New Hampshire and Maine Homes and Condos

 

This past weekend here in Portsmouth New Hampshire, we were fortunate to see history in the making.  Never before, in at least 100 years, has there ever been more than one Tall Ship in our port at any one time.  


This past weekend, for THREE whole days, we had the pure pleasure of FOUR of these magnificent beauties in the Port City, tied up at our State Pier.

 

 

The four Tall Ships that graced us with their presence were:  The Pride of Baltimore II, The Prince William, The Spirit of Bermuda, and The Urania.  And they were a complete joy to see come into Portsmouth Harbor Friday morning around 9:30am, and all weekend long tied up right in downtown Portsmouth.  

 

Friday morning, July 6th, the ships gathered in the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of New Castle and Portsmouth Harbor.  It was foggy and just plain lousy weather at that point.  Visibility was so poor that you could barely make out the masts of the largest ships, and that wasn't much more than you could see even with binoculars.  
 

 

 

Then, all of a sudden, about 9:30am, when the Parade of Ships was set to start, the fog lifted and the sun began to peek out.  Lo and behold, we could begin to see those glorious ships and boats coming into the Harbor.  

If you have the slightest bit of love and/or admiration for boats, you would have been in your glory to see this great Parade of Ships coming up our river, the Piscataqua River. 

 

The Parade was led by 2 fire boats, our very own brand new Portsmouth Fire Boat and a Navy Fire Boat, and then the Tall Ships came, one by one, accompanied by about 100 small and large pleasure boats.  I would have given anything to have been on a boat on the river that morning......

Along the shores of the Piscataqua River that morning, hundreds and hundreds of people greeted these ships.  In the interviews I read of the crew's reactions, they were stunned by the warm New Hampshire and Maine welcome they received.  From what I read, they are accustomed to very few people greeting them, and many people coming out for their send-off. 

The hundreds of us that greeted them were pleased to welcome them to our fair city, and we never hesitate to show our appreciation in any way we can!

 

This was a HUGE event for this area.  Our Piscataqua Maritime Commission, which is the group that arranges these types of visits, brought us an historical happening by getting FOUR Tall Ships to visit us here in Portsmouth.  Since the early 1980's, they've been bringing a Tall Ship a year into our port.  Last year, we had the great pleasure of the US Coast Guard Cutter Eagle come in and The Bluenose II visited us as well.

A little about OUR Tall Ships that were here:
 
~  The Spirit of Bermuda is a 112-foot three-masted Bermuda sloop that hails from Hamilton Bermuda. 
~  The Urania is an 88-foot long Bermuda Ketch, and she is the flagship of the Royal Netherlands Naval College. 
~  The Prince William hails from Portsmouth England and is a 200-foot long two-masted square-rigged brig. 
~  The Pride of Baltimore IIis a reproduction of an 1812 privateers ship from the Chesapeake Bay, which serves as the Ambassador of Maryland, telling the world the story of the "Star Spangled Banner".  The Pride of Baltimore II is a 157-foot long Baltimore clipper, a replica of the gaff-rigged topsail schooners used during the War of 1812. 

 

The Tall Ships were available for tours Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and some very lucky ticket-holders were able to enjoy a 3 hour cruise on the ships.  Those tickets sold out within hours of them being released, and the lines for tickets to tour these ships were as long as 100 deep and longer at times.  The paper this morning said the estimates of the visitors who toured these ships were about 5,000 people. 

 

 

This morning, these ships headed back out to Portsmouth Harbor to meet up with the other Tall Ships taking part in the final leg of the 2007 Tall Ships Challenge Atlantic Coast Race Series.  They'll race from here, Portsmouth New Hampshire to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

 

 

Farewell to our beautiful Tall Ship friends, may you have the wind always at your back......

And may we see you again here in our fair Port City of Portsmouth New Hampshire!!

 

 

To see more great pictures of Portsmouth and the area towns, feel free to take my  'Community Tour'.  There are several tours within this link, and there are a number of pictures within the various tours, so allow time for the pictures to load.