendar year budget, calendar dates of maritime events, etc.
Seven seaports of the Baltic Sea – Rostock, Szczecin, Riga, Gdansk, Karlskrona, Nysted and Klaipėda – under the Baltic Sail cooperation agreement mainly pursue to promote traditional sailing as part of the European maritime cultural heritage, to keep an active collaboration in encouraging sailing ships to visit maritime holidays of the partner cities and to build a maritime tourism network in the Baltic Sea Region.