CRUISING - EVENT REPORTS - 2002

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Tall Ships Submitted by Scott McCulley

“Dad, why are we going boating on a Thursday?” Because the Tall Ships are coming to the Seattle waterfront. One of the advantages of not working is being able to take off in the middle of the week.

My daughter Jennifer and I drove out to Shilshole to launch Tigger. As we are putting the boat in the water a grand old steam excursion boat cruises by blowing their whistle for all to hear. “Are they going out to see the Tall Ships too?” I think so.

The plan was to sail from Shilshole toward Elliot Bay and meet the ships as they returned from their tour of the harbor and escort them up the ship canal. There was not a lot of wind to be had so we motored all the way downtown to shoot our pictures. The day was bright with a little haze on the water. The picture I took from West Point toward Alki Beach shows a forest of masts sticking out of the haze. Not really a good picture, not enough detail to capture the number of ships and boats participating. The line stretched for miles across the Sound.

“Is that ship in the parade? It doesn’t look very tall.” OK, that yawl is not as big as a square rigger, but it is old enough to qualify. Tall Ships is really just kind of a metaphor for old fashioned sailboats. BANG. “What’s that?” Hawaiian Chieftain and Lady Washington let loose with their cannons, the noise echoing against the skyscrapers downtown. “Cool!”

Tigger’s trimaran configuration makes a good stable photo boat. It is hard to describe how choppy it was with all of the boats churning around in different directions. I had to watch the outboard throttle closely because the prop kept popping out of the water. I found out later that Myrne’s 34’ Tollycraft got tossed by two sets of crossing wakes with three people falling overboard. They thought the boat was going to roll completely over. The Coast Guard pulled out the three souls, two of whom had to spend the night in the hospital for observation. Everybody was OK but it was a scary moment.

The Europa was easily the most impressive ship with square rigged sails highlighted against the buildings downtown. In the picture, the Space Needle looks like an extra mast. About the time we realized that the parade was over, I figured out that our 4 hp outboard was not going to keep up so we beat feet back toward West Point trailing the fleet. When we rounded the point the fleet was hove to off Shilshole waiting for their turn in the locks. We snuck into the small locks ahead of everybody.

This was Tigger’s first trip through the locks. Jennifer had seen ships go through from the land side so she got to see how it works first hand from the water. What impressed me were the number of people lined up on the hills on both sides of the locks waiting for the ships to come through. There were thousands of people enjoying the sunny day. I think the crowds were much larger than Opening Day.

We motored out of the locks and looked for a spot to tie up to eat lunch. The spot worked OK but I now have a fender absolutely covered with creosote, some of which rolled onto the boat. I’m waiting for a good hard freeze to see if it will come off easier. The large lock began to fill with masts. It took a long time to get them all in and secured. “Are they moving yet?" No, try sighting along the yardarm against the trees behind. You will be able to see when they start moving up. It is a good thing we tied up, the Coast Guard was pretty militant about keeping the channel clear. I took the last picture in the roll of the Europa going by on the Ship Canal.

We untied and followed the crush of boats up the canal. All of a sudden the whole fleet came to a halt with everybody looking to make sure that they had room astern. Over the radio we heard that there was a bicycle chained to the Freemont Bridge. The Police had to find some bolt cutters to remove it.

Too bad I used up all of the film. When we got out into Lake Union, the Coast Guard backed off and let us get closer to the ships. There would have been some great photo ops. Jennifer decided that her favorite was the black re-creation of one of Christopher Columbus’s ships. Why? “Because its black.”