Remember summer?

Here's a chance to think back to a time when it didn't spit snot every other morning, and when white sails and cannon fire punctuated Commencement Bay.

Tall Ships Tacoma is hosting the theatrical premier of its official video with two gatherings at the Galaxy Theater Gig Harbor, 4649 Point Fosdick Drive N.W.

The events run from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, April 2, and Wednesday, April 8. Tickets are $20 a person, and the DVD sells for $15. You can order them at tallshipstacoma.com, or call (253)272-5650.

The evenings will begin with a reception with a cash bar, a welcome from Stan Selden, president of Tacoma Tall Ships Organization, and Les Bolton, executive director of Gray's Harbor Historical Seaport.

Expect Selden and Bolton to celebrate the fun, and the money, Tall Ships 2008 brought to Tacoma. The financial benefit includes $2.5 million in improvements to the Foss Waterway infrastructure, and the $20 million economic boost the festival generated in July.

Also expect Selden to encourage donations to cut the debt the festival still owes some of its vendors.

The hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours South Sounders invested in Tacoma's 2008 Tall Ships Festival paid off for the second time Saturday.

Mike McLeod of Tall Ships Tacoma's Board of Directors, accepted the award at the International Sail Training and Tall Ships Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Tacoma has taken part in the festival only twice, in 2005 and 2008. Both times it has won Port of the Year. This year, it outdid the cities of Victoria and Port Alberni in British Columbia and San Francisco, Oxnard, Los Angeles, San Diego and Dana Point in California. In 2005, it also bested Vancouver, B.C.

The Tall Ships Challenge cycles between the east and west coasts and the Great Lakes each three years.

Captains and crew members have the biggest say in who wins Port of the Year.

It matters to them that the city of Tacoma arranged to have their bilges pumped, that union electrical workers had safe power strung to their ships and that volunteers kept crowds controlled and docks secure. It matters to them that shoreside folks welcome them with warm smiles, shopping specials, and free internet service.

McLeod believes that Youth on Board, a program pioneered by Tall Ships and Metro Parks, impressed ASTA and the skippers. That program trained young people in seamanship and placed them on Tall Ships for the sail from Victoria to Tacoma. Later in the summer, half a dozen of those young people went to California to sail aboard USCG Barque Eagle.

"We were one of the few ports that really embraced the sail training opportunity," McLeod said. "I'm told that ASTA is using the program we developed as a model."

While Port of the Year is an honor, the volunteers' first payoff was a well-run festival that drew crowds of 400,000 to the Foss in July.

Organizers estimated that 2,000 volunteers invested tens of thousands of hours in the festival. They built docks, gathered sponsors, picked up trash, directed crowds, catered to crews, and after all the ships had sailed, they left the Thea Foss Waterway with about $1.5 to $2 million worth of improvements.

The Tacoma Tall Ships Organization folks appeared before a Tacoma city council committee to discuss their economic impact statement.

Earlier this month, organizers released a study showing a $19.2 million impact. And that played well with the members of the economic development committee.

Councilman Rick Talbert seemed particularly impressed with the infrastructure improvements the festival brought to the Thea Foss Waterway. And, he added, "what isn't measurable is the positive impact for Tacoma and Pierce County from people who visited here."

A board member of the Tacoma Tall Ships Organization will head a resource action committee that will raise funds to pay down the deficit from July’s festival and collect donations toward the 2011 event. Already, one anonymous donor has stepped forward with a $100,000 pledge.

Mike McLeod, a commercial real estate developer, will work full-time for the nonprofit organization over the next two months, board members said Tuesday. Tall Ships ran a $500,000 deficit on a $2.5 million budget.

Thirty-five creditors – mostly smaller companies and individuals – have been paid, with 63 still outstanding, board co-chairman Stan Selden said. The organization still owes about $450,000, $50,000 less than the initial deficit organizers announced last month. The nonprofit has received additional payments and bills since then, Selden said.

McLeod was five weeks into a three-month vacation when he decided to return to Tacoma and work to pay down the deficit.

“Bottom line is I couldn’t relax,” he said. “I wasn’t comfortable. We cut the trip short by about a month to come back and work on it.”

McLeod will approach sponsors from this year’s event and ask them to sign up early for 2011. One such deal he’s proposing to sponsors is a four-year commitment: help toward the deficit this year, money toward organizational operations in 2009-10 and donations toward the event in 2011.

The nonprofit has already received one large gift: An anonymous woman gave $100,000 earmarked for The Pollard Group, the Tacoma printing firm.

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The Tall Ships Tacoma 2008 festival generated $19.2 million in economic impact, according to a study conducted by an outside company and released by event officials Friday.

And of the roughly 300,000 people attended this year’s event about 48,000 visitors came from more than 50 miles away. On average, they stayed 2.6 days and spent $88.09 per person per day.

Stan Selden, the co-chairman of the Tacoma Tall Ships Organization, hailed the report as good news several weeks after the nonprofit announced it ran the festival at a $500,000 deficit.

“It’s a very, very positive plus for all the efforts we all put into it,” he said. “It’s the rest of the story.”

The festival drew fewer visitors than organizers had hoped in part because of the constant threat of rain. Selden also believes the economy played a factor in how much people spent at the event.

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The City of Tacoma's expenses related to the Tall Ships Tacoma 2008 festival totaled $291,983.

The figure is lower than the $300,000 of in-kind services the city committed to the July event because lower attendance allowed the police department to reduce staffing, according to an internal memo released Tuesday.

Police services were estimated to cost about $250,000 but came in at $211,141.51. Other costs included staffing from the fire department, paramedics and public works employees.

The nonprofit Tacoma Tall Ships Organization will receive the remaining $8,017 in cash. The nonprofit is currently digging itself out of a $500,000 deficit that it ran during the event.

The Tacoma Tall Ships Organization is considering several ways to pay off its $500,000 deficit from last month’s festival but is also seeking input for ideas, festival co-chair Clare Petrich said.

“We are open to every idea from the community on how to raise these funds,” she said. “The ideas we have now are kind of the typical fundraising.”

Such ideas include selling the leftover merchandise from last month’s festival, initiating a membership drive and looking for an angel donor who would contribute a large sum or put up matching funds.

The event, which ran July 3-7 along the Thea Foss Waterway, attracted about 300,000 people. But organizers said last week that it ran at a $500,000 deficit because of several factors, the board of directors wrote to supports in an e-mail.

“This event renewed Tacoma’s pride in its maritime heritage,” the e-mail read. “Poor weather, a faltering economy and low ticket sales impacted us and we are investigating what we do differently next time.”

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The Tacoma Tall Ships Organization sent out an e-mail to its supporters after today’s story about its deficit. If you’re interested, here it is:

Dear Tall Ships Supporter:

As you have probably seen this morning in the news, the Tall Ships festival this year finished with a deficit of about $500,000.

This deficit is in no way a reflection of your support and dedication to the festival. In our minds, the festival was a success because of the overwhelming community support it received, the positive reception the crews received, and the hundreds of thousands of visitors who attended and had a great time. We provided an extraordinary event for hundreds of thousands of people.

We exceeded our sponsorship fundraising goals and community response was outstanding. It was free for many and provided excellent hosting for visiting ships and new opportunities for youth. This event renewed Tacoma's pride in its maritime heritage. Poor weather, a faltering economy and low ticket sales impacted us and we are investigating what we do differently next time.

We could not have created this wonderful event without you and we greatly appreciate your support.

The Tacoma Tall Ships Organization is committed to this event, our community and our creditors. We are putting together a business plan that will help us pay our creditors and reorganize. We have no intention of declaring bankruptcy.

The next few weeks will be challenging for us as we work through our financial issues but we are confident that a solution can be found. We hope that you will remember the great times you had at this event and share your memories with others. Tall Ships Tacoma is a wonderful community event and we all worked together to make it happen.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. You can reach us at info@tallshipstacoma.com or 253-272-5650.

Fair winds
TTSO Board of Directors

The non-profit organization that operated last month’s Tacoma Tall Ships 2008 ran the festival at a $500,000 deficit, its co-chairman said Thursday.

But the Tacoma Tall Ships Organization has no plans to declare bankruptcy or seek a bailout from the city, Stan Selden said.

“Our ticket sales were not what we forecasted. Our expenses were less than we forecasted,” he said. “But the ticket sales, combined with free tours of the Eagle – we just did not have the income. And that’s something we couldn’t have known until the event happened.”

About 300,000 people attended the event, which ran July 3-7. That number is 100,000 lower than the original estimate, and lower than organizers were hoping. Poor weather during the event was likely a large factor in the turnout.

Admission to the U.S. Coast Guard Eagle, the 266-foot three-masted barque that was the main attraction of the event, was free, but boarding passes were required to visit the dozens of other ships moored in the Thea Foss Waterway.

All of the organization’s creditors will be paid, Selden said.

“We’re not running away from the problem,” he said. “There are various ways to solve these kinds of problems in the non-profit world, and we’re exploring three or four of those simultaneously as we move forward. No one likes to face up to these problems and make these kinds of phone calls, but we feel it’s our obligation.”

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David Doxtater, the executive director for Tall Ships Tacoma 2008, said organizers are a few weeks away from releasing financial and attendance figures from last month’s festival.

Organizers are still in the process of crunching revenue numbers – including the numbers of boarding passes and sailing excursions – and reconciling them against the expenses.

“We should have some more information pretty quickly,” he said. “We’re just doing our normal accounting.”

He said he didn’t know if early indications point to a profit or deficit for the festival. But he said early estimates put the attendance figure at about 300,000 people. That number is 100,000 lower than the original estimate, but he said this figure doesn’t include the crowds on Ruston Way for the Parade of Sail.

But even the attendance figure should firm up once they can compare it to financial data, Doxtater said.

“We’ve got to wait for our financials,” he said. “It’s all about waiting for that now.”

Tall Ships Tacoma 2008 has been over for more than month now, but organizers still don’t have final attendance or financial figures.

And it might be a while, one of the event’s co-chairmen said.

“We haven’t had any conclusive discussions with the city – they’ve been very cooperative – but we got all mixed-up in ’05” with the numbers, Stan Selden said. “The county is doing an economic-impact study, and we’re not going to put out numbers we’re not sure of.”

Selden was referring in part to an early estimated attendance of 1 million during the inaugural 2005 event. That was widely believed to be a large miscalculation, and organizers since lowered that number by 200,000-300,000.

“And then there was the problem with the overbilling by the police department that got publicized big time,” Selden said. “When they found the error, it was publicized small-time.”

Planners estimated about 400,000 people attended this year’s event, which endured several days of less-than-perfect weather.

Executive director David Doxtater was unavailable for comment, and Selden is asking for patience with the count.

“We can’t even get final numbers out of Victoria yet, and they’re collaborating with them on a couple of costs,” he said. “It just takes some time. It’s not as simple as you might think.”

It’s an announcement that makes Kits Merryman wish she was born in the early 90s.

Five teenagers from the Youth on Board program will spend four days working alongside the crew of the U.S. Coast Guard Eagle, the barque that was the centerpiece attraction of last month’s Tall Ships Tacoma 2008 festival.

The five were selected based on recommendations from their ships’ captains and evaluations based on participation and performance from the Youth on Board program, when 47 teens sailed from Victoria, B.C., to Tacoma.

They’ll board the Eagle in San Pedro, Calif., and sail to San Diego on Aug. 20-24.

The five teens are:

Meagan Southworth of Tacoma, age 17
Sydney Lynden of Lakewood, age 18 at time of sailing
Kristie Spadoni of Gig Harbor , age 17
Jayna Gilley of Bellevue, age 18
Elizabeth Ross of Port Angeles, age 16