To Sail a Tall Ship
Pushed by a fresh northerly and a stiff flood tide, the tall ships returned to Puget Sound this week, sailing one-by-one through Admiralty Inlet and continuing down the sound for a gathering of traditional tall ships.
Last to arrive was the familiar Lady Washington, the Grays Harbor-based brigantine which tied up alongside the Hawaiian Chieftain and Lynx at the Northwest Maritime Center dock. “We always look forward to coming here,” said Ryan Meyer, skipper of the Lady.
They are among some two dozen tall ships that are stopping off here in route to a spectacular gathering over the Fourth of July weekend on the Tacoma waterfront. .jpg)
Tall ships are hardly a novelty to Port Townsend. The waterfront is home to the historic schooners Adventuress and Martha, and the Lady Washington is a frequent visitor. Three years ago, a similar fleet dropped anchor here in route to Tacoma.
Sailing ships are embedded in this town’s genetic material, like madrona trees and facial hair. Tall ships were the reason the town was established in the first place. Arriving sea captains dropped anchor here to wait for tugboats to take them down the sound to Seattle and beyond. All those handsome Victorians were built by people who expected the railroad to terminate at Port Townsend, so sailing ships could be unloaded without dealing with the sound’s whimsical winds and currents.
Then, of course, came steamships, and the Age of Sail came to an abrupt end. Those elegant tall ships, with their billowing trapezoidal sails and spiderweb rigging, were suddenly obsolete. Grand old schooners and clipper ships were dismasted and converted to barges, or left to rot on the tideflats. By the early 1970s, only a handful were left.
Since then, there has been a comeback, perhaps triggered by TV images of the tall ships gathering in New York’s harbor for the 1976 Bicentennial. Old boats like Martha and Adventuress were painstakingly nursed back to life. The Lady Washington was built in Grays Harbor and turned over to a non-profit.
Today, depending on who’s counting, there are perhaps 200 ships of various classes, ranging from relatively small schooners to a few grand square-riggers. Most, like Adventuress and Martha, are operated by private non-profits and used for sail training. Others are available for charters.
And Port Townsend is a favorite stopping point. In part it’s because of the cadre of shipwrights, sailmakers and riggers who have chosen to live and work here. But Port Townsend’s waterfront is also the right scale for a tall ship. They moor here comfortably without being dwarfed by skyscrapers, cruise ships and oil tankers. The town and the ships share a common heritage.
The tall ship comeback could be mistaken for just another toy for sentimental hobbyists. But anybody who has ever sailed aboard one of these ships understands that they fire people’s imaginations, much as they did in the time of Columbus or Cook. It still seems amazing that these big, beautiful vehicles can move at all.
And at a time of $4 gas and a looming energy crisis, we’re also reminded that they are triumphs of energy efficiency. How can we not admire an ancient technology that can traverse oceans without burning a drop of oil.
(From the Port Townsend Leader, July 2008)
