Our Odyssey

As I mentioned in my last two posts, I took a lot of photos while we were anchored in Norfolk for the Sail250 Virginia tall ship event that ran concurrent with the annual Harborfest celebration and, this year, also included Juneteenth. Today's post will concern only these events and will mostly comprise some of the photos I took throughout.

Harborfest just on its own is the biggest event in the area each year, and the organizer, Festevents, is well-practiced at setting up. This is basically a giant street fair, comprising several live music stages, a large line-up of food trucks and stands, myriad booths and tents hawking all manner of merchandise, a fireworks show, and various and sundry other entertainment acts and activities. It occupies the entire waterfront, which this year also included the flotilla of tall ships.

Sail250 Virginia was part of the broader tall ship element of America's 250th celebration of independence. For many of the tall ships, Norfolk was their US port of arrival, whereas other ships participated in organized events ahead of the Norfolk event in other nearby ports. I spotted some of them in Yorktown on my road trip to Deltaville. After they were done in Norfolk, many continued to Baltimore for an event there, and they all converged on New York Harbor for the July 4th weekend in what, I think, was the largest gathering of tall ships ever to occur.

What follows is a selection of photos from this event. They are mostly in chronological order, which means they are grouped roughly as follows:

Parade of Tall Ships
Juneteenth Fireworks
Visiting the tall ships in port
Harborfest Fireworks
International Parade of Cadets (including Mexico, even without their ship)
More ship visits

I have captioned some of the photos, but for many I am leaving it as an exercise for the reader to suss out the relevant country from the flags and uniforms. You can find the full list of ships and descriptions here.

We dressed ship for the parade. If you look between our two top flags at right you will see the start of the parade, with fireboats spraying water and the Eagle behind them.

USCGC Eagle, "America's tall ship," always heads a tall ship parade in US waters. Note the cadets on the yardarms.

Godspeed, from Jamestown. Each of the 250th parades attracted a number of regional ships.

Smoke On! The US Navy Blue Angels overflies the parade.

The fly-over was timed to pass over Eagle just as she made her turn at the end of the route.

Schooner Virginia, the hometown girl.

The ships that had sails up furled them quite a bit downriver of us. I tried to capture a couple; here is Gorch Fock in the distance mid-furl.

Gorch Fock of Germany, and sister ship to USCGC Eagle.

BAP Union of the Peruvian Navy. The largest of the fleet and one of the newest sail training ships in the world.

Traffic jam. Here the Gorch Fock is headed out the other way, to her berth downriver, passing the inbound Oosterschelde. The big motor yacht between them is one of the escort vessels.

Oosterschelde still has some sail up.

ARC Gloria of Colombia. More cadets on yardarms. The Colombians had the best music, over a very effective sound system.

Six tall ships in a row, a taste of what we were witnessing.

Pride of Baltimore II fires her cannon. Note the 1812 flag.

INS Sudarshini of the Indian Navy.

NS Mircea of Romania, another Blohm & Voss sister ship to USCGC Eagle.

BE Guayas of Ecuador.

V/E Capitan Miranda, Uruguay.

NRP Sagres of Portugal, the final sister ship to USCGC Eagle. These four of the "five sisters" had a race to Boston from New York; the Gorch Fock won the Five Sisters Cup.

This "escort vessel" was towing a pair of tub toys, which cracked us up.

ARA Libertad of the Argentinian Navy.

I took a lot of Libertad photos for my Argentinian aunt.

DAR Mlodziezy, Poland.

B/E Esmeralda of the Chilean Navy.

B/E Juan Sebastian de Elcano, Spain.

m/y Vector, US.

As the sun set the ships began to light up.

This was our evening view throughout the event. Not too shabby.

Looking downriver to the more distant cluster of ships.

Juneteenth fireworks.

B/E Guayas as seen from ARC Gloria.

Displays aboard ARC Gloria.

This ladder aboard ARC Gloria is about the same pitch as our ladder on Vector.

Everything, including these representative berths (hammocks), was color-coded to the flag, including all the sailors on the yardarms when she arrived.

Vector in the busy anchorage as seen from Gloria.

Every ship was selling merch.

This "welcome mat" reminded me of our original shower sole.

A view into the rig, BAP Union.

This decorative brightwork covers a capstan.

Even the bitts are ornately decorated.

Modern chart/pilothouse.

Ship's bell, marked 2016.

Zip-ties are a modern universality. In the old days this would have been laced.

The tour passed through a room with a number of Peruvian cultural items.

Passing this window into the galley. That's a lot of eggs for a hungry crew.

I liked that their merch included these hand-made monkey fists, an ancient pastime of sailors at sea.

Harborfest craft beer tent. That's a lot of kegs.

They were labeled on the front side so you could step up to the right tap.

BAP Union's bowsprit came out past the flag poles, dwarfing USCGC Eagle to her port.

People walked underneath without rally noticing, that's how high they were.

At 175', BAP Union could just clear the Bay Bridge to visit Baltimore, but could not continue on to Delaware Bay via the C&D Canal, which easily accommodates large container and RoRo ships.

The main stage, where Sister Sledge and Patti LaBelle performed, among others. We heard every word in the anchorage.

The Front Street Piers venue was a long way from the main venue and they ran shuttle buses. This steel drum band playing at Front Steet had but this lone attendee. I listened for a few minutes; they were pretty good.

I snapped this photo of Esmeralda at Front Street before boarding Gorch Fock, moored astern of her. The blue hull tied alongside is bunkering.

The main helm of Gorch Fock. It takes six sailors to move this mechanically linked helm when the vessel has any way on.

The modern nav station.

Wing station. This Gorch Fock is a much more modern replacement for an older Gorch Fock, built to the same plans, so she has more modern equipment and conveniences than her sister ships, including USCGC Eagle (ex- Horst Wessel).

Esmeralda.

The old ways.

I am on Chilean soil here, and the Chileans saw fit to have their security detail armed, which may just be their usual routine. The only other armed detail I saw was was for Eagle.

Aboard the NOAA survey vessel Ferdinand Hassler. Their Kahlenberg control is a bit more complex than ours.

We also have Jastram steering, again just a little less complex than this.

We also both use white boards to keep track of fuel tank levels.

The fire bottle releases are cable-operated. The cables, inside tubes, go over these sheaves to change diirections.

The actual manual relelases.

Stilt walkers on High Street, part of the companion festival across the river in Portsmouth.

The anchorage got crowded for the fireworks. These rafted boats had to move when the tide reversed and we started looming over them.

Harborfest fireworks.

The fireworks were launched from barges both upriver and downriver from us and we kept swiveling our heads to try to see it all.

The anchorage, as illuminated by fireworks in two directions.

Cadets staging for the parade near Freemason basin.

The parade converged on Nauticus from two different directions, led here by the US Navy Band.

Some participating groups had a cultural element.

After passing the review stand each group marched up the gangway and on to the USS Wisconsin to man the rails.

I'm not as tough as these cadets and I had to take shelter from the sun. I caught part of the parade from under Nauticus.

Lots of midshipmen and sailors now lining the decks of Wisconsin, and they are still coming.

US Navy Band giving a Sousa performance.

Security was no joke. Snipers on a nearby rooftop.

The Eagle had the longest lines. I lined up early and got a seat in the shade on a bollard. By the time they actually opened for tours, the line wrapped around the corner and past BAP Union. I left the parade early to get a spot.