With Right Wind, Raising the Sail of Blue Economic Development

By Wang Qian

As an important festival brand in Qingdao, Qingdao International Sailing Week was founded in 2009, and Qingdao International Ocean Festival founded in 1995 has gone through 22 years. In 2014,the two festivals were emerged into one.This year, the 15th China International Maritime Exposition and the China(Qingdao) International Boat Exhibition joined the event. The significance of Sailing Week Ocean Festival to Qingdao is even more extraordinary: Sailing Week Ocean Festival not only becomes an internationally renowned marine sports gala, but also a window to fully gather and display Qingdao ocean details.

The ocean is of great significance to Qingdao. General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that the future of marine economic development is boundless during a visit to Shandong Province after attending this year's Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Qingdao. Qingdao puts forward that in the global coordinates, we should strive to build an international maritime city, have a developed marine economy and a number of world-renowned marine economic leaders, and highlight the supporting capacity of the marine industry to become a strong city in the marine economy. The successful convening of the Qingdao International Sailing Week Ocean Festival has made a new contribution to Qingdao's construction of a leading city for Asian sailing, the promotion of the international influence of Qingdao and even China's sailboat cause, and the development of Qingdao's marine economy.

Sailboat +Manufacture Makes Blue Economy More Promising

In August this year, the 16th Qingdao Navigation Expo and Boat Show was held in the Octagon Square,Olympic Sailing Center, for the first time as a plate of the Sailing Week Ocean Festival. The 3-day exhibition attracted the participation of nearly 100 boat enterprises. As an important representative industry of real economy in Qingdao marine economy, yacht sailing industry, especially yacht and sailing industry, is an important pole to promote the development of blue industry.

Qingdao has an area of about 12200 square kilometers of sea area,nearly 800 kilometers of mainland coastline, Jiaozhou Bay with 49 bays,scattered islands, vast sea areas, clean water quality, a pleasant climate, the development of yacht and sailboat manufacture and sailing sports industry has unique natural geographical conditions. At the same time, the deep historical accumulation of Qingdao shipbuilding industry and the modern Haixi Bay shipbuilding industry base also provide a good technical and talent reserve for the development of Qingdao yacht and sailboat manufacturing industry.

The 16th Qingdao Navigation Expo and Boat Show is a platform for the exchange and cooperation of the related industries, which is closely related to the development of the marine economy in Qingdao, focusing on the display of products and services closely related to these industries. Qingdao Navigation Expo and Boat Show and Sailing Week achieved 1+1＞2

effect, promoted the superposition development of sailing exhibition industry and sailboat manufacturing industry, and promoted the conversion of new and old kinetic energy of sailing industry. At the same time, it won the overall promotion of Qingdao as "Sailing City" urban brand economy comprehensive pulling effect.

Relying on the platform of international industrial exchange and cooperation built by sailboats, Qingdao has continuously expanded its “circle of friends” around the world to achieve a breakthrough in the marine economy. For example, at present, more than 30 internationally renowned boat manufacturers have settled in Qingdao.Among them are Qingdao Mazarin, which has taken orders for 14 sailboats in the Clipper Global Sailing Competition. At present, in Qingdao, with the emphasis on sailing leisure tourism, sailing competition, sailing exhibition and sailing manufacturing, the diversified industrial system of diversification of main investors is formed rapidly, and the blue economy is accelerated to develop and expand.

Sailing Boat+Public to Make Blue Culture More Popular

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the 10th anniversary of Qingdao as an Olympic co-host city. At the justconcluded Sailing Week Ocean Festival,a feature film named “Olympic Sailing Decade” recorded the 10-year yachting's imprinting on the city. Among them, the imprint on people is the most moving:

When Guo Chuan, the world record holder of the 40-foot sailing boat,completed his solo round the world voyage back to Qingdao, he knelt on his knees and kissed the dock he had just set foot on. When Song Kun, the first Chinese woman to sail around the world, returned from a long voyage, she stood on the deck with her teammates waving and shouting with all her strength: “I'm back! I am back!” And the first single-armed navigator, Xu Jingkun, who completed the ring of the China Sea, clenched the rope in the sea to fight the wind and waves. Liu Xue, a professional Volvo sailor who is only 25 years old and has already had two experiences of sailing around the world,was seeking the meaning of youth in the storm.

These Qingdao sailboat athletes have changed their lives because of yachting.And because of them, more people learn about sailing and participate in it.In recent years, Sailing Week Ocean Festival has been popularized, striving to build a sailing-led national fitness platform. According to statistics, Qingdao has accumulated more than 400,000 citizens to participate in sailing, realizing the effective link between yachting and urban lifestyle.

The “Welcome to Navigation”national sailing experience was held this year. Citizens and tourists from home and abroad were organized to participate in the sailboat experience, and the theme week of sailing experience was launched to strengthen the mass base of the “Sailing City” to increase the social participation and influence of sailing. In addition, the organizers set up two parallel sessions-- the West Coast New Area and the Blue Silicon Valley Core Area -- to promote the overall spatial layout and comprehensive coverage of Qingdao sailing. Among them, the main venue of the West Coast New Area mainly focuses on the sailing popularity of citizens and tourists and sailboat culture promotion and so on; the Blue Silicon Valley Core Area mainly focuses on youth sailboat popularization, events promotion and other activities.

As Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Taumi Heng said at the opening ceremony of the Sailing Week Ocean Festival: “The spread of nautical culture can help people understand and support the shipbuilding industry.” From “beer” and “clam”to “sailing” and “navigation”,yachting returning to the public and merging into the life of Qingdao citizens only met the upgrading of the citizens'demand for a better life, but also was more helpful for the public to upgrade their cognition of the new urban culture,thus injecting new kinetic energy into the Qingdao yacht and sailing industry and the development of Qingdao blue economy.