For immediate release
For information, text or accompanying image via e-mail, contact:   Lori Aguiar, ASTA Program Manager
p: 401-846-1775; e: lori@sailtraining.org

Newport, RI – (October 24, 2005) The American Sail Training Association announced today that CAPT David V. V. Wood, USCG (Ret.) has been named the recipient of the prestigious ASTA 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award. The award will be presented to Captain Wood at the Annual Sail Training Awards Banquet which takes place during the American Sail Training Association's 33rd Annual Conference on Sail Training and Tall Ships, Friday, November 4, in Bay City, Michigan.

Captain Wood retired from the Coast Guard in 1992 following a 30-year career; he served a total of 15 years aboard 7 different cutters based in Alaska , Rhode Island , Virginia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. He rounded out his career with a 4-year tour of duty as Commanding Officer of the USCG Training Barque EAGLE, during which “America's Tall Ship” made a historic first visit to Leningrad, USSR in 1989, celebrated the Coast Guard's Bicentennial during 1989-90 in all ten of the original Revenue Cutter ports, and represented the US in the Columbus Quincentenary Regatta in 1992.

Following retirement from active duty, Captain Wood became a director of the American Sail Training Association in Newport , Rhode Island and was its Chairman from 1998-2001. He also served as US National Representative to the International Sail Training Association, and was a Trustee of that organization from 1999-2002. He holds an unlimited USCG license as Master, Auxiliary Sail Vessels, Any Gross Tons, Oceans, and has occasionally returned to sea aboard sailing ships to keep his skills current. He is currently Director of Maritime Education and Training at the Northeast Maritime Institute in Fairhaven, Massachusetts.

Asked about his long standing relationship with ASTA and sail training, Captain Wood replied,

“I attended my first ASTA conference in 1990 ( Norfolk ), and then hosted a day sail on EAGLE at the 1991 conference, which was in New London for that reason.  I actually got involved in the larger world of sail training in 1972, when I was the Sailing Master on EAGLE during the Cutty Sark Tall Ships Race that year.  That was the same year Barclay Warburton sailed BLACK PEARL to Europe and raced in the same race (with his sons Tim, Peter, and a few others), and then went back and founded ASTA the following winter.”

Captain Wood has written articles on sail training for the Naval Institute Proceedings , Sea History , the Coast Guard Academy Alumni Bulletin , and Traditional Boats and Tall Ship, and an upcoming 4-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History . A native of Washington , DC , he received a B.A. from Amherst College before joining the Coast Guard in 1962. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the US Naval War College, and received a Master of Education degree from Boston University . He and his wife Paula have lived in Newport , Rhode Island since 1991; their three sons and seven grandchildren live in California, Maine, and Massachusetts.

When told he had been selected to receive the 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award Captain Wood responded,

“I feel honored, but don't worry about retirement; I'm not finished yet . . ."

The Awards banquet takes place at 7 PM on Friday, November 4, 2005 at the Doubletree Hotel Bay City Riverfront in Bay City, MI.  For those not registered to attend the ASTA Annual Conference on Sail Training and Tall Ships, tickets to the awards banquet can be purchased by calling the ASTA office at 401-846-1775.