Parting the Water: Tall Ships July 15-16

Every four years major or historic maritime Great Lakes cities host a tour of tall ships. Many of the ships are normally operating in salt water, but a tour of the great lakes seems brings together ships with home ports like Milwaukee, Travis City with ones from New York Connecticut, as well as Europe. On July 15th eleven ships came into Bay City Michigan so we went up to see them. My Brother Dave lives in Bay City and invited us to stay at his place. There was a grand arrival that was schedule to occur on Thursday early afternoon so we went up on Wednesday night so that we could scope out a great location to see and photograph the boats as they came in off of Lake Huron into the Saginaw River which leads into the downtown water front docks. Karen, Dave and I got an early start Thursday and visited several areas where Dave thought we would be able to see the ships as they sailed out on the lake. My vision was to be standing on a nice sand dune with the sun glistening off of the lake with huge billowing sails on the horizon. Well, I soon found out that beaches on Lake Huron (at least on the west side of Huron) are low and flat and the lake level is down several feet in elevation so the water's edge is about 100 yards or more from what it used to be. The beach and that 100 yards of space is filled with cattails and other wetland types of vegetation that pretty well screens the view of the lake. Oh, and it wasn't sunny. So as we stood peering out over the tall grasses to the horizon this is what we saw.

Now if you look closely at the center of this photo and also look at the blowup below you might be able to make out a ghostly looking something that I am convinced is a tall ship, probably full of pirates. You will probably also notice that there are no sails set.

We stopped for breakfast and then headed to another site actually near the entrance of the river. Although there were some limitation to visibility and the background was a huge power plant we thought it would work. So we headed back to Dave's place to pick up mom and sister Judy and get back and set up for the grand arrival. As it turns our there were three ships that were actually already at the docks the night before so they had to go out to the lake in order to be in the parade coming back in. As we were heading back to the river we had to stop for the draw bridge to let the three ships pass. The pictures below are from the car while we waited in traffic.

Here is the first of the ships heading out to the lake.

Each of the three followed the channel markers and then made a hard to starboard turn and disappeared behind the trees on the far shoreline.

So we waited, and waited and waited

and took pictures of all kinds of subjects;

Karen,

a nice old trawler, and

ducks.... It rained really hard for about 20-30 minutes which added to the already high humidity. But finally the first incoming ship appeared,

And then a second one, boy things are getting exciting now.

A third ship already.

At about this point I noticed that the lens filter was all steamed up. I took it off, dropped on the rocks, recovered it wiped it off and started shooting with more clarity.

The best shots were just at the point where they were entering the channel.

After they passed by the power plant there was another opportunity to get a good shot.

A couple of the ships had some token sails up but for the most part they were heading right into the wind and the sails just fluttered.

The ship on the right had some crew in the yard arms furling sails. That was pretty cool.

If I was on board that's where I would want to be.

As you can see there was quite a variety of ships size, type, color wise.

Cannon Fire was offered regularly.

After a while the last of the ships passed and we headed back into town to see if any were tied up yet and to get an idea about where we wanted to try to park and what there was to see.

As we were heading across the river the draw bridge opened to let this huge cargo boat through.

It's a little hard to see but the front of the boat is just about to go under the bridge and the back of the boat is near the tallest to the towers on the right.

Again it is a little hard to see but the crane on the top of the piolot house of the cargo ship is as tall as the masts of the tall ships. We headed back to Dave's place, grabbed some lunch and discussed what's next. Dave needed to head out to play golf. Mom and Judy needed to rest. Karen and I went down town to check out the boats.

The newly constructed river front was actually a very nice place, wide walks and easy access to the ships.

On Thursday no one was allowed on the boats, but you could easily walk right up to the side of them and even talk to the crew members.

It was actually pretty cool to see several of the big boats tied up end to end and see all the rigging that is on them. At some level you could almost imagine what it would have looked like in the early 19th Century at every habor as the ships would have been parked to load and unload passengers and cargo.

There were boats parked on both sides of the river. There were hardly any crowds, so we could easily walk around the entire fleet.

Some of the boats were relatively small and simple and others large and complex

Some had wood hulls and others steel.

Almost all of the ships had crew up in the rigging doing maintenance. Maintenance was clearly needed on some boats. The economy was hitting their budgets too. A couple of the boats looked pretty rough, but most were in pretty good shape.

After looking at the boats on the east side of the river we crossed over the bridge to the other side. It was started to cloud up a bit and actually rained a little.

HMS Bounty

Amundsen, a WWII vintage German cargo ship that was retrofitted with sails in the 70's I think.

More maintenance.

Europa, a Dutch ship

After walking by all the ships we stopped to a little entertainment by a local group doing the Pirates of Penzance

We stayed for two scenes and decided that our presence should be elsewhere.

The next morning (Friday) we headed back down town and this time with tickets and the whole day before us we got onto almost all of the boats. Some were taking joy rides up and down the river and we did not get on those.

For the most part I was impressed with all of the stuff necessary to actually sail one of these things. There was lots of rigging, both standing (the lines that support the mast and spars) and running rigging (the lines used to raise, lower, tighten, loosen, direct the sails) dozens of pulleys, winches, tie off point, and miles of line (rope).

Every piece of line needed tending, repair or replacement over time. The very nature of sail boats is that they are exposed to the elements and there is a lot of wear and tear on equpment.

Rope everywhere

Big anchors and everything needed to be tied down so they don't go banging around on the deck.

Interesting rope work partly decorative and mostly practical. This one might save a stubbed toe.

Every ship had a bell at about mid ship. Some were pretty common, some quite decorative.

These lines have a monkey fists tied at the end that are useful for throwing a line up to a crew member up on the rigging

Rings around the mast connecting the sail to the mast

Galley

The helm

Every ship had a working compass near the helm

Standing rigging is often steel cable (rope) in most cases it is encased in some fiber material (canvas) and painted with tar.

Winches came in an interesting variety. Most were labor intensive, The Anchor is raised by this method.

Some Winches were really quite large.

This Character looked like he was putting on quite a show. At first I thought he was on the gang plank of the next ship down the line.

Nope just really tall.

By noon we had gotten on all the ships on the east side of the river except the Bounty, which was by far the most popular one.

Karen Stood in line here, an hour away form the gang plank, and I went in search of food.

I got back in line while still 45 minutes out.

We ate our lunch and I went out for some beverages.

I Got back in plent of time

This is a captan which is normally in center of ship. It is a heavy duty winch that is used to lift just about anything that needed to be brought on to the ship.

The Handles around the mast are what is used by the crew to turn the capstan. In the movies there is usally some mean looking guy with a whip offering motivational suggestions and politely asking the crew to put their backs into it you "scurvy dogs"