Maritime Summer Camp

Maritime Summer Camp includes hands-on maritime skills such as learning to row small boats and learning to sail small boats, along with free play on the beach and a Friday beach party. Campers take part in science-based projects, including water-quality tests and examining plankton, and visit the historic WWII submarine USS Pampanito. Activities also include learning about buoyancy, sonar, navigation, periscopes, and batteries, rowing training aboard the 24′ longboat Cutter J, rowing small row boats that fit 1–3 campers, sailing Pelican sailboats that are used as sail-training vessels, and racing Pelican sailboats in the lagoon. Campers visit the Visitor Center and Maritime Museum, can earn a Junior Ranger badge, and observe local wildlife aboard a catamaran sailing on San Francisco Bay.

• Ages: 8–12 years old
• Schedule: Summer sessions run June 8th–August 14th with camp hours from 9:00am–3:30pm and optional extended hours from 8:00am–9:00am and 3:30pm–5:30pm

The San Francisco Maritime National Park Association, established in 1950, has been dedicated to bringing maritime history to life in the San Francisco Bay Area for 75 years. Its mission is “Bringing our maritime heritage to life through education, preservation and philanthropy.” The Association is the non-profit partner to San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park and works in partnership with the park to provide public programs, music, interpretive events, and more, and it independently runs the National Historic Landmark WWII submarine museum USS Pampanito, which is the sole publicly accessible World War II submarine on the West Coast. One 5th grader who attended the Age of Sail program said, “I really learned a lot on the ship, but I mostly learned how to work together even if you don’t like somebody. The thing that we had to do most was work together because if we didn’t we wouldn’t have got through it all.”

Last updated March 19, 2026.