2026 Summer Cover Contest

Here Is How It Works!

• Submit your Chesapeake summer sailing photo BELOW through July 10.
• Vertical photos work best, with room for our header and cover lines.
• Only high-resolution (i.e. not blurry) photos will be considered for the cover.
• Before we open up the contest for reader voting July 11, our graphic design team will filter out photos that are blurry, the wrong shape, not summery, not taken on sailboats, or depicting children without lifejackets on boats. If your photo disappears before reader voting, it did not make it through these filters. 
• New in 2026: anyone may enter the contest unless they have won it previously! We have run this contest for 15 years and have had several two- or three-time winners. It’s time to give other sailor-photographers a fighting chance. 
• By entering you will be subscribed to our email newsletters. You may update your preferences at any time.

Even if your photo was not selected as a finalist, we do hope you will still vote for the winning cover. Stay tuned for the September SpinSheet where we will share a selection of runners-up. 

Six Tips for Photographers

1. We accept photo submissions all year long. We ALWAYS prefer people pictures, so get your crew together in the cockpit (even if at the dock) and have them smile!

2. For cover photos, we prefer vertical photos. Horizontal ones must be cropped to fit the cover shape.

4. Make sure to leave room at the bottom and at the top for our headers and footers. It’s always best to have a photo that we could crop if need be.

5. People often send us pictures of sunsets and sunrises—and they go out of their way to get the boat (winches or dodgers) out of the photo. It’s actually best to keep some of the boat in the frame to show that you’re on a boat!

For questions please email [email protected]