Follow the fleet
Published 9:00 pm Saturday, June 11, 2005
Batten down the hatches! More than 250,000 people are expected to gather in British Columbia’s capital city this month during the Victoria Tall Ships Festival June 23 to 26.
The seafaring event is part of the 2005 Tall Ships Challenge, a series of races along the west coasts of Canada and the United States sponsored by the American Sail Training Association. Victoria is the first port of call in the summer challenge, and local organizers have put together a family-friendly event featuring ship tours, concerts, art displays and children’s programs.
The Tall Ships Challenge will continue on to Tacoma June 30 to July 4; Vancouver, B.C. July 7 to 10; and Port Alberni, B.C., July 12 to 15 before heading to Southern California.
As many as 30 ships are expected to gather in Esquimalt Harbor in front of Royal Roads University June 21-22. The official party commences midmorning on June 23 during the Parade of Sails, when a flotilla of up to two dozen ships heads for Ship Point in Victoria’s Inner Harbor.
Leading the parade will be Canadian John Guzzwell, who sailed around the world in 1955 on his 20-foot yawl Trekka.
Representatives of the First Nations will meet the ships and escort the seagoing vessels into their berths. At 2 p.m., there will be an official welcoming ceremony at Ship Point, as the flags of all participating nations will be raised in salute. Every evening at sunset, the flags will be lowered and national anthems played.
Among the confirmed ships are the 356-foot Pallada from Vladivostok, Russia, and the 85-foot gaff-rigged schooner R. Tucker Thompson from Whangerei, New Zealand.
The Lady Washington from Aberdeen will bring a bit of Hollywood to Victoria. The 112-foot two-masted brig appeared as the Interceptor in the 2003 film “Pirates of the Caribbean.” It was launched in 1989 as part of the Washington State Centennial project and is a replica of the original Lady Washington, which was a privateer ship during the American Revolution. Today, it plies the waters of Washington, Oregon, California, British Columbia and Alaska, providing shipboard education programs in 89 port communities.
Fans of the seafaring life will have an opportunity to board and tour the ships from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, and three of them will be taking passengers out for evening sails during the festival (tickets are about $60 (U.S.). They include The Pacific Grace, a two-masted schooner launched in 1999 that is one of two Victoria-based Sail and Life Training Society ships. During the evening cruises, the paying passengers may choose to be part of the crew, and may even hear cannon firing on board two of the vessels.
Back on shore, the main stage at Ship Point will feature entertainment such as sea shanties or Celtic music; the Maritime Marketplace will offer juried arts and crafts for sale; and “The Art of Sail” features painting stations set up around the harbor where selected artists will create original artwork. There will be sail-making and wooden-boat-building demonstrations, along with children’s activities.
Pirate Capt. Marc Vermette will relocate the popular “Pirates and Privateers!” children’s program from The Maritime Museum of British Columbia to a tent on the festival site. The interactive program, which he promises is “lighthearted, not scary,” will educate and entertain children through role-playing and hands-on activities such as mock scrimshaw carving and maybe a tattoo or two.
The Royal B.C. Museum is also joining the festivities, exhibiting rarely seen documents, paintings and artifacts related to the first explorers. Drawn largely from the B.C. Archives collection, the temporary exhibit includes a list of officers and crew of the HMS Discovery from 1798 and an ordnance survey chart showing the track of Vancouver’s expedition. The exhibit will be on display at the museum June 15 to 28.
Sue Frause is a Whidbey Island freelance writer and photographer. She may be reached at skfrause@whidbey.com.
